Botched migration resulted in a great deal: One for the price of two
- Reference: 1679902270
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/27/who_me/
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This tale comes from a reader we'll Regomize as "Ethan" though he doesn't really need his identity protected as he appears to be blameless. That's his story, anyway.
(An aside, if you will indulge. Ethan's story struck a nerve with your humble correspondent, as this particular vulture is in the process even as we sit here of relocating to a new nest. It's a stressful thing, as I'm sure many can relate, and this is exactly the kind of thing that scares me.)
[1]
Ethan used to work for a company that had a leased 200Mbps line provided by Provider A (whose identity probably does need protection), which cost about $1,600 per month. Perfectly reasonable. For reasons Ethan does not spell out, the company decided to move from its top-floor digs down to ground level. Got sick of the views, maybe. Who knows. Not [2]Who Me?
[3]
[4]
Anyway, at much the same time as Ethan's employer decided to move, Provider A got in touch and announced it was switching its "last mile" service to Provider B, and would need to create a new connection at the premises.
Great, thought Ethan, we can kill two birds with one stone.
[5]
If only it were that easy. Turns out birds can fly and stones are really heavy.
[6]IT phone home: How to run up a $20K bill in two days and get away with it by blaming Cisco
[7]Techie wiped a server, nobody noticed, so a customer kept paying for six months
[8]Don't worry, that system's not actually active – oh, wait …
[9]Backup tech felt the need – the need for speed. And pastries and Tomb Raider
(Back to that aside: the new nest is going to require your correspondent to switch to a new telco provider as well. This really is hitting very close to home, as it were.)
The new connection happened, the office move happened, the switch to provider B happened, and all seemed well in Ethan's world.
Until, 10 months or so down the track, someone audited monthly expenses. It seemed that Provider A was being paid $3200 per month. Which couldn't be right, could it?
Well it turned out that in the whole mess of setting up a new connection at the same time as disconnecting and moving the connection downstairs, no-one had bothered actually switching off the connection to the old office upstairs.
[10]
The old office where no one worked. Ethan's company was paying for a service that had exactly zero users.
You can imagine how successful Ethan was in getting either provider to cough up a refund.
Have you ever been left with the bill for a switch no one flipped? Tell us all about it in an [11]email to Who, Me? and we'll share your tale with the world. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZCFpRXQhz3fSvJ1JkTHJ-gAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Who%2C%20Me%3F/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCFpRXQhz3fSvJ1JkTHJ-gAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/20/it_phone_home_how_to/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/13/who_me/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/06/who_me/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/27/who_me/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZCFpRXQhz3fSvJ1JkTHJ-gAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
And was the accounts deparment billed for the lost revenue ?
Because I would have taken that from its budget.
Been There...
We upgraded an EFM connection to fibre on the clear understanding that although the EFM connection contract still had a while to run this was an upgrade and therefore the contract would be terminated at no cost to us,
A couple of months later we get a bill for the EFM connection, but the provider assured us it was just taking time to process. 3 months later another bill, and every quarter afterwards. After about a year they finally managed to process terminating the connection and about another 9 months later we finally received the credit for all the charges.
Overall we'd got the best of the deal on the fibre installation anyway - their surveyor had decided the cable would go through the existing duct and therefore they'd cover the installation charge so the contract was signed. 3 months later they'd installed the new duct right back to the exchange and probably lost more money on the deal than the value of the contract!
Getting a refund
Yeah, I can well imagine : zero success.
And the argument cannot go both ways, I think. Provider A was switching top floor access to Provider B. Company made a new contract with Provider B for ground level. The two are not linked, and the provider is not responsible for a connection that is never used.
Maybe, just maybe, Provider B could have sent an inquiry after two months, wondering if it was normal to have no activity on a connection, but come on - we all know that, as long as the bills are paid, there is no problem.
So, yeah. Check your billing.
The opposite problem
We had the accounts department decide to not pay the bill for one of the service providers at the time we used two. BT and Verizon, suddenly get an emergency call both the primary and secondary lines have failed at the same time (they were in separate buildings) both my boss and me where at a local conference when the call came though.
So one of us went to each site (the closest to our homes) and found the carrier on both circuits had failed,
A quick bank transfer later and we were backup and running with only about 3 hours or £120k in lost revenue for finance to account for……