# Excessive Broadband Bill



## alpine (13 Dec 2010)

Hi, my mum has been with Perlico for the combined home phone and broadband for a few years now.   

She been mostly happy with the service, the broadband might not have worked on occasions in the past.  

Anyhow, For the months of August, September and October, she got outrageous broadband bills from Perlico.   

There is a 36GB download capacity.  The broadband is only used occasionally for a little browsing, and deffo no movie downloads etc.  She had a wireless router, but is located in the middle of the countryside so no neighbours can piggyback on the signal.  The allowance used to be 6 GB in the past and she would never have even breached this.  The computer is shut down and switched off when not in use.  The computer is virus free etc.  

Anyhow, Perlico have a facility for monitoring usage online and this never seems to be working.  I disputed the bills with them and they said tough luck.  They cannot offer a breakdown of the usage.  They also said they do not have to offer any monitoring, as part T&C's. 

This seems a bit outrageous.  I am going to dispute this through Comreg.  

Has anyone experienced the same type of issue or can you provide any advice for dealing with this type of situation?


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## paddyc (13 Dec 2010)

While you say the computer is virus free are you sure ? Have you scanned it for all malware too, it may be turned into a spam bot and sending out loads of crap when turned on.

Is the broadband router shutdown when not in use ? Will stop anybody piggybacking on it.

You should ask perlico for your session details, showing start time, stop time and amount of data transferr.


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## aristotle (13 Dec 2010)

Why dont you put a password on the router to stop people piggybacking on it?!


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## alpine (13 Dec 2010)

paddyc said:


> While you say the computer is virus free are you sure ? Have you scanned it for all malware too, it may be turned into a spam bot and sending out loads of crap when turned on.
> 
> Is the broadband router shutdown when not in use ? Will stop anybody piggybacking on it.
> 
> You should ask perlico for your session details, showing start time, stop time and amount of data transferr.


 

I had the PC checked recently.  Firewalls are switched on, virus scanners up to date etc. 

The router is not shutdown when in use, nor is it password protected.  Nearest neighbour is about 300 metres away.  House is 50 metres from the road, so I am pretty sure no one is piggy backing.  If someone were to try and pick up the signal from the road (unlikely) then it would be extremely weak.   I thought the router itself might have something wrong with it, but I am informed that a virus cannot update the firmware on it....

I definitely think Perlico should be able to provide session details, showing start time, stop time and amount of data transfer.  I do not like that they just say here is the bill and no explanation.


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## alpine (13 Dec 2010)

aristotle said:


> Why dont you put a password on the router to stop people piggybacking on it?!


 
Agree, I really should do this.


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## Boyd (13 Dec 2010)

1) Password protect the network/router immediately.

2) What is the monthly download limit - you mention 36GB and 6GB. Also how much did she download in the months i.e. do you know how much she was actually over the limit?

3) Does she watch youtube or streaming media online, such as RTE player/BBC IPlayer? Sometimes people forget these use up your download bandwidth, since they actually watch them in the browser rather than in VLC player/windows media player etc.

4) Does she use iTunes or have an iPhone connected downloading updates?

5) Insist on a breakdown from Perlico, even O2 mobile broadband provide that


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## alpine (13 Dec 2010)

username123 said:


> 1) Password protect the network/router immediately.
> 
> 2) What is the monthly download limit - you mention 36GB and 6GB. Also how much did she download in the months i.e. do you know how much she was actually over the limit?
> 
> ...


 

1) Agree, I will password protect it. 

2) Monthly allowance is currently 36 GB.  The original broadband allowance was 6 GB.  This was never breached. 

3) No, its only used for simple browsing, e-mail etc. 

4)  iTunes not used. 

5) This is all I want from Perlico.  They say they cannot provide it.   There has to be some way of monitoring usage???


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## Boyd (13 Dec 2010)

Few threads on similar issue. Apparently its €30 per GB over the limit. 
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=65356845

Have they at least told you how much you went over the limit?


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## alpine (13 Dec 2010)

August 46 GB €48.80
September 46 GB €48.80
October 52 GB €48.80
September 48 GB €48.80

The allowance is 36 GB, and as afar as I recall, you are charged something like 1 cent per MB over the limit and this is capped, hence why is does not go over €48.80. 

Their website always says you can track usage online.  However, the following message appears:

*Due to technical problems, we are currently unable to display your broadband usage. We are working on this issue, and hope to have it resolved shortly. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.*

Perlicos T&C's does not say anything about having to provide a monitoring service though.


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## TarfHead (13 Dec 2010)

IMHO ..

I'm with VODAFONE and consume a fair amount of US TV programmes through downloads and and streamed video. There are a couple of other devices in the house defined to the router (iPhone, iPod Touch, internet radio, plus 2 other PCs) and we've a limit of 40GB per month on our tariff.

The figures you posted are more in line with my usage, as outlined above.

Your mother's usage of the PC is not what you believe it to be, or
Someone else is using the router, or
Some malware is on the PC, utilising the router, or
Perlico's method of calculating usage is at fault.

There is free software that can provide a measure of what is being used. The one I used is called TBBMeter but it measures just what is being demanded/consumed on the PC, not the router. Something like this might be worthwhile for a week or so to get some objective measure of how the usage is being clocked up.


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## alpine (14 Dec 2010)

Thanks everyone for responses.  

I am going to dispute  this further with Perlico now and will let you know how I get on.


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## JoeB (14 Dec 2010)

I personally don't think COMREG will be of any help with this.


Perlico are at fault for not fixing their 'track usage online'.. and putting up a clearly false message. In effect they are lying to you. I would ask them to demonstrate that there is a short term technical problem.. I would ask them how long this 'short term' problem has been ongoing, and a timescale for resolution.


Are Perlico in breach of their own terms and conditions by not providing a 'usage tracker'? If they have left you no way to determine your usage then you are in an impossible situation... and Perlico should do something to help you.


Were the excessive charges not noticed at first? or do you only receive infrequent bills?


By the way there are free usage monitors that you can download and track usage that way.

It sounds like you have a virus even if you don't realize it, or perhaps a 'piggybacker'... but something is using the bandwidth, and 1,200MB a day is a lot.


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## ripsaw (14 Dec 2010)

alpine
Absolutely get COMREG involved- Do I have this right - they have technical issues and cannot 'display' internet usage? but they can bill for over usage. 
Get the proof from Perlico first - Make sure they give you a ticket number for your complaint and pass this to COMREG.


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## alpine (15 Dec 2010)

JoeBallantin said:


> I personally don't think COMREG will be of any help with this.
> 
> 
> Perlico are at fault for not fixing their 'track usage online'.. and putting up a clearly false message. In effect they are lying to you. I would ask them to demonstrate that there is a short term technical problem.. I would ask them how long this 'short term' problem has been ongoing, and a timescale for resolution.
> ...


 
As part of the Perlico T&C's, they mention nothing about having to provide a usage tracker!.  So far, this has been their defence.  While the online facility has been offline for what seems like all of this year, they mentioned when I started disputing that the usage can be monitored by called their customer service phone number. 

My mother would not notice the usage really as she does not really check her bills, relies on myself to check all this.  I noticed the issue, but initially thought she was not powering down the PC and some virus was involved.  I went as far as getting the PC formatted, re-installing Windows 7, virus software updated etc....


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## JoeB (15 Dec 2010)

Yes, I anticipated that the T&Cs would cover the lack of a usage tracker. But the T&Cs cover everything and are often unfair on the consumer. Some clauses may not be upheld after examination. The consumer association may be interested in charges which only become apparent after they've been incurred.
Is the phone number you can ring a freephone number? If so that's ok, but you still need a phone. If the number is not free, or there are excessive menus, then it is not sufficient in my view, .. and it's unfair to charge for usage if you have no way to determine usage.


I know that Meteor had a message on their website for a year or so, and the message referred to short term difficulties, even though the problems were ongoing for months and months. I consider these lies, deliberately made,.. and it shows the dismissive attitude desplayed by telecommunications companies to their customers, who they take for fools.


Other clauses that are exceptionally unfair in telecommmunications contracts are similar to the following
'We retain the right to change the T&Cs at will'
If a clause like the above is included it means that the telecommunitcations companies are not bound by their own contract, as they can simply remove any clause if they wish. So they expect their customers to be bound by a contract while they themselves are not bound,.. this is exceptionally unfair.



Other clauses amount to intimidation or bullying. For example, many contracts state that a customer may not be entitled to 'port' their phone number.. this is wrong, and it explicitly goes against explicit advice published by COMREG. Although I've told COMREG about this they do nothing, although they continue to publish documents stating that this type of behaviour is unacceptable... but with no enforcement (by COMREG) then it doesn't really help. 

So there is  clear difference between what COMREG say, and what COMREG do. It's a disgrace and I'm sick of it. COMREG have published documents stating that there's a 100% level of non-compliance with compulsory legislation,  legislation that COMREG have a duty to ensure compliance with... ... so COMREG will happily publish documents stating that they are not doing their job.
(This relates to laws which came into force in 2002, and for which there was a 100% level of non-compliance in July,2007.. and COMREG sit back and do nothing... even though they acknowledge that they have a legal duty to ensure compliance. COMREG have never published an example of a company that is compliant, so as of today, Dec 2010, there is likely still a 100% level of non-compliance.. or at least 0% evidence to the contrary, and much evidence to support that view)
Pathetic


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## dtlyn (15 Dec 2010)

What speed is your broadband connection?

It looks me like the maximum supported download rate for Perlico is 3Mb (megabits). This will give you a theoretical maximum of ~ 0.39 MBytes download per second. 

To hit the 56GB limit in October you would have had to used ~ 1.8GB per day you would have had to had full service at full tilt (e.g. watching a movie) for 79 minutes every day, and even that's a theoretical maximum. 

If you press ctrl + alt + delete and click "Start Task Manager". Navigate to the networking tab and observe the graphs there for a while.  If you have nothing going on (e.g. no browsers open etc) then these graphs should be peaking around 1 - 5%, anything more and you've got a background process eating up band-with. 

The biggest culprit for this are any of these programs...

Sky Player 
Limewire
BitTorrent/uTorrent. 

Otherwise I would grab a bandwidth monitor - something like (http://www.bwmonitor.com/ (no affiliation and never used it) - and track your usage for a month. 

Supply Perlico with the resulting report for one month and challenge them to match the usage statistics on an hourly basis. 

If they cant match what you are seeing, you have a good case to present to COMREG. 

Otherwise - I wouldn't pay them a penny until they gave me an itemized usage bill. 


All the above assumes you've no "piggybacking" neighbours on your router. 300M is not that far for a WiFi signal when there are no buildings in the way. I would suggest

- Change to WPA2 personal wireless security, WEP has been broken.
- Restrict access to the router to known MAC addresses. 

This should thwart most folks.


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## JoeB (15 Dec 2010)

It is likely in the Perlico terms and conditions that they do not provide a breakdown of their bills or usage, and that their totals can't be disputed. If it's in the T&Cs what can be done?


I think it is exceptionally unlikely that COMREG would act on information received from a customer which purports to show that Perlicos billing systems are in error. COMREG often refuse to help with many clear issues, and I'm aware of at least three examples of COMREG being aware that telecommunications are breaking the law and yet they sit back and do nothing. (COMREG have legal obligations to ensure compliance with some of these laws, and yet they do nothing.. so my view is that senior members of COMREG staff should be in prison, or charged with a crime, for condoning and facialiting widespread law breaking)


Have many people had problems resolved with COMREGs help? What type of problems?

Eamonn Ryan, the Green minister with responsibility for COMREG, does nothing,. and lies to constituients of his about the issue. He never mentions on his radio interviews that all of the 1.6 million broadband users in this country have illegally formed contracts, and that he is sitting on his hands ignoring the lawbreaking. The only people who benefit are the law breaking multinational companies, and COMREG, who seemingly get paid for not doing their job. They probably get 'performance' based bonuses too, for not performing.

Cheers


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