And here’s when pre-authorized payments are a bad idea…
April 14th, 2010*edit* April 15 – Heh, waddya know. Checked my Visa statement today, saw the credit was posted yesterday.
I’m a huge fan of pre-authorized payments. I bill almost everything automatically to my credit card. I like not having to remember to pay my bills and only pay one bill at the end of the month. I usually don’t have any issues, but Bell Mobility has made me re-think my pre-authorized payment route on some of my services.
See, my cell contract was up with Bell in January. I put my cancellation notice in with them 30 days in advance and asked them the exact day I could port my number out without penalty. I documented the rep’s response, got her name and number, and on that fateful day in January – said ‘bye-bye’ to Bell Mobility. I was fully aware that I would be getting one final bill from Bell, which I did. However, one month after that – I was billed $200 for an ‘early-cancellation fee’.
Livid, to say the least, I called Bell back and was like “OK – what gives, I have confirmation from Christina emp# 6021736 that there is NO cancellation fee”. After 25 minutes of holding, the rep comes back and says ‘You’re right, that was an error, we’ll issue a you a cheque for the balance because your account has already been closed and we have already debited your credit card’. No $&*@, you debited my Visa $200+tax, and I want my money back.
It’s now been over 90 days, I’ve since placed two calls to Bell Mobility (each a month apart) saying ‘Where’s my money? I’ve been out this money now for 3 months… I’d kind of like it back, it’s not yours, why am I waiting so long for this?” Each time ‘oh sir, it’s coming it’ll be there in a couple weeks’.
I know it’s only $200, but it’s the principle. They took it, it was their fault, now I have to play the waiting game simply because I was a good customer who every month paid their bill without fail thanks to a pre-authorized credit card bill. Of course there’s no urgency now, I’m not a customer, they can’t simply credit my account – and for whatever reason, can’t refund it directly to my card. It’s a joke.
If I wasn’t on pre-authorized billing, I would have called them to say ‘I’m not paying this bill, it’s wrong’ and they would have said ‘You’re right, ignore it – it’s been cancelled’. Why is this such a hassle?
To anyone thinking about cancelling any service you have, I HIGHLY recommend that before you cancel, you take pre-authorized billing off your account so that when the final bill comes – you can pay it however you like, you’re not at the mercy of the company who’s billing to have their systems straight.
Screw you Bell… Last time I recommend your services to anyone.
