The first issue was about a billing matter. The customer had a family plan for their mobile phone devices with a one-off auto renewal annual fee payment. In early 2023, the plan auto renewed as expected and the customer’s bank account was charged for the annual fee. A few days later, a second charge was applied, and funds were deducted from the customer’s bank account.
The customer contacted their provider on the assumption that that second charge had been misapplied. The provider could only see one charge on the account and advised the customer that they must be mistaken. Little progress was made regarding the confirmation and clarification of the two payment deductions.
The provider later clarified that the additional annual fee charge related to a second account that the customer had set up under a different email address. The customer requested a refund of the additional charge as she had simply forgotten about the second account. The provider declined the request for a refund.
TDR reviewed the situation, and considered it was unlikely that the customer was entitled to a full refund of the annual charge in these circumstances as the customer did not deny that they had set up the account and authorised the auto-renewal, and the contract did not allow for a refund if a customer cancelled mid-way through the plan period.
The second issue was about network performance and customer service. Several months after the auto-renewal issue, the family started experiencing connectivity issues with their mobile devices upon returning from an overseas trip. The provider informed the customer that the affected phone devices had been disconnected due to a collection issue with a former provider. The customer contacted the former provider, who said there were no such issues.
The provider then advised the customer that the issues with connectivity were due to overseas roaming. This caused some frustration for the customer as they had advised the provider that the issues started to occur once they had returned to New Zealand so could not have been attributed to roaming issues. The customer ultimately decided to end the family plan as there was little confidence the current issues would be promptly addressed.
TDR was concerned about the level of service the customer had received from the provider. The provider had failed to promptly identify the second account and had provided incorrect explanations about the related charge. It had also failed to properly investigate the cause of the problem with the connectivity issues.
To resolve the complaint, the provider agreed to compensate the customer for the remaining value of the contract, which the customer accepted in full and final resolution of the complaint.