Quote:
| Originally Posted by Monty The ISP forgot to activate the direct debit-left it for 4 months and then switched us off with no warning-wonderful customer service..............
Welcome back everyone-and yes Tonio, you were the first looking at the posting times.
John |
Let me expand on that a bit more...
There was a mix up in the setting up of the standing order information. After the last AGM a new DSC account was set up it is this account that was to have the standing order to pay the ISP. The first month was paid by Visa card leaving us time to get the paper work sorted with the bank/ISP. A mandate was completed and sent in. However in the second month I had a call from the ISP saying they hadn't yet had the standing order payment - so they were paid by card again for another month and asked to inform us if there was any further problems. At this point the ISP suggested that it may have been just a mis-timing between the bank setting up the standing order and their attempted deduction of the monthly fee.
On Wednesday lunchtime I had a phone message from the ISP salesman saying they hadn't had payment for the last 4 months. I contacted our treasurer on Thursday morning to confirm the mandate had been sent in (which it had) and he would check the bank details to verify if any payments had been taken out of the account once he had finished work.
On Thursday afternoon the ISP turned off the website with no further discussion from us.
On Friday morning the treasurer confirmed that the money had not been deducted from our account and we called the salesman to give details - he was not available and so a message was left.
The salesman tried calling us back on Friday but couldn't get through to my mobile, with him not being available at the weekend and the ISP accounts dept having issued the request that the website be shutdown until payment was received, we had no way of getting the system up and running until this morning (Monday).
Having spoken to the salesman this morning and ensured the account is fully paid up, the site is now active again. We will now sort out with the bank and ISP the standing order info to ensure continued service.
I was surprised that the ISP neglected to complain earlier about not being paid, equally that they were very quick to turn us off - but by that stage we did owe 4 months payments!
In my experience ISPs are always keen to turn websites off in any form of missed payment or dispute since they can be sure that this type of action will cause rapid response from the website owners!
Obviously, we apologise for the temporary disruption in service and will ensure that adequate controls are in place (from our side) to keep everything going smoothly.