In fact, that obsession with the green stuff runs so deep, that even after you have left iiNet, the staff have a means of extracting money from you. Like a vampire stalking its victim, the ISP stands over you and demands your cash to get your cash back. I guess you could call it a win-win situation – for iiNet, that is.
It doesn't seem to matter if you have been a regular for more than a decade; no, all that matters is a beggarly sum of $10. It seems rather petty.
iiNet is happy to deduct your monthly charge from either a bank account or a credit card. But if you do happen to leave, then suddenly it becomes the case that only credit card customers will get back whatever is owing to them without paying.
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You'd have to wonder: why does a man like David Teoh, the owner of iiNet (and a whole ISP empire), need beggarly sums like this to shore up his bank balance? Isn't reputation a little more important?
Why would a customer who has left an ISP be willing to give credit card details in these days when unauthorised use of credentials is more common than the sun rising at dawn?
When I closed my subscription in mid-October, it was because the iiNet had no business plans for connecting people to the NBN over HFC. Else, I would have probably stayed on. And why would one pay $110 for a residential account offering 100/40Mbps when any number of smaller outfits offer the same for $40 less?
So that $10 looks like a payback. You leave us, you will pay for it. At the time I joined, paying from a bank account was the common method. But then I doubt that iiNet is bothered about anything other than money these days.
Truly, Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge could take a lesson from iiNet and Teoh. Fitting indeed, seeing that Christmas is around the corner. Bah, humbug.
In response to this article, iiNet media has sent iTWire the following statement: "iiNet is currently undertaking a review of this old handling fee policy, which has existed from prior to the acquisition of iiNet."