Given this is a prepaid service, I find it difficult to disagree with the actions taken by Unlimitel. This is very consistent with a prepaid business model and seems like a very reasonable response to a declined credit card payment.
Dean -----Original Message----- From: Stephan Monette [mailto:monet...@unlimitel.ca] Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 12:10 PM To: Kovalenko, Alex Cc: asterisk biz Subject: Re: [biz] Unlimitel Alex, Unlimitel sells a prepaid service and it works exactly like a prepaid calling card service. If the prepaid account is empty, the service is suspended. Most VoIP provider runs their prepaid service this way. There's no credit allowed for any customers using this business model. But Unlimitel does allow 24 hours for customers to fix issues with credit card payments (which you already got since you receive the notice yesterday). Prepaid calling card companies do not allow this 24hours grace. We provide this 24 hours grace at our own expense and risk. Everyone knows a customer can run an hefty bill in 24 hours using VoIP, but we do this for our customers. In cases where customers lost their credit card, our billing rep. always suggest to go and purchase a prepaid credit card from your local corner store in order to fix your payment issue in the short term. The prepaid credit card is very useful in situations like yours and will avoid service suspension. Our billing department also offer to accept payment from another person's credit card and this was also communicated to you. But if you choose not to purchase a prepaid credit card or use someone else's credit card to fix this issue, this is your call and you will have to deal with the consequences. This is just unfortunate that you use this forum to complain about your credit card issue where Unlimitel offered you temporary solutions in the short term to avoid any problems. I'm sure you run your business the exact same way. You do not ship any products to any customers (regardless of their purchase volume) if the payment is rejected on the credit card, do you? I purchase products from your company any other businesses on this forum and you shipped it after the payment on my credit card was confirmed and this is what I expected, nothing less. Let's educate everyone on this forum. Here's why VoIP providers are using the PrePaid business model (not just Unlimitel, but almost every VoIP provider in Canada): 1- Between 6% to 10% of accounts do not get paid when you offer post paid services or credit to business customers. So for a $5Millions company (not Unlimitel case by the way!) this represents up to $500,000 in lost net revenues per year. 2- PrePaid services do not require full time staff to handle payments. Again for a $5Millions company, this would require about 5 full time staff at an average of $40k/employee for a total of $200k/year plus real estate space, computers,... 3- PrePaid services are usually fully automated. But for a post paid service, the payment process is manual. We also have to factor in the human error factor in a few transactions that can run your accountant crazy! There's also the bank fees to deposit all the customer's cheques. Bank fees will also increase your billing cost. With prepaid credit card, the payments are deposit into the business account daily as one payment which reduces the bank fees a lot. Billing services can cost as much as 15%to 20% of the service in some situation. With PrePaid services, the customer ends up saving a lot of money, but they have to make sure they have a valid credit card with their provider at all time. Cheers. Stephan Monette Unlimitel Inc. Tel.: 1-877-464-6638 Fax: (613) 482-1077 On 2010-08-03, at 11:38 AM, Kovalenko, Alex wrote: > Unlimitel is definitely a great company to purchase your VoIP lines from. > > However they called me today to inform me that our lines will be cut if we > do not pay our $50 bill which has been outstanding for only few days > immediately by 4pm today. I have explained that my wallet was stolen at the > gym last week and I should be able to provide them with a new card over the > next few days (it takes Mastercard - 4-5 business days to get the > replacement card over). However, Helene told me that they do not really care > what happened and will cut if not received by 4pm. (Go get prepaid credit > card - she told me.) > > This is very unfortunate - as I have been with them over 5 years, spent > thousands of dollars and at www.VoIPGizmos.ca have recommended them to > dozens of other businesses. Stephane - not very cool way to run your > business. > > -- > Alex Kovalenko, http://ca.linkedin.com/in/kovasys > Director of Operations @ Kovasys IT Recruitment > IT Recruitment and Headhunting | Chasseur de Tête en TI > 888.568.2747 x701 | www.ITHeadhunters.ca > > Read about us in the News: > http://bit.ly/KovasysNews > > Join our IT Jobs Association Linkedin group: > http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2464449 > > Follow us on Twitter: > http://www.twitter.com/kovasys --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: biz-unsubscr...@taug.ca For additional commands, e-mail: biz-h...@taug.ca --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: biz-unsubscr...@taug.ca For additional commands, e-mail: biz-h...@taug.ca
