Has anyone received a refund from Comms

Left Comms on the 12th May and received an invoice on the 25th stating that I had a refund of just over £15. So far nothing has appeared in my bank.

As I posted on the thread below, I migrated from Coms to Xilo on the 26th May, and on the 2nd of June they took another full months payment via the DD. I raised a ticket about it yesterday and unsurprisingly, they haven't responded to it yet.
So they need to refund me that full months money they just took plus refund me the few days from last month's that I was away from them.
All my money that they have no right to, sitting in their account, earning them interest.I just hope they aren't going to be arsey about giving the lot back, as some companies can be.
The sooner I get it back and can cancel the DD, the better I'll feel. After what shenanigans Coms have pulled thus far, I don't trust them one bit.

Aren't it a monthly contract so have to give them a months notice? So they can take an extra month

I left on 9th May, received final invoice confirming refund on 22nd May. Queried the payment date on 2nd June, received the refund in my account on 4th June.

Dropping Coms a ticket wouldn't hurt.

I originally requested a MAC back in March when I tried to sign up with Vivaciti (some sort of problem during the order, wasn't contacted and then read about the dubious business dealings on here so decided to wait and get a new MAC and go to Xilo) so they've more than had their months notice that I was planning to leave.

If they want to be really arsey and take it from the issue date of the MAC that was used, then they still owe me a partial refund at least. The ticket about it still hasn't been responded to so I don't now how they are going to play it.

To be honest, I'm just glad that I am away from Coms now. A total 100% reversal from the service level on all fronts from the old ADSL24 days. Sad. But I am going to make damned sure that I get what money I am owed back. I'll take it all the way to the small claims court if I have to...

The sooner I get it back and can cancel the DD, the better I'll feel.

So why not cancel the direct debit now? The presence of the direct debit has nothing to do with the refund.

You could have cancelled it immediately so they couldnt have taken the extra payment.

If the refund not in the bank by tomorrow I have to give them a ring.

Another method might be to contact your bank and claim return of the payment under the terms of the Direct Debit Guarantee.

I cancelled my DD as soon as I rceived the paperwork from BT giving me a date for the transfer.

Edited by deleted (Thu 05-Jun-14 15:39:10)

Requesting a MAC does not constitute giving notice, unless that is explicitly stated in the ISP's T & Cs. Even then it would normally be conditional, as it's not certain that the customer will leave. As I think you have demonstrated.

You wouldn't have been very happy if they had cut you off 30 days after the issue of the first MAC.

If they do take it from the issue date of the second MAC that would be normal, not arsey. Some ISPs expect a separate giving of notice. See what I said about the T & Cs.

On their side, I can't remember a single post here where they have not refunded leavers when appropriate. They seem to be very well-behaved about it.

In reply to a post by greenglide:

The sooner I get it back and can cancel the DD, the better I'll feel.

So why not cancel the direct debit now? The presence of the direct debit has nothing to do with the refund.

You could have cancelled it immediately so they couldnt have taken the extra payment.

Most ISPs refund via the d/d system. Cancelling your d/d instruction beforehand makes that impossible. There have been a lot of posters in the past who have done as you advise and got in a right mess as a result. With a guaranteed delay in obtaining the refund plus a lot of hassle.

Left Comms on the 12th May and received an invoice on the 25th stating that I had a refund of just over £15. So far nothing has appeared in my bank.

Update
Received a PM from commsCS yesterday to email customer services, which I did. Received 2 emails from them. First to say that they had checked my details and were arranging a refund. Second was to say that the refund was scheduled for 13th June.
Hopefully this will go without a hitch and I will update again after 13th June.

I left on the 8th May and received my 19 quid refund from them yesterday, as they said, so result for me.

Left Comms on the 12th May and received an invoice on the 25th stating that I had a refund of just over £15. So far nothing has appeared in my bank.

Update
Received a PM from commsCS yesterday to email customer services, which I did. Received 2 emails from them. First to say that they had checked my details and were arranging a refund. Second was to say that the refund was scheduled for 13th June.
Hopefully this will go without a hitch and I will update again after 13th June.

Update
No money in the bank on the 13th. Have sent another email to comms this morning.

COMS owe me £11.45. Can I be bother chasing it? Answer is no, I'm happy to get away from them.

Sorry, but I do not agree, I would chase it, as it your money they are holding and not paying you. If one or more "cannot be bothered" to chase it, then COMS are getting away it and will continue to get away with not paying people the refunds that they are due.

To be honest, I have never had to chase a refund from an ISP, as it was also issued when the ISP said it would be issued after leaving them.

I'm in the same boat. Was promised refund would go through on Friday and nada.
Can't say I'm surprised going on Coms' track record. This lot are verging on criminals at this rate.
Sent another ticket (for all the good it'll do...) I can see me having to go to the small claims court soon...

I'd chase for it out of principle..

Clearly you have left them for a reason, and therefore you are owed that money

I'm in the same boat. Was promised refund would go through on Friday and nada.
Can't say I'm surprised going on Coms' track record. This lot are verging on criminals at this rate.
Sent another ticket (for all the good it'll do...) I can see me having to go to the small claims court soon...

Had 2 emails from comms support on Monday. First to say they were chasing up the refund and the second to say that there had been a problem with the credit process last Friday and that it would be processed this Friday. Looks like credit payments are only done at the end of the week.

I chased up my refund on Mon 2nd June and was told it would be issued the following Friday, but it appeared in my account on Wed 4th. As ever with Coms, expect the unexpected.

If it's paid in using BACS it takes 3 workinh days to appear in your account. So processed Friday would appear Tues or Weds

As expected, no response to the ticket yet. They are really taking the [censored]...
All of this "refunds are only processed on Fridays" isn't good enough. I mean in this day and age 'n all.
With all of the refunds sitting in their account those extra days, I bet they are earning a fair penny on all the interest... or they have run out of money to refund us and are just feeding us (more) BS to placate us for another week... BS us another week or so and "oops, sorry, we took another months money from you but you'll get it back on Friday"
I want to cancel the DD but it supposedly makes the refund easier and I am damned if I am wasting more time and money on the phone to them to sort out an alternative refund method, although I can see that happening...
I can't believe there is anyone still putting up with their so called service any more so they have got to be going bust soon...

That's true enough, but my point is that Coms cannot be relied on to report a situation coherently.

I suspect there are three or more tiers within their support system that have as much difficulty communicating with each other as they do with their customers.

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

If it's paid in using BACS it takes 3 workinh days to appear in your account. So processed Friday would appear Tues or Weds

Not always, they refunded me on a friday and it appeared in my
account the same day.

I'm in the same boat. Was promised refund would go through on Friday and nada.
Can't say I'm surprised going on Coms' track record. This lot are verging on criminals at this rate.
Sent another ticket (for all the good it'll do...) I can see me having to go to the small claims court soon...

Had 2 emails from comms support on Monday. First to say they were chasing up the refund and the second to say that there had been a problem with the credit process last Friday and that it would be processed this Friday. Looks like credit payments are only done at the end of the week.

Update
Money in my account today.

Interesting. I got the excuse that it was because of staff illness that the refund wasn't processed last week and it would definitely go through today.
I had to open a second ticket to find that out as they ignored the first one.
Why do I get the feeling its more BS that we are being fed by Coms and that there will be nothing paid into my account today... prove me wrong Coms!

Update: Well it seems they have come through and paid the refund today. Thank god. I can now cancel direct debit and be shot of Coms for good. What a way to ruin one of the best ISPs going.

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Jun-14 12:48:47)

On a kinda related note, now that I am no longer a Coms customer, I've suddenly started to get emails from Coms meant for their customers... bit late!

Despite all the naysayers & tut -tut'ers on here, I advocated cancelling the DD "immediately" problems surfaced with regard to my sister's flawed (along with others) move from o2 to Sky. It's easy enough if, when the final bills etc, are agreed by both parties, to make a final card payment. Stopping a DD usually makes errant companies get their collective backsides in gear!

In reply to a post by lelboy:

Despite all the naysayers & tut -tut'ers on here, I advocated cancelling the DD "immediately" problems surfaced with regard to my sister's flawed (along with others) move from o2 to Sky. It's easy enough if, when the final bills etc, are agreed by both parties, to make a final card payment. Stopping a DD usually makes errant companies get their collective backsides in gear!

I cancelled mine immediately too, and they refunded me thru Bacs to my bank account , no problem.

You mean the one about passwords? Dunno if that even applies to broadband customers

Yep.
Its actually the first official communication that I have had from Coms since the "We wont do anything to adversely affect your broadband service" letter. (not including tickets to and from "support")

Could you work out from that if we would need to change our password in our router?

Clearly it was an email to all coms customers and not just broadband ones, so wasnt sure if it meant we had to change passwords for "my account", in the router or neither. And was just a heads up that future passwords needed to have numbers/letters etc

Edited by bobble_bob (Wed 25-Jun-14 20:29:27)

I would guess that its the password to get into the 'my account' area of the Coms website that the email is about. Other than the heartbleed thing, I don't know what 'recent event' that the email alludes to. If it is, then its taken them long enough to do something about it... and giving us less than two days notice of the change. Still any notice from Coms is an improvement.


Pasted below is the email in question;

Dear Customer,

You may be aware of a recent event that has threatened the security of personal customer information within other organisations. Coms has been unaffected by these events, but nonetheless, the security and protection of your personal information is always at the forefront of our minds.

Regular audits on our infrastructure and systems are carried out on a regular basis, but to ensure that your personal data is protected even further, we have implemented a robust password requirement system.

This action will take place on Friday 27th June 2014, Your password will need to incorporate a minimum of eight letters in both upper and lower case, and special characters. We recommend that you keep any passwords safe and confidential under all circumstances.

On Friday 27th June 2014, we will also be upgrading the MySQL server to version 5.5. This is another aditional security upgrade to ensure your personal information is as protected as possible. There is a possibility that there will be some changes to some of the queries in MySQL that may need to be implemented in your PHP code. For more information please click here.

If you have any questions, or would like any further information, please contact us on our new numbers: For the customer service team call 0330 300 9000 and for Faults, call 0330 300 9001 from 8am � 8pm, 7 days a week,

Kind regards,

Steven Shears
Head of Customer Service
Coms

Maybe thats of use to any Coms customer who didn't get the email.

Edited by deleted (Wed 25-Jun-14 20:41:46)

Well if they store passwords as plain text as some have said, wont matter how secure it is

There has been a fair few hacked sites recently (well over the last few years pretty much) that seems to be on a regular basis