Personal encounters
Dear Hathway, Why should I pay for something I didn't sign up for?
- 3 Mins Read
Don’t want to continue making monthly payments for an AMC that you want to take from us “covertly”!
Just to give you a brief background on Hathway, it is one of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in India, offering high-speed broadband services across many cities.
My recent unpleasant encounter with Hathway!
I am one of the Hathway broadband customers, and I’ve been using Hathway for approximately ten months now. I just noticed that a small amount is being collected from my monthly bill without my consent under the guise of “Prepared Monthly AMC Plan for DCM-CPE Charges.”
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| Figure 1: Hathway’s AMC fee. |
As I mentioned, I have been using this broadband service for a while, and it wasn’t like this before. From last month onward, I started to see that they had begun to collect this sum. I googled it and found that Hathway has not been doing it recently, but their customers have been reporting the same problem since 2018.
When I asked the customer service representatives about this, they responded that it’s similar to the “corpus” amount Hathway “takes” from customers so that they can repair or replace the router in the event that it breaks down. The term “takes” may not be an appropriate word to use in this context. Wow, you have guessed it right. Well, I certainly get their “foresight” intention, but why didn’t Hathway let their customers know about this and give them with the choice to opt for it or not? Indeed, it’s up to us—the customers—to make this decision, not Hathway.
What’s the likely chance of returning this collected money in case the customer terminates the contract or connection for any reason and there isn’t a need to use it (corpus amount) to fix their router issue?
This might not be a major deal given the small sum that is being collected each month, but the lack of transparency between Hathway and its customers is a big deal! We choose corporate vendors over local ones because of their openness (transparency) and sense of trust. But if these corporate providers are not transparent, where should we go?
My reactions
No matter how little the amount per month is, I no longer wish to pay for this AMC plan. I value trust more highly than money. If this is the way Hathway works without being transparent with its customers, I’m glad to cut off my connection and switch to another trustworthy service provider.
I have reported this matter (sent an email to customer service and tweeted about it) and also opened a ticket with them to opt out of this so-called AMC plan.
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| Figure 2: My initial tweet. |
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| Figure 3: Hathway’s acknowledgement. |
Takeaways
In this digital world, a great deal of action just goes unnoticed and unperceived by us. When we choose to participate in anything, be sure to thoroughly read any contracts or agreements before signing them. Don’t stop there. Most importantly, we must periodically check to see how they (with whom we signed) are acting in accordance with the terms of our original agreement.
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