Billing system falling apart - discuss

[#1]

Visitors to the Usergroup forums may find the title of this topic familiar. Over a year ago I made this post

Quote from: jelv

I've had problems with billing and there are any number of topics on the Community forums where people are having billing problems. Just what is going on? Problems seen: Incorrect calculation of prices after VAT reduction Credits being applied to account not actually reducing the next bill Direct debit setup problems Discounts not correctly given Double billing in one month

So what has improved in the last year? If anything we are seeing more problems than ever.
In January I started a poll. That had some pretty frightening answers. More than a third of the people voting had had some sort of billing problem in the past year. Just under a third had been overcharged and had to claim a refund (that could have been much reduced if PN had been swifter to correct and get money back in to people's accounts).

[#2]

Hi jelv,

Quote from: jelv

Incorrect calculation of prices after VAT reduction.

These problems were fixed to my knowledge and are now somewhat of a non-issue given the fact that VAT has returned to it's former rate.

Quote

Credits being applied to account not actually reducing the next bill

I'm not aware of any instances where this is happening at the moment, so human error aside I wouldn't expect to see any. Are you aware of any recent examples?

Quote

Direct debit setup problems

Again, I don't know of any problems with Direct Debit creation aside from where a customer provides us with the wrong account details.

Quote

Discounts not correctly given

You'd probably have to elaborate on this a little. The discount tool itself works fine although I know there have been some issues with introductory discounts for affiliate offers and the like.

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Double billing in one month

That's a more recent problem that I believe may still under investigation by our developers.
I'd suggest having a glance over the post here from Fletch if you haven't done already.

[#3]

Bob,
You've missed the point. A year ago I was saying that the billing system and associated processes were in a bad way with a lot of complaints on the forums, today the number of complaints about billing being posted on the forums is if anything even higher. I was not quoting the post from a year ago to say all the same problems were present; I'm saying that a year on the overall state of the billing system and processes is poor.
Don't forget that a measure of a company is how well it responds to problems and rectifies them. Another measure if if having had a problem they make sure it doesn't happen again (think of the postings we've seen from Thomas (Be3G) about his recurring billing problems). At the moment I'd suggest that a score of 1 or 2 out of 10 on these aspects would be being very generous.

[#4]

And Fletch seem to be admitting that we have had numerous problems since early 09

[#5]

see this posting.....
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,84644.0.html
Which underlines what Jelv and Pierre have already said......

[#6]

Didn't Bob link to that thread earlier on

[#7]

Well I may be  the only one NOT having billing issues  Been on Unlimited for a year now and no problems (waits for it all to go horribly wrong now  :-\)

[#8]

Quote from: pjmarsh

Didn't Bob link to that thread earlier on

yes, but his reference point was what Fletch had to say...... ... ... ... ...

[#9]

Just been looking at my last years bills,  My first problem was when the changed the home phone in Feb 09, they got the added extras wrong and were charging me the princely sum of £0.97 to much, took three refund payments from JH before an Agent woke up in the early hours and thought I may be on the wrong account,  that took another refund of £14.96 in Aug, then in November I was doubled billed £10.95, another refund
the first £14.96 taken on 28 Aug, money back 9 Sept.  The Second £10.95 taken 30 Nov, back on 8 Dec.  But only as I do check all PN statements
Oh and I forgot, they also forgot a reduced payment plan in Jan 09 total £11.66 refunded.
Most could have been stopped if we had the correct time to complain before payment taken