What Inept Billing Software Have You Encountered?

Chris asks: "I am a Sprint customer signed up for automatic payments, and over the past week I've found that Sprint has a computer system that does three ridiculously inept things from a programmers standpoint. First, they send a 'Do not send payment...this amount will be charged' bill then a 'Disconnection Imminent' notice for the same amount, within a week of each other. When customer service is called about this, everything appears fine to the customer service rep, and they assure the client that everything is fine. Finally, the computer system shuts down the customer's cell phone for lack of payment, even if the customer has a credit card on file and has given Sprint authorization to use it. What's the worst experience Slashdot users have found with billing systems that don't make any sense?"

Comments

No charge..

[rf0]

I had an account with a small local company and due to a payment / full refund I ended up owing them nothing however their billing system didn't accept that so they sent me a bill for £0.00. So I ignored it until I got a nasty gram saying they were taking me to court for literally nothing. Despite repeated rings they still said that I had a balance. I ended up sending a cheque for £0.00 and then heard nothing more on it..

Re:No charge..

[Alranor]

Aha, fnorgby, so this is where you've been hiding.

Which one of these people are you claiming to be?

Re:No charge..

[dheltzel]

That honestly sounds too bizarre to be true . . .
Except for the fact that I've seen such similar things myself:

A telco company that was a vendor for one of my previous employers had the audacity to send us a bill for 8 cents for an account that was being closed out. Since the cost to cut them a check was a lot more than that (and obviously, the cost for them to print and mail the bill) we ignored it. Several nasty letters later (they must have spent at least $10 for supplies and postage to collect their precious 8 cents), the company controller taped a dime to the latest bill and mailed it back. We figured that would be the end of it, right? No way, a few weeks later, we received a nice computer generated check for 2 cents. The controller pinned it to his bulletin board as a reminder of how stupid a computer billing system could be. He was also quick to point out at the end of the story, that the telco's accountants would have to keep reconciling that 2 cent uncashed check for a very long time, until someone manually entered a transaction to clear it.

That dime was the best money he ever spent, at least in terms of "laughs per cent".

AT&T is the devil

[theMerovingian]

I had a similar experience with AT&T Wireless when I changed my phone number to a new area code. They tried to charge me like I had two different phones, and when I called to correct them they charged me a $300 fee for early closure of the first account. Then, I got really mad and cancelled the new-area-code account also (another $300 fee). It was a nightmare dealing with those customer service people.

The whole experience made me so mad I quit my programming job and enrolled in law school. After my first semester classes, I sued them in small claims court. Of course, they promptly agreed to remove all the charges and fees in exchange for dismissing the lawsuit.

I guess that means I am stubborn, $60k in tuition just to get out of a $600 phone bill.

More Sprint Billing

[spencerogden]

I used to have a Sprint phone. I had electronic billing. I haven't had a Sprint phone for 3 years, but I still get an email every month helpfully letting me know that my SPrint bill is ready online. I've called Customer Service and they have said there is nothing they can do about it. Good thing for procmail.

Hands Down, TimelyBill.

[DoctorDyna]

Back when I worked at the callcenter for Sirius Satellite Radio, we used a web based solution called TimelyBill. It was absolutely terrible. I was one of the senior agents, that is we took calls from agents on the floor who needed help (or had a customer asking for a supervisor) and also ran the local intranet knowledgebase site. Half of the site was devoted to helping agents understand the software.

Ultimately, I was fired from the callcenter partially because of the way that the billing software worked. The service that they (Sirius) wanted us to push were the annual plans, which the customer could save a bit of money on in the long haul, but the terms dictated that the annual plans had a $75 cancellation fee. I'm sure if there are any Sirius customers that have been around for a while that read this, you probably know all about it. It worked like this:

1.) Customer calls to activate a satellite receiver of some kind, chooses annual plan to save a few bucks. Cost is about $143 bucks, at the time.

2.) Customer uses the service for a few months, and then something happens to the radio, I.E it breaks, it gets stolen, the customer decides to upgrade to a new radio.

3.) Customer calls in to the callcenter to inform us of the change in receiver, so they can get their plan transferred to the new unit.

4.) Agent stops the service on the new unit. Now, this is where the magic happens. If the agent is seasoned, and knows what they are doing (or, just plain gives a shit) they remember to credit the account for the $75 cancellation fee. The old service is terminated by TimelyBill. If the customer used the service for, let's say 6 months, they end up with a credit on their account for un-used service, about $70 bucks.

5.) TimelyBill waits until the customer's billing cycle date (the day of the month that they activated in) to make any adjustments to the account. On that date, the customer's account would be debited for a NEW annual plan $143 bucks, which collided with the credit for $70. The customer's credit card would be charged again, for the diffrence, about $70 bucks.

6.) Customer calls back. "What the fuck are you charging me for?" Asks for a supervisor.

7.) Senior agent spends, on average 30 minutes attempting to explain to the customer what the system did, with usually around a 30% acceptance rate. The other 70% of the time, the customer becomes infuriated, doesn't understand, and usually screams a few cuss words or an insult, and hangs up. I actually had a customer one time ask where we were located. When I told him we lived in New York, he proceeded to tell me "No wonder the terrorists attack you assholes, you all deserve to die. Im happy they keep choosing you."

8.) Customer (in my case) writes a letter to the corporate office, insisting something be done about the terrible supervisor who handled his call.

So, in my case, terrible software can actually cause you, even though you are not directly responsible for it, to loose your job. Especially with a company like Sirius, who at the time that I worked for their callcenter, was a fairly new company, and hadn't really set their policies in stone, so everything was always changing. We went back and forth several times about the billing system, and wether or not the customers should be refunded anything, and even if they should be given back cancellation fees when they cancelled. When in doubt, I guess, fire a peon.

Anyway, moral of the story: Avoid TimelyBill (OmniOSS).

Bell Canada's OneBill system

[Mr. Shiny And New]

Bell Canada's OneBill system takes the prize in my book. The idea is that the phone company gives you one bill for all of the services provided by their various sub-companies, i.e. television (ExpressVu), local phone, long distance, and internet (Sympatico).

The problem is "OneBill" is actually a separate company, which means that in order to send the bills on time they have to get the billing information so far in advance that bill payments, and credits, don't appear until the NEXT bill.

For example, ExpressVu was charging me for a PPV movie even though I had a credit for $50 of free PPV for signing up with them. Problem is, the credit wasn't being applied correctly, so when I received my bill it said there was a $5 charge for PPV. So I called ExpressVu and they credited my account, except that they aren't scheduled to send an update to OneBill for 30 days, so the credit doesn't reflect in my OneBill balance, and consequently if I don't pay the amount it says I owe I will be penalized and charged interest (and, theoretically, risk disconnection of service).

Not only that, but the system is even dumber when it comes to disconnecting features you don't want. I didn't want to pay for the movie channels that I'd had for free since joining (as a promotion), and I was told to give 30 days notice to terminate them. I called 32 days before my trial was up and explained that I didn't want the channels after the trial ended. So far so good. Well, I receieved my bill for the month after the trial (remember, TV service is paid in advance) and there was a charge for the movie channels. Even though my service was disconnected on time. So I called the OneBill people and they fixed my bill. But on the NEXT bill ExpressVu ALSO fixed my bill, so I got credited twice. Later on when speaking to a rep about the PPV problem, they explained that in their system, the "stop collecting the fee for Services" message isn't sent to OneBill until the service is disconnected, but the service isn't disconnected until the day it's supposed to be, except OneBill sent that bill out already, because they get their updates 30 days in advance. Dumbest thing ever. Needless to say, I never got around to calling them telling them of their second mistake in the billing.

Simple steps to avoid problems

[Stavr0]

Never. Let. Them. Get. At. Your. Money.

Push not pull: If automatic withdrawal or credit card billing is optional, do not opt in. If you don't want to deal with manual payment, you can setup your own transaction to send them a payment automatically.

Minimize the liability: If they insist on 'pull' transactions, opt for credit card billing, using an expendable credit card with a very low credit limit i.e. less than $500.

Paper billing: You can't accidentaly lose paper to a drive failure or virus/malware. Tangible stuff with big yellow highlighter that says "PAY ME" is easy to see on a kitchen fridge.