Slingshot
December 7th, 2010 at 7:00 am by David FarrarDavid Fisher in the HoS wrote:
It could be dubbed the Slingshot law.
Consumer organisations have singled out the company while asking the Government to force phone and internet companies to a scheme designed to protect customer rights.
And the Government has signalled it is prepared to listen to rein in phone and internet customers that refuse to be accountable.
The Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand and Consumer New Zealand wrote to Telecoms Minister Steven Joyce on Friday.
“TUANZ is fed up,” said the organisation’s business manager Katherine Hall. “We’re fielding calls from disgruntled – mostly Slingshot – customers on a regular basis.”
Hall said there was nowhere to direct customers of companies which did not belong to the Telecommunications Dispute Resolution Scheme.
The scheme is intended to be an option of last resort for frustrated customers who want independent arbitration. Membership is voluntary but includes Telecom, Vodafone and a host of other providers.
“Those who are signatories have smartened up their act and those who haven’t have a licence to frustrate and annoy.” …
A similar scheme in Australia was compulsory for phone and internet companies. Joyce said he had told the industry he was comfortable with membership being voluntary “provided that all carriers are members”.
“I advised them at the time that if they are not able to do this I will be considering a range other options.”
I’m hesitant about making the TRDS compulsory. What is preferable is that telco and internet providers who are not members of it, in the media etc when they fail to provide good service.
I suspect David’s articles on Slingshot may do more towards improving their customer service, than joining the TDRS would have.
So long as it is easy to leave a badly performing provider when they give crap service, then generally they will suffer the consequences of making customers wait on hold for an hour.
In another article, it is reported:
Many of the people who did email said they would leave Slingshot if it were not for the $149 “early termination fee” to get out of their contracts. Callander told me customers would not be held to that fee if they were leaving as a result of a problem that was Slingshot’s fault.
In the end, I told Callander that I was treated so poorly I didn’t want to remain a customer. Callander now accepts my time on hold was not an isolated incident.
Also, customers should be free to shop around. Many phone and internet companies charge early termination fees. The fee is usually included on contracts that give good deals (including bandwidth and hardware) over 12 or 24 months.
If one has an early termination fee, and the reason you are leaving is crap service (not just cheaper price elsewhere), then I’d tell the company you won’t pay it as they have not provided an adequate service. If they take you to the disputes tribunal, you’d probably win I reckon.
Tags: David Fisher, Slingshot
December 7th, 2010 at 7:26 am
No doubt, Slingshot will take the ‘go quiet’ strategy
Vote:December 7th, 2010 at 7:33 am
Slingshot called me last week with a $90 all you can eat broadband plan. I probably shouldn’t switch reading this.
Vote:December 7th, 2010 at 7:36 am
There’s no way they do that. They’ll just call in debt collectors, and try to affect your credit rating.
[DPF: If you dispute the debt, they can not collect it. Yes credit rating can be affected, but if other wise you are good, you can explain why you did not pay]
Vote:December 7th, 2010 at 8:02 am
In the early days Slingshot was quite a good ISP, before Annette Presley (and much of the technical talent, I heard) left. They’ve been crap a long time now though, they seem to occupy the cheaper end of the market.
Vote:Conversely, Telecom have improved their game quite a lot since their early days.
December 7th, 2010 at 8:27 am
Debt collectors do (or should) lay off once advised that there is a genuine dispute. The customer (rather ex-customer) should write to the company (snailmail is the safest) explaining why he/she is not paying the early cancellation fee with reasons eg extremely poor service and a copy of that letter should be sent to any debt collector who bangs on the door. It needs to be a genuine issue – not some lame duck excuse. As far as I know, having a genuine disputed dept recorded with a credit agency is defamation pure and simple. Agreed that taking defamation proceedings is expensive … but read on.
The creditor’s proper approach is to make genuine attempts to resolve the dispute with the customer and if that fails to take the customer to court or disputes tribunal as the case may be. If it is taken to court but is within disputes tribunal territory the customer can apply to have the case transferred to the tribunal.
If the creditor does not do this but continues to bang away at the customer directly or via debt collectors, then the customer can take the creditor to the disputes tribunal to declare that the debt is not owing- the customer can possibly try for a bit of damages as well (perhaps try for $100 or so) in the hope of trying to cover the $30 (higher when larger amounts are at stake) filing fee. A creditor or its debt collector or credit listing agency in the face of an adverse decision would generally not dare to have the alleged debt ‘listed,’ not only because of the fear of defamation proceedings, but because of possible resopnses from regulatory agencies or Consumers Institute, Fair Go etc.
There is an advantage in the customer commencing disputes tribunal proceedings – it is held at the nearest courthouse to the customer – the other party either needs to travel ot ‘teleconference’ at his nearest courthouse.
There is another problem that may occur. The creditor ‘rents’ its ‘bad debt’ list to collectors to try and collect. So when you have dispatched one lot of debt collectors, the creditor then ‘rents’ the remainder to some other outfit and they bang on your door again.
Vote:December 7th, 2010 at 9:10 am
adze:
I have been with Slingshot from the days of i4free and had absolutely no problems mind you I have always paid my account.
Vote:December 7th, 2010 at 9:33 am
Peterwn, you’re right. It’s been a long time since I was in the collections game, but when I worked for Baycorp (now Veda), they would pull a listing from a credit report as soon as they got a letter (with some evidentiary back up, of course) indicating a genuine dispute. They’d advise the creditor/listing company to take a claim in the Disputes Tribunal (for all the good *that* would do) and come back when they had a decision from the DT. It was a little harder with smaller collection companies, but because Baycorp owned the listings, they pretty much made the rules.
Vote:December 7th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
@Doug
Vote:Glad to hear you’ve had good experiences. I was a long term Slingshot customer however I quit because of their customer service (their technical help basically consists of ‘no-one else is having a problem’ and ‘it’s Telecom’s problem not ours’, with an Indian accent).
My sister has had an unusable Slingshot a/c for over a year – once again a technical problem that Slingshot will not address ‘because it’s Telecom’s problem not ours’.
December 7th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Tech support
Vote:December 7th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
I found Slingshot very hard to deal with.
The first time I phoned them I was on hold for over 30 minutes. Thirty minutes ended up being about average.
Their automatic tech support seemed to think that I was asking questions relating calling the Republic of Korea.
Their responses never answered the questions I has which was normally why is my broadband is very slow? Answer normally proceeded by “when calling the Republic of Korea you need … “(and I am not kidding)
My option was to slow my rate down to dial-up speed (which if ever achieved would had sped things up) if I exceeded my cap. Once I got an email to say their systems had been updated and I had to change the system otherwise if I reached my cap they would automatically buy extra bandwidth. I followed the instructions to the letter what happen was a note that I bought extra band width. I did get it reversed.
When I left them I followed the instruction that said not to disconnect but contact my new ISP and they would switch me over. I switched to Telecom then got a bill from Slingshot. I phoned them telling them I wasn’t a customer. Telecom sent them a copy of the notification they had already sent slingshot.
I cancelled the direct debit and for 2 months kept getting accounts sent to me with threats of debt collectors. Finally they agreed that I owed them nothing. However I got one last bill with the amount owed cancelled by a late fee added.
Slingshot for me were useless. My Broadband speed (with Telecom) is 20 times as fast as Slingshot. I can easier see why people complain
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 12:10 pm
I have also found them hard to deal with. And rude, and sneaky.
I was so disgusted with the “service” I received that I made this site: A Slingshot Customer’s Experience – http://slingshot.org.nz/.
The sad thing is that this is the third time my family has had a Slingshot account – before now we loved them.
Slow broadband and awful service.
Vote: