Author: Ian Date: To: users Subject: Re: [bitfolk] How much should BitFolk allow you to owe us before we
suspend your service?
Andy said:
> Recently we had a rather unfortunate situation where a customer ran
> up a very large (4 figure) unexpected overage bill.
Ouch.
> Finally, I should mention that there are currently two customers who
> almost every month run up overage bills that are 10 to 20 times
> their monthly regular bill. They have done so for a long time; they
> have already been advised to commit to more in order to reduce their
> bills, but they keep paying the overage bills. So while overage is
> quite rare across the customer base, for a few customers it is the
> norm. Whatever is decided may involve me forcing those customers to
> change the way they do things.
I see this as ultimately a credit control question and, as such, up to
you rather than anyone else.
So I would say that if, as part of setting up or managing their
Bitfolk account, someone wants to ask you for an £x credit facility in
the event that they run up data overage fees, that's up to them to ask
and you to grant... or not.
Here, you've got two customers who do manage to pay back what they've
run up against what sounds like a credit facility limited only by the
ability of their VPS + network to shift data at 6p/GB. Choosing to
continue to extend it to them is a fairly obvious step.
But for new customers in particular, if they haven't asked, why should
they expect to get it by default? You've had new customers attempt to
abuse the system, and if they know they can get lots of data for free
via running up a huge data bill and not paying, then at some point
someone will.
If any customers are seen legally as consumers, then in your position
I would take advice about the issues around extending them credit.
