CHECK YOUR INTERNET BILLS!

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Karrie
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CHECK YOUR INTERNET BILLS!

Post by Karrie »

I contacted Orange today who are our internet provider because I noticed that the last 5 months worth of bills were 20 euros more than they should have been. We are a second home owner and therefore it's not something I usually check as to my belief it was a standard agreed price. The answer I got from Orange who were very helpful and polite was surprising to say the least. Apparently when we were at the house in August we accessed a website, which then took it upon itself to charge us 5 euros every week, via Orange. The Help desk are fully aware of the practise. They have now blocked the site and are going to refund us 65 euros but we have to contact the company to refund us the remainder! I was told that several internet companies practise in this way. I've yet to investigate who the company is or what they offer; my French isn't good enough to wrangle with them so I will have to ask someone to phone on my behalf.

I can only think that there must be some collusion with Orange, because the 5 euros a week is automatically going through onto the Internet bill.
So all of you out there with internet - check your bills!
Karrie
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CHECK YOUR INTERNET BILLS!

Post by Karrie »

Update - the bill has come from a company called MONIKU.com who appear to offer a service to mobile phone users such as ring tones. For the privilege of taking our money we apparently get 5 'free' accesses to their services.
I'm still reeling from the shock that this can happen. We have never heard of the site before. :twisted:
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Kate
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Post by Kate »

Hi Karrie,
If that's OK with you I will put this out in the next newsletter and the spring POL. Thanks for the warning. It is worrying that companies can do this without our knowledge.
Karrie
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CHECK YOUR INTERNET BILLS!

Post by Karrie »

Hi Kate,

Yes of course. I'm just replicating it on the other forums I belong to.
Karrie
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Post by Karrie »

A member on another forum I also posted on says that it is impossible for this to have happened without having signed up to the site. However, we realise that we weren't even in the country when the initial payment went out.
The only other possibility is that one of the summer guests inadvertently signed up, but this would be almost impossible too as they wouldn't have known our telephone number or French email address. The fact that Orange are immediately repaying some of the charges doesn't add up with an apparent legitimate sign up to the site. It certainly seems very odd.
tubs
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Post by tubs »

A similar thing happened to us this year. Check that you haven't got Internet Plus activated. It is the default setting so you have to deactivate it. We were unaware that we had this until "extras" kept appearing on our bill. We think we got charged for browsing the SNCF site, but cannot be sure and Orange wouldn't confirm or deny that this was the site involved.
Check out this link too
http://www.france-forum-frenchentree.co ... hp?t=98923
Karrie
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CHECK YOUR INTERNET BILLS!

Post by Karrie »

In our case Orange have emailed a full print out of every transaction, which is how I became aware of the date of the first amount of money charged to us and then realised that we weren't in the country. Initially the guy at Orange had said it was in August, so we had assumed it was us who had caused the issue albeit completely inadvertently. I will try and check that we haven't got Internet Plus activated, but think that this is what the guy at Orange deactivated immediately as he did something to prevent this happening again.
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Sue
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Post by Sue »

Thanks Karrie for the info. I have just been into my online orange details and deactivated internet+ and something called contact+ which seems similar. We seem to have been lucky and not charged anything
Dylan
Karrie
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Post by Karrie »

This is a contribution, which I've shortened, from someone on another forum, where I posted the same information;

Settings are enabled by default for new accounts.

Many people have complained to Orange about this for years but they have decided to stick with the default setting. Along with automatic direct debit every month, this will generate quite an income for Orange.
montgolfiere
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Post by montgolfiere »

glad we are not with Orange......We have had Aliceadsl for years now with no problems and always a good reliable service.
Nigel Bright
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Post by Nigel Bright »

Can I just add one other similar scam/error/practice (Delete as necessary) which we have noticed with Orange.
Orange have the habit of offering new internet/phone packages which are better value on the surface than current , but when you take up the new packages you have to make sure all your defaults stay the same and also any free offers on films or sports are cancelled within the time period or you will pay dearly.
Brighty
Karrie
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Post by Karrie »

Hi again,

Can any one help me with an English step by step idiot's guide to check that Internet Plus has been disabled please. I've been on the site which is vast and really don't know where to look and what t look for? Any help with this would be appreciated :oops:
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Sue
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Post by Sue »

On Orange main page ie the news page etc
Click on Ma livebox
Click ma formule et mes options
You should see a livebox picture on your left and sort of to the side of it the words Mon suivi conso under that you should see internet+ click on deactiver.
Good luck.
Dylan
Karrie
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Post by Karrie »

Many thanks! Done and it hadn't been deactivated by Orange despite they said they would do it for me. I'm still in email correspondence with Moniku trying to get my 45 euros back. I've yet to be convinced that I've received the other 65 euros as promised by Orange.
Just one more thing:

Under the line giving me the choice to activate/deactivate internet Plus
there was also a sentence saying 'paiment en ligne avec contact plus' this also had the option to deactivate. As I wasn't sure what this was I've left it as active. Any thoughts?
:?
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Sue
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Post by Sue »

I deactivated that too. I cant remember what it said now but I didnt like sound of it!!
Dylan
tubs
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Post by tubs »

Yes you should deactivate contact plus too.
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