Watch out for the money grab!
Customers, please please please make sure you look over your first bill from any Vendor. As a matter of fact, please send them to TelecomMedic to check out. While I am at it check every bill that is more than 5% off the norm. The telecommunications landscape is changing. Bigger companies are buying smaller ones, everyone is laying people off and they are all going for the money grab! How do they do this you ask? There are a few tricks I have been seeing lately. Let’s go through them one by one.
· They start billing you before your circuit actually goes live: This one seems to be the latest in the money grab scheme. Let’s say your new fancy Internet circuit gets dropped off on the 1st of the month. Well, a lot of companies will start billing you on that date. The billing should not actually start until you accept the circuit. It might take a couple of days for your IT people to hook up the new circuit and start testing. You should not be paying for that time. Billing should start the day you actually accept the new circuit.
· Another money grab I have been seeing a lot of lately is an old favorite of telecom providers new Surcharges and taxes: Before you sign a contract with anyone please make sure you get a list of their surcharges and taxes. A lot of times things that look like taxes are not. Vendors make things up to look like they are so that no one questions them. I have been asking our vendors to outline all of these charges in the contract and make them provide information on any new ones that pop up over the term of the contract. This way, if anything new pops up out of the blue and they did not inform you first, you do not have to pay for them. This works way better for bigger deals, but you should always ask for it up front.
I recently helped a customer negotiate a $10,000.00 per month dark fiber deal where we asked for this information. We found out that there were going to be an additional $1500.00 of surcharges on this circuit. We told the carrier that we would agree to $8500.00 per month plus taxes but that we were not going to pay 15% per month in surcharges that went directly into the carrier’s pocket. We ended up negotiating a price of $9200.00 per month and stated that no new surcharges could be included for the life of the contract.
Do things like this work out every time? No, but you always have to ask. One of the best sales people that ever worked for me always said, “if ya ain’t got nothing, ya ain’t got nothing to lose.” Never be afraid to ask, remember the only time you can negotiate a contract is before you sign it. Once you sign on the dotted line you have no recourse until that contract expires.
Telecom vendors are doing everything to squeeze an extra buck or two out of their customers. Don’t be a sucker; use TelecomMedic to negotiate your contracts!
In the beginning I told you to look over your first bill. I truly truly mean that. The first bill is always hard to understand because you pay for the first month up front and if you don’t start service on what the Vendor calls their start date you will have pro-rated amounts for partial months. This is done to confuse you and they will put anything in there they can!