To make a long story short: I signed up for a Claro 4G postpaid Internet plan (to use with a modem) for R$119.99 in April, but ever since, a higher amount — R$159.99 — has been charged every month. I’d call customer service, they’d say it was wrong and fix it. It happened twice, so I called the ombudsman and they fixed it. After the ombudsman fixed it, the next month it was wrong again. I filed a complaint with Anatel, and a Claro representative contacted me, acknowledged the error, and said it was finally resolved. And now, today, I got the wrong bill again.
If I call customer service, they’ll fix this month’s bill, but judging by how things are going, it’ll be wrong again next month. Is there anything else I can do? Because I’ve even been to Anatel already , has anyone else been through something similar?
My sister went through this when she and her husband had a postpaid plan with Oi. Nothing helped. In the end, when it had been a year and she could leave without paying much, that’s what she did, and she never went back to Oi.
@LekyChan Worse yet, I don’t even have loyalty — what keeps me here is that it’s the best deal in the area, reasonable price, and they only slow down the speed when the data cap is reached, instead of cutting it off.
You know you’re entitled to double the amount charged improperly, my tip to be a pain for the carrier is to pay and request the double refund the following month and keep doing that, they’ll be forced to fix the problem to avoid having to refund double the amount.
Easy peasy to sort out: find a lawyer or, if you can’t afford one right now, a university with a law school. They have legal clinics that provide free services to the public.
With a lawsuit, it’s really easy to put an end to this whole scam. Talk to whoever gives you advice, but it’s very likely that you can even request compensation for moral damages (harassment, wrongful debt collection, etc.).
Consumidor.gov.br, because (for now) it hasn’t been rigged by the carriers like Anatel has. Usually, an overbilling issue doesn’t take long to resolve.
It happened twice that I canceled, I know it won’t solve anything! Either that or I pay the amount and take them to small claims court and get double the amount paid plus damages for emotional distress! These guys never learn, they’re always pulling scams.
I had a problem like that with NET: they were charging me an extra $59.90 every month and never fixed it.
Solution: every month I would pay and then file a complaint with Anatel (Brazilian telecom regulator) requesting a double refund. I already had everything typed out and just added new screenshots.
I spent a year and a half getting double refunds until they fixed it.
Wow, that takes a lot of patience to do that every month, even if you’re getting double the refund. Do the carriers have so much money to spare that they can pay the customer twice the amount they were wrongly charged?
They are not obligated. I don’t know if you saw my post, but they didn’t solve my problem there. In the email after the complaint was closed, it says this:
On Consumidor.gov.br, the consumer handles their demand directly with the complained company. There is no intermediation by a Consumer Protection Agency, and individually, no measure or direct sanction is provided against the company that fails to resolve a complaint through this platform.
So, the best thing to do is to take legal action. It’s good to research further, but I think this case is like mine: up to 20 minimum wages, you don’t need a lawyer. If @mr.luizandre wants to clear up any doubts, just go to the Public Defender’s Office or consult a private attorney.
So I had already saved the complaint text in Notepad. I just added the invoice PDF. It took 5 minutes. Yeah, I had money to spare. I got that “discount” for a good while.
Is the extra amount included in the actual plan price or billed separately? If it’s included, it’s probably some systemic bug causing this. The right thing is for the carrier to open a ticket with IT to fix it.
Why don’t you request cancellation of this plan to get a 30% discount for 12 months? Some people have done it and it worked. I did it with my Claro control plan and got a 30% discount, but I was locked into a contract.
, has anyone else been through something similar?