[adsl] P2P on unleashed Orcon Avanced 40 Plans

[Mark Thompson]

Raimund Eimann wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> here's a little history of what happened lately:
> 
> I called Orcon on Firday again, complaining that they've obviously changed 
> my "Advanced 40" plan into a ZeroShock plan without my consent.
> 
> The issue was escalated at low priority to one of their techies.
> 
> Today everything is still the same, so I called again in the morning, asking 
> about the status of my ticket. The reply I got was that a technician looked 
> at the problem and came to the conclusion that there is no problem!
> 
> Slowly getting angry, I told the support person I had on the phone that I'm 
> getting 400 kbytes/s out of a plan that is supposed to be limited to 256 
> kbits/s and that this should be sufficient indication that most certainly 
> something is wrong.
> 
> Seems he didn't believe me. So he asked me to run a speedtest for him at 
> los.co.nz. I got 3.12 Mbits/s which is fairly near to the 400 kbytes/s I 
> claimed before.
> 
> He escalated it again. And yes: again at low prio.
> 
> Twenty minutes I called them again.
> 
> No news at this stage. At least I got the prio increased after telling them I 
> might close the account altogether, because I can have as many http,ftp, and 
> rsync downloads at university anyway (for free!).
> 
> When I log into the Orcon website and check my plan's details, it clearly 
> reads "Advanced 40". Apparently they've changed to content of their product, 
> keeping the label the same, and it goes without saying that all this happened 
> without my consent.
> 
> My feeling is that they deliberately ignore the case. Maybe I'm not paying 
> enough for the 40GB I tend to use fully each month and they feel I'm a 
> uncomfortable customer (those who pay for 40 GBytes and use only 5 GBytes of 
> them are probably more welcome).
> 
> I'm wondering whether I should take this to Disputes Tribunal?
> 
>>> Changing ISPs will have no effect since the issue is almost always with
>>> Telecom and their network not having enough capacity, I regularly only
>>> get sub 1000kb/s connections and it is due to my telephone exhange being
>>> over subscribed.
> 
> The thing is: I'm not asking for more than 256kbits/s
> 
> Cheers,
> Raimund
I'm seeing the same thing.  However Im not going to complain about the 
increased level of service.  What will be interesting is if they ever 
try and charge me for it, I will dispute it, because well I never 
received notification of a plan change.

If I was in your shoes, I'd recommend ignoring it.  I know you've 
attempted to resolve the issue with no success (and this is sadly where 
Orcon's Customer Service really does suck).  Just record the times and 
dates of the calls.  Also try and get the ticket number of the 
escalation, as well.  I think Orcon claim they 'Record calls for 
training purposes' so ask for copies of those calls.

The fact of the matter is if you read the T&C's Orcon have to advise you 
of a plan change.  Until such time as they do, I say milk it for all its 
worth.

Mark