Pricewatch reader queries: UPC’s ‘gift from the gods’ turns sour

Sam Glendenning had ongoing problems with his UPC television service, which the company's technicians tried and failed to rectify on a number of occasions.

“So when, in January, I received a letter from UPC telling me that ‘Your service will go up by €2.50 a month from February 1st, 2015, and will be reflected in your next bill” and also ‘If you wish you can downgrade or cancel your service within 30 days of receipt of this notice without any penalty or cancellation fee’ I seized on this apparent gift from the gods.”

He wrote to UPC on January 26th, cancelling the service. “I also cancelled the direct debit by which UPC was paid. I have since been billed for two months’ service. I refused to pay and the bill has been passed, for collection, to a debt collection service and most recently to a solicitor. I would like to know just what the words ‘without any penalty or cancellation fee’ mean: my interpretation of a clean sheet, or UPC’s interpretation of two months’ service charges?

We contacted the company, which explained that, after the contract was cancelled, “we set the cancellation to allow 30 days’ notice in line with our standard terms and conditions of contract. A bill was issued in the normal course of billing and it crossed over with the customer’s cancellation instruction in the post. A further bill was also issued in the notice period in the run-up to the conclusion of the account. Given this customer’s long-standing relationship with us, we are happy to remove these charges.”

Want some free pension advice?

This is more public service announcement than reader query. Pensions can be hideously complicated unless you know what you are doing. Standard Life is offering a free half-day pension session for up to 40 women at its Dublin headquarters at St Stephen's Green, Dublin, on June 6th.

The event is being led by Fiona Reddan of The Irish Times and Emma Kennedy of the Sunday Business Post. The pair will offer their top 10 pension tips and warn of pension traps and pitfalls. After that, there will be a Q&A session and a briefing on private-sector pensions from Standard Life’s pensions head, Jim Connolly.

Recurring Vodafone billing problem eventually sorted

John Haran from Letterkenny has been having an “ongoing problem” with Vodafone since last September. “I changed packages and my new package was €40 per month, but I pay a €4.99 add-on for 100 international minutes per month,” he says.

“Straight away I noticed problems because after only, say, 12 minutes of an international call I was being charged for every subsequent call. Every month I would call them and talk to someone, who would look into it and agree that I was correct and would refund my account and promise the error would be fixed. But every month the same problem has occurred, and I have to go through the same process.” He worries that this is happening to other customers who may not check their bills as closely.

We contacted Vodafone, which then contacted our reader. We were told “the issue has now been resolved to his satisfaction”. A spokeswoman said the error had also been identified “for a small number of [other] customers”, who have been contacted, “and we are in the process of reimbursing them for this error. This will be complete by May 31st. There will be a final review at the end of this month to ensure all customers have been identified and refunded.”

Kudos to efficient Aer Lingus

Maureen Sneyd sent us a short mail in praise of Aer Lingus. Her story began three weeks ago when she “was booking a flight and thought the first booking had not gone through. So foolishly I rebooked the seat. Then two notification emails arrived and I had booked two seats in error.”

She telephoned Aer Lingus immediately and explained what had happened “to a most polite customer service person, who sent the extra seat booking for refund. The kudos, though, to Aer Lingus includes the refund arriving within 10 days and only a small admin charge. It encouraged me to book another journey with them.”