The price of FREEdom
January 19th, 2010 | Published in Comment, Features, Info & Advice | 12 Comments
Freebox: Photo Martin Menu
Grenoble Life editor James Dalrymple has one piece of advice for readers hoping to set up an internet connection in France: don’t use Free. Here’s why.
One of the first considerations when setting up home in a new country is getting an internet connection, nowadays almost as essential a utility as gas, electricity and water. When I arrived, one company dominated combined phone and internet packages: Free - seemingly the only good value alternative to France Telecom at the time. Now there are better value options on the market, but extricating yourself from your contract with Free is not as simple as it should be, to say the least.
Customer service in France often leaves a lot to be desired, but Free goes beyond the normal depersonalised call centre experience to seemingly deliberate efforts to overcharge and stonewall customers that have spawned large internet communities of unhappy punters and consumer associations, but has not apparently done enough to make Free contemplate their reputation.
A Free account is relatively easy to set up, but when you want to cancel your contract, they require you to return the Freebox router by post. All very well, except for the fact that – in our case, and that of many others – receipt of the box is not acknowledged, even if you have paid for a registered delivery service which enables you to track the package by internet to its destination. Free don’t receive the boxes themselves, but subcontract this task to a logistics company.
When Free disputed receipt of the box, our enquiries at the Post office were met with the response (or something to this effect) “Free do this all the time.” Angry consumers in numerous web forums support this, as does the existence of an association named Freeks, dedicated to helping customers untangle themselves from unpleasant disputes with Free, among other internet companies, and who list ‘mediation’ with Free as one of their services. This leads one to suspect Free are quite aware of the situation many of its customers find themselves in, and it is not just a case of logistical inefficiency.
Having claimed that they never received the box, Free then demand that you send them proof of dispatch (i.e., the receipt for registered post) by fax. That’s right, an internet service provider who communicate by fax - everybody’s favourite 21st century means of contact. It gets worse. There is evidently only one fax machine, apparently located at a call centre in Eastern Europe, which is engaged for large periods of the day. As if people don’t have better things to do than spend entire working days trying to send the equivalent of cyber bog roll to the other side of the continent.
Further still, the company insist that you call them within two hours of having sent the fax (assuming you have been able to get through), on a premium rate number. Finally, when we reached the call centre by phone, the operator was both vague and reluctant as to whether they had received the fax – maybe try again tomorrow? (another day loitering by the fax machine, more premium rate numbers). Only on being pressed did the unhelpful operator admit to receiving all the pages of the fax, but claimed it was illegible. Of course it’s illegible, it’s a fax! … we wanted to scream.
It’s a Catch-22, for if we hadn’t rung the bank to halt the direct debit we would probably still be in some daily fax-rage limbo while we almost certainly continued to pay for a service that we are not receiving, and have no wish to receive. We have written to complain to Free’s Customer Services, a postal-only service in France, and they have accepted the end of the contract, but not receipt of the box. They are demanding payment for a additional month’s subscription, and are still asking for the box back, which apparently costs around 400 euro.
Unfortunately you can fight with your principles but short of getting the consumer associations interested, you run the risk that Free will sell the debt on to debt-collection agencies, which really isn’t funny. It’s all over the web, from customers in the same situation as me, to those who never received the box in the first place, and have been paying for a product that was never delivered.
Thus, if you are a new arrival to the country hoping to choose an internet supplier, I strongly recommend that you opt for one of the alternatives. For example Numéricable, the optic fibre cable company, offer a faster connection and a basic telephone and internet package which costs around 20 euro a month, at the time of writing 10 euro less than Free. Numéricable at least have offices in Grenoble with human beings to whom you can speak face to face – which is reassuring – and send a technician to install and remove the router. I haven’t had the pleasure of having to close a Numéricable account, but it can’t be worse than my experience with Free.
Please use the comments box below to share your experiences, good and bad, with internet and phone providers. I hope that this word of warning might help other customers avoid falling into the same trap.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:56 pm (#)
I have had only positive experiences with both Neufbox and Alicebox (now owned by SFR). Neuf can be slow in setting the connection up at first but the connection is fast and it’s easy to cancel the contract at the end, change the name on the contract, or even transfer the contract to your new address.
The one good thing about Alice was the speed at which they set the connection up. We contacted them a week in advance, received our box quickly and our connection was working two hours after the old one was cut!
One thing to check for is the cost of closing an account. Some companies charge up to €80, and others only €40!
A friend of mine swears by “Dartybox”, which you can order and arrange by popping into one of the various Darty shops around town (notably at Grand Place, or in St. Martin D’Hères, hear Castorama and Ikea).
January 20th, 2010 at 11:25 am (#)
thank you James for this information … I want to cancel my free account … Arrghh !! am I doing to do it after that ???
January 20th, 2010 at 12:16 pm (#)
I had a similar experience five years ago with Free. Three months of paying and not actually having the internet. After hundreds of calls, complaints, letters etc. I finally cancelled my direct debit. I received two threatening letters and then they never said another word. Doesn’t look like they have any intention of improving! I’ve been with Orange ever since … they’re quite possibly more expensive than other providers, but I’ve always been happy with their customer service.
January 20th, 2010 at 5:18 pm (#)
Thanks for your comments guys.
Woody – thanks for the other suggestions
Suzanne – I recommend that you send the box back “recommandé avec accusé de réception”. I sent it just “recommandé” but without the “accusé de réception”. I’m not sure if this will help but it’s worth a try.
Anna – I suppose it’s reassuring to know that Free gave up in the end, thanks for letting me know.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:17 am (#)
I pay premium prices for Orange, which is owned by France Telecom, and their customer service isn’t great either (of course it is outsourced and the quality of the help you get depends on who answers the call). However, they have one big affliate advantage that worked in my favor. I have frequent problems with the phone lines out in my tiny village. When the LiveBox randomly quit working for hours at a time, I called for help. Orange and France Telecom passed me back and forth quite a bit, and ultimately a total of 15 technicians over 3 months, from both Orange and FT, came out to puzzle over the problem. But they did come, and they eventually found a fix. Services not affiliated with FT can claim that the problem is with the phone line – and then it’s up to you to coordinate with FT, who will tell you that the problem is with your internet box…
January 30th, 2010 at 4:12 pm (#)
This is a very timely article for me. I followed all the right steps to unsubscribe and have an AR to prove I sent the box (well it proves I sent something). And Free denies having sent it. I’ve talked to them on the phone several times and have sent them email. I’ve decided to let them sue me. They have a reputation for making it impossible to unsubscribe, so I’m going to take my chances.
Anybody have experience with being sued by Free (or the huissiers they use)? The amount is only around 75 euros.
January 30th, 2010 at 4:24 pm (#)
Hi Pat,
It looks like we’re in the same boat.
Apparently when Free claim for the cost of the box they claim 400 euros.
Like you I have my proof and I think we should refuse on principle.
I’ll add a comment to this article when/if I have any news on that.
Stay in touch,
James
January 30th, 2010 at 9:59 pm (#)
As I understand it Orange are obliged to remain more expensive than the competition for as long as they have over 50% market share. This is to give newcomers the chance to build up a customer base in the face of the domination of the former state monopoly. That said, my experience has been that Orange continually lowers its prices to keep just slightly above the competition. I have had problems with Liveboxes and I have always been able to speak to a technician very quickly. It’s sometimes been a little tortuous, but in each case they have replaced the box. So yes, they are more expensive, but when things go wrong they behave like a grown up company.
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:04 pm (#)
Hi Pat,
There was an Envoyée Special on tv the other night about Free and various other companies like it. Apparently there are lawyers who mediate in these cases and can sort it out over the phone in five minutes, and they can get you compensation for your troubles and have the company pay your legal costs. They know who to speak to at the company headquarters. It may not be necessary to go to court, especially if you have all your proof.
The implication of the programme was that cases likes yours and mine are due to disorganisation and inefficiency on the part of the company, not a deliberate attempt to rip you off. I’m not so sure about that, since Orange/France Telecom were the only company which permitted cameras in its call centres. It seemed the others had something to hide.
If anyone knows any more about lawyers who can mediate in such disputes please let us know …
April 9th, 2010 at 4:26 pm (#)
Update:
Free have finally acknoweleged receipt of the Freebox but their outstanding demand for payment of the final month’s subscription fee (which we don’t owe) has been transferred to a debt collection agency named ‘Effico’.
Effico has sent us a letter threatening to take us to court, but given the small amount of money involved (33.99 euro) we have decided to pay it. We are still planning to look into reclaiming this money from Free, however, with the help of a mediator (see above). I will post a comment when I know more about this process.
April 9th, 2010 at 4:46 pm (#)
This is interesting. I think we have a basis for a class action law suit; but as far as I know, that doesn’t exist in France.
My story is slightly different from yours. The slight difference is they never acknowledge the receipt of my Freebox.
In other respects I seem to be about four months ahead of you on the process, so maybe my experience can help. They put a collection agency on me. I think the agency was different. I’d like to say, the agency they put on me was named something like “Ineffico”, because that’s what they were. But I’m afraid I can’t remember the name.
Anyway, they bark an awful lot, but they don’t bite. They don’t have a leg to stand on. Some lady from the agency gave me a call once or twice and I told her that they should go ahead and suit me. She made some threatening remarks (that scared me so much, I can’t remember what they were).
To make a short story long, it fizzled out and they never did more than send threatening letters and make obnoxious calls.
Enjoy it while it lasts, but definitely don’t let them scare you into paying. I’m sure we can find a few hundred people in Grenoble who have similar experiences and can testify in your defense.
May 1st, 2010 at 11:03 am (#)
UPDATE:
Well, having paid the debt collecting agency Effico the 33.99 euro just to get them off our back (this was the sum of one month’s Free subscription for January which we didn’t really owe them because we had attempted to cancel the contract before then, with difficulty – see above) we are now receiving bills from Free and Effico for apparently random amounts of money.
It is not written on the bill what the amounts are for: we would have to call up a presumably premium rate number for the priviledge of finding out, which of course I’m not going to do. Luckily they don’t seem to have made a note of our new address or telephone number – the bills have been coming via redirected post from our old flat.
Anyway, I am now going to adopt Pat and Anna’s advice and just ignore all correspondence from both Free and Effico. They can threaten to take us to court if they want but I seriosuly doubt this would be in their interests given the low sums they are demanding, and the fact they don’t have a leg to stand on.
I can only reiterate what an unpleasant and entirely unneccessary hassle its been dealing with Free and strongly recommend others not to do the same. Why this industry is not better regulated is a mystery …