Primus / Newcall Telecom Robbery

parody

Hi All

I'm in a sticky situation and wonder if someone can advise.

I've been with Primus (now Newcall Telecom) since Feburary 2012. I've had billing issues since day 1 - initially as they had not applied a special offer code doubling the 20gb allowance to 40gb. They kept charging an excess usage fee. After 6 months this eventually was cleared up. I was using around 20-30gb a month so 40gb was fine.

Then, in September, I received a whopping £230 odd bill, supposedly for over 100gb of excess usage. I have absolutely no idea how I could have downloaded that much (I don't download movies or music, torrents etc. I only have occasional use of iplayer and internet radio). My usage habbits had not changed from one month to the next.

I raised a complaint, and got nowhere (a senior manager was suppose to be calling me back but never did). I asked for details of where the bandwidth had been used but they could not provide it. I raised a complaint with the Telecommunications Ombudsman. After taking the details, they told me they can not progress the complaint as they have an outstanding legal dispute with them! I was told I had to wait for this to be resolved before my complain can be processed.

While waiting, I have now (14th December) received a bill of £270!!

I know I haven't used this volume as I have been regularly checking my router (they supplied) for the usage which does not exceed 40gb / month (and generally doesn't exceed 1gb / day).

I am stuck. Newcell are ignorant thieves, OTELO are on pause and I'm £500 down.

What can I do to get my money back? I have found other posts reporting similar issues but not to this extreme. I'm willing to accept it may be a problem my end but can't find any evidence of it!

...
The only thought I just had is that they charge for uploads. The latest bill coincides with me starting a backup service with CrashPlan and uploading a load of stuff. The previous one may coincide with me using a trial of the same software. I can't find any reference to this in their terms and conditions or code of practice. For that matter I can't see a reference to their £2/gb excess fee in either (only on their main web page as a double ** footnote).

Help me before I pull my remaining hair out! :mad:

parody

I think I have hit the nail on the head with CrachPlan uploads. Looking at my crashplan account both the billing periods for the excessive usage charges coincide with the crashplan trial and then subsequent purchase and re-seed of 200gb of data to backup.

On Primus's website they call the gb allowance a "Data Allowance". I can't find any definition of this anywhere in they literature, but I have never known in 14 years of paying for internet services (since dial up) of having an upload limit imposed? Am I being dumb here to assume that the quoted figure (40gb for me) would be for downloads??

parody

OK, so found this now...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4194877

parody

I checked a few others and it varies from ISP to ISP whether it does or doesn't get included. I believe primus are based on talktalk and they do also include uploads.

What narks me now is this is not made clear anywhere (nowhere does it specify it includes uploads and downloads like talk talks t&c's do). It also peeves me that due to their lack of response from the first complaint, which could have helped resolve this in october, I'm now stuck with a second helping of the bill. If I had knows this in advance I would have been happy to move onto the unlimited plan!

Letter writing weekend coming up...

JenniWR

A usage allowance is just that, total usage. Try travelling Basingstoke to London and back with only 50 miles-worth of fuel in, and see how far you get!

If upload usage did not form a part of the allowance, people could simply buy a cheap connection and then setup a webserver for free. All that data uploaded, all that strain on the ISP's network and no way to manage it.

Unfortunately, my opinion here is that you'll need to convert to Unlimited and pay up for your first bill at least. You've maybe got a little more to argue on the 14th December bill, as it could have been avoided by a timely response to your initial complaint. However, they may well be within their rights to say "you're allowed 40GB, you've used 200GB - Hard luck"

Best of luck with them, and please report back if you win and how so it will help others!