Replies: 7
Views: 222
Last Post By: James
ON: Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:06 pm
Topic By: MarkSnell ON: Thu Apr 04, 2013 11:48 am
I have replied direct to Thushari, but for the information of those following this thread:
There is good news! I have been provided with the information, and have been able to sort out the payment. Everything now seems to be OK!
However, the situation was even more farcical than I imagined when I started this topic.
The notice turned out to be about payment for a second ADSL service we had ordered for our company.
We had not been notified that the service had been connected nor had we been provided with configuration or login details. The threat of "temporary suspension" was meaningless, because we did not have access to the service anyway. (The threat did not apply to our existing service as I had feared.)
So, even if we had been told which account the notice applied to, we would not have been able to view the invoice and take the recommended remedial action, because we were unable to set up the modem to be redirected to the payment portal and we weren't able to login to the account on Members' Facilities. (These details were were provided for the first time with the details of the account and the amount owing yesterday.)
When we wanted the second ADSL service, we were unable to order it through Members' Facilities, so we had to apply as though we were a new customer.
The application form gave no opportunity to nominate an "authorised representative" nor to associate this second ADSL service with the existing account, for which I was the authorised representative. The authorised representative can only be entered once you have access to Members'Facilities!
Without access to the Members' Facilities, there is no way of checking what the nominated email address is, either.
In this case, the nominated address turned out to be itmanager@(company domain name), which gets forwarded to my own address - mark.snell@(company domain name). Any replies from my address are from my personal company address by default.
It is not obvious in the email client which address the email was sent to and, at the time, I just didn't think about it. Why would I?
For me, this incident raises some broader questions which Exetel should address.
NOTICES
I am sure I am not the only person who is the authorised representative for more than one Exetel account or service, either in a personal or business capacity, nor the only one to have more than one service at the same address. When writing to customers, doesn't it make sense to mention which account/service you are referring to?
Without details, the notice is worse than meaningless and can be construed as threatening to withdraw one service on the basis of non-payment for another - very shaky legal ground, I would have thought, particularly when the threat implies putting a company's whole internet access in jeopardy.
Demands for money or notices of non-payment should be correctly addressed and provide details and remedies that can be actioned, giving a period of grace between the issue of the notice and the actual suspension of service.
I have been told that a period grace of 10 to 30 minutes is given. How adequate is this? Our email is only polled from the server every 15 minutes, already potentially beyond the grace period. Many corporate servers will not update mail more frequently than that.
Then the addressee has to be available to respond to it immediately.
Because the account detail was not provided and we had not been given configuration/login details, we had to contact Exetel Billing, who can only be contacted by email (not by phone).
We received the notice at noon. It could have been sent to us anything up to 15 minutes before this. It took us 30 minutes to investigate the payment history of our existing account and check with the bank for dishonoured payments before responding at 12:30pm. The grace period had already expired.
I challenge anyone to respond more quickly and meaningfully to such a notice than we did in the normal course of business.
Even if the grace period had not expired, It then took about another hour before a staff member answered with an acknowledgement of my emailed response, a further hour to be asked to resend the request, and more than 22 hours before the substance of the issue was addressed - all well beyond the 10 to 30 minute grace period.
APPLICATION FOR SERVICE
The process of applying for an additional ADSL service should be available through Members' Facilities, so that new and existing services can be associated, ensuring that contact and authorisation details are consistent, and so that the services can be billed together.
A customer should be able to expect that authorities applying to one service will apply to all his services.
At the very least, an option to nominate an authorised representative and contact details should be available on the application form.
VERIFYING IDENTITY
Verifying identity can be important, but surely this depends entirely on the context.
For example, does it really matter who pays a bill as long as the bill is paid? Do you really have to know whether the person has access to the account or not. Most companies (even Telstra) will allow anyone to pay an outstanding bill without requiring identity verification. This can be done online without any login. All that is needed is the account number, the amount and your payment details, which most companies supply in their letter of demand.
Further, as I stated previously, if a company (eg Exetel) sends a notice to a nominated email address, surely it is the responsibility and the prerogative for that email address owner to decide how to deal with it and to delegate the matter to someone else if he wishes. The possession of this notice is surely prima facie evidence of the person's right to deal with the matter.
When a greater degree of verification is required, there would seem a whole range of ways that this could be established - before challenging the customer for ID and account details.
For example, if the nominated email address is ITmanager@(domain name) and the title of the person responding is IT Manager, shouldn't that serve as an explanation for the response, even if the email was from the IT manager's personal email address?
Shouldn't the fact that the response was in the name of a company, that the domain names of both the nominated email and the respondent were the same, as well as the contact details, all be regarded as evidence of the credentials of the respondent?
Cross-checking of accounts held by the same customer would have shown that I am the authorised representative for the existing account, and hence the business, in dealing with Exetel. Is that too much trouble?
In this instance, ultimately, Exetel staff accepted my bona fides - "as clearly you work at the same business". This common sense approach should be adopted as standard practice - before challenging a customer for ID.
NEW ACCOUNTS
The fact that this notice was a new account for which configuration details had not been issued also highlights the fact that Exetel does not have an appropriate process for dealing with dishonoured payments on applications for new accounts and services.
This does not detract from the need to address the broader issues, but it is important that a meaningful unambiguous notice is sent to applicants for new services, particularly where they are existing customers.
The notice should provide an easy remedy that does not waste the time either of the customer or of Exetel staff.
The threatened consequences of not taking remedial action should relate to the service in question. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to state that "the service will not be connected", rather than to make a threat which implies another existing service will be "temporarily suspended"?
I hope Exetel will treat this as useful information with constructive suggestions and will take the comments on board, rather than simply defending existing practices.
Let's make Exetel even better!
All the best
Mark