Breathe help themselves to my money.

[Wulnoth]

I had a Gioserve account (same as Activeware) and when they got into difficulties Breathe stepped into the breach and offered to honour any outstanding contract.

I thought, "a generous gesture which would undoubtedly earn them some extra customers".

When my contract with Gioserve ran out Breathe stopped my service ; it didn't matter as I had already signed up with another gang of cowboys.

That was in early June, I was grateful to them for their service and assumed (my advice never assume anything) that they and I had gone our separate ways without recriminations.

On 26th September, nearly four months later, out of the blue, I received an email informing me that they were about to debit my credit card (bearing in mind that I had never given Breathe my credit card details) for a years internet provision.


I can't believe I am the only person they've done this to, so please join this thread and let's expose this fraud.

[Kits]

You need to contact the credit card company that this would be an unauthorised withdrawl from your account. Also if they do take the money contact trading standards.

Good luck

[Wulnoth]

Hya KITS , yes it's me again, I've not finished dealing with Fast4 and the company I moved to Fast4 from, empty my wallet.

I'm beginning to think it's me, well carelessness anyway.

I have contacted trading standards and I think I will be contacting The Data Protection Agency, I'm sure there's been a breach as I didn't give Breathe my details.


I'm using Euro1Net broadband now and I'm delighted with it, but I'm sure I'll be suing them soon.

[BreatheRep]

Following the difficulties Gio Internet and Activeware got into, Breathe offered to honour customers contracts by allowing these users to signup with breathe. The only way such users got into our billing system was by completing a special registration process for Gio Internet and Activeware users, which included asking for a valid credit card. At no point was any previous financial data on any Gio Internet or Activeware users imported into Breathe's billing system.

The anniversary dates for user's annual products were supplied by Gio Internet and these were the dates we have used for the date billing commences. This was made clear on the registration process and also in several emails that were sent out to the userbase.

Your claim that we have behaved fraudulently is false. In the main we have had a lot of favourable comments from users about Breathe honouring their outstanding contracts, which we were under no obligation to do so. We have even supported email services at no cost to users who have not migrated across to us.

To cancel an account, migrated users need to contact our customer services before their anniversary date and they would be not charged. This was made clear in letters that were sent out as well as emails and wording on the actual registration pages.

[ManOfMeans]

Originally Posted by BreatheRep

Following the difficulties Gio Internet and Activeware got into, Breathe offered to honour customers contracts by allowing these users to signup with breathe. The only way such users got into our billing system was by completing a special registration process for Gio Internet and Activeware users, which included asking for a valid credit card. At no point was any previous financial data on any Gio Internet or Activeware users imported into Breathe's billing system.

The anniversary dates for user's annual products were supplied by Gio Internet and these were the dates we have used for the date billing commences. This was made clear on the registration process and also in several emails that were sent out to the userbase.

Your claim that we have behaved fraudulently is false. In the main we have had a lot of favourable comments from users about Breathe honouring their outstanding contracts, which we were under no obligation to do so. We have even supported email services at no cost to users who have not migrated across to us.

To cancel an account, migrated users need to contact our customer services before their anniversary date and they would be not charged. This was made clear in letters that were sent out as well as emails and wording on the actual registration pages.

So you getting credit card details of the customer from a 3rd party without the customers knoledge or concent is legal? I wouldnt like to be in your shoes if it went to court.

[akbray]

Originally Posted by BreatheRep

The only way such users got into our billing system was by completing a special registration process for Gio Internet and Activeware users, which included asking for a valid credit card. At no point was any previous financial data on any Gio Internet or Activeware users imported into Breathe's billing system.

How is getting a user to fill in a page asking for valid card details using a 3rd party - my reading is that the user has to enter their card details on a special page for former Gio/Active users, not that Breathe recieved card details directly from Gio

[Pimpernel]

Originally Posted by akbray

How is getting a user to fill in a page asking for valid card details using a 3rd party - my reading is that the user has to enter their card details on a special page for former Gio/Active users, not that Breathe recieved card details directly from Gio

It's beyond me how anyone could read it differently!!!!!!!!

[phill]

Just dispute the transaction with your card provider, if you have already migrated away then breathe should be aware of this.

It does seem to imply they are incapable of tracking customers and have no idea who is an active customer or otherwise, which seems rather odd...

I think you should also confirm that rather than your contract running out and service being stopped by breathe, that you did not just simply migrate away to another provider. You should be very careful before brandishing accusations about the place and be fully aware of all the facts!

If your contract did not end and you simply migrated away to another provider then you are being very unjust to breathe and making accusations of fraud in a public forum is really not a very good idea.

[speedy0308]

Originally Posted by ManOfMeans

So you getting credit card details of the customer from a 3rd party without the customers knoledge or concent is legal? I wouldnt like to be in your shoes if it went to court.

This whole thing reminds me of Paul hesketh and his merry crew from vital data and the affinity internet fiasco. A couple of years back I was registered to a reseller of affinty services and due to Affinity / ( breathe ) going bust I transfered to another provider yet my credit card kept being billed and at the wind up I had to cancel the card. This was all done under the name of vital data who I never authorised to take money from my card. They still owe me around £100 which I know I will never see again. I think if you do enough digging around you will find that Breathe / affinity / vital data are all tied togther in some nasty way. Personally something should be done about companies transfering cvredit card details to other compnaies without the end users permission.

heres some info on breathe.com

-------------------

Domain Administrator, Breathe Internet Ltd, Victoria House, 64 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NG, UK

This was the address used by Affinity internet.

Also VItal data the company who screwed all the resellers of affinity and their customers

vitalregistration.com


{Owner Contact Details}

Domain Administrator, Breathe Internet Ltd, Victoria House, 64 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NG, UK

{Creation} 9 May 2003
{Expiry} 9 May 2006
{Updated} 1 February 2005


Summer 2003 was when all the sh!t hit the fan with Affinity internet who transffered end user billing details to Vital data.

---------------------------------

You have to be carefull on which ISP you regsiter with - will be interesting what the Breathe Rep will reply with to my coments.

[BreatheRep]

There still seems to be some confusion regarding the Gio Internet to Breathe offer, so to clarify things further.

At no point was any previous financial data imported into our billing engine or was any credit card data used by breathe. The Data Protection Act was followed impeccably. In order to comply with the DPA, a temporary registration system was set up with details of users email address, email password, product details and anniversary date only. Users were then emailed and sent a letter in the post informing them of Breathe’s offer. For users of annual products, this meant that we would honour the outstanding time on their contracts, which was important as the Gio Internet ports were turned off a few days later. This meant these users would lose all Internet connectivity through Gio Internet. Monthly subscribed users were offered 2 months free.

In order for a Gio Internet user to sign up for this offer, they first had to sign in with their correct email address and password on breathe’s temporary registration page. If this was successful, then the following page informed the user of their product and what date they would next be billed. After that a valid credit card was called for, and if that was accepted, then and only then, was the user inserted into our billing engine. This was the only way breathe obtained user's credit card details. Of course, users were not obliged to signup to breathe.

Once on the breathe service, at any point the user could stop the service and not be charged on their anniversary date. We would have to have been informed first and any user that simply stopped using the service and not told us would still be charged on their anniversary date. The letter and emails clearly specified this and it is unfair to breathe if a user simply stopped using the service and expected not to be charged because of this. If the original poster feels that they did phone in and cancelled but we did not recognise this, then please call our customer services on 0870 7473970 and we will be happy to investigate this.

We do monitor these forums and try to keep abreast of any problems that may exist and are happy to try and resolve these problems, but we do feel in this circumstances there have been some quite harsh comments that are totally unjustified. There has also been some very responsible replies, so thank you for those, it is appreciated.

Incidentally, on the off-thread comments, Net Access owns Breathe and several other ISP's. Paul Hesketh ran a company called Net Acquisitions that was under contract to run Breathe and various other ISP's on Net Access's behalf. In April 2004, Net Access took back control of these ISP's and has since controlled them in house. Since then, Net Access has invested heavily in a major billing system that went live at the start of this year. This system has been very successful and we no longer have any significant billing problems and have not had any for some time.