Forte/Truscom/Finance

Hi,
We are in the federal court with EFS. Clear are shareholders in the company. You might be tied in with them. Surely there is a case for a breach against trade practice for the association between these parties.
Contact us 0409 491111.

Have solicitors in place come and join us. Have established a fighting fund to soften costs.

We are a small company in Melbourne who have been fighting Clear Telecoms, Fuzion, Quikfund 3Call for in excess of 15 months through Consumer Affairs and TIO without any success. These companies are total rip off merchants who lie through their teeth and somehow get away with it.
28/05/08 Meeting with – Sales Manager – 3 Call
During this meeting we were told:
     Total Cost would be $200.00 per months plus GST of $20.00 – Total amount $220.00
     3Call would take over the phone lines and pay out the account for our current provider Commander. We rang Commander in the presence of Mr. Cannestra and we were given the figure of $819.00 from a Van which he stated included GST.
     We were told that all local calls would be 0.05cents and would be untimed.
     We were told that the $220.00 plus GST would give us $200.00 worth of calls each month and this amount had to be taken from a Credit Card by direct debit.
     We were told that the only other charges would be if we made more than the $200.00 in calls and that any excess calls would be billed separately.
     We had a list of questions and information which we had asked previous Telco companies:
We currently average $502.42 per month for both landlines and mobiles will changing to you company work out cheaper?

Our current line rental is $34.50 per month x 4 lines = $138.00 plus calls – We were told we would only pay the $200.00 plus GST - there was never any mention of any other charges.
Current committed spend for the 4 mobiles calls is $158.18 per month – This was not applicable as we were only looking at the Land Lines.
If we changed over to your company:

Does this include:
1.     Local calls at 0.05c per call – unlimited time?                Yes
2.     Free calls between nominated mobile numbers for no less than 10 minutes?      N/A
3.     Free deposit and pickup of messages from message bank?      N/A
4.     How often are we able to change/upgrade our mobiles?      N/a
5.     Are we able to pay by cheque each month?      Yes – but all you will pay for is extra calls over the $200.00
6.     What is the rate for the mobiles – currently we are paying 0.26 per minute with no connection fee?      N/A
7.     If there is any problem with our equipment do we have to foot the bill? No

So as you can see from this we were told by the Sales Manager, from 3 Call that we would be paying 5 cents per local call - that we would be charged $200.00 per month plus GST Rental (this amount would come from a nominated bank account automatically) and we would receive $200.00 in credits for calls made - at no time was there any mention of any other costing regarding equipment etc. We were told that the land line rentals would be cheaper than Telstra and were given to understand that the $200.00 plus GST taken out of our account would cover these plus some call costs.

They would pay out our current contract with Commander. In order to achieve this we had to sign a contract for 5 years. Due to the fact that our calls were small in nature we were told would not be able to receive any plasma type equipment but the 5 years of the contract would pay for the telephone installations and all set up costs. We were informed that there is no money to be made on phone systems but on the calls themselves for them. When asked how he could do this so cheaply the Sales Manager stated "I am the Sales Manager and the buck stops with me".

At the end of this meeting we were given 3 pages to sign - : We were told that these forms were as to what had been explained to us during the meeting. These forms were all signed on behalf of the business as we were informed that we receive a copy of the contract and there is always a cooling off period.   The list of forms below are what purports to have been signed by the business as we were given a number of areas on forms where we needed to sign by the Sales Manager.

The only form that was returned to us on the day 28 May 2008 was the order number form 1967. We wre informed that the other forms signed were internal work order for the phone system to be installed and an credit application and account direct debit form.   Until this claim has been made we have never sighted any contract of terms and when given same only after this complaint was made we would never have signed the contract as it was more than we were paying with Commander.


     Order No: 1967 for the agreement to pay $200.00 plus GST per month.
Application for Clear Telecoms Communication Telephone Service.
Bundled Rate Card.
Rental Schedule.
     Direct Debit Request.

The Sales Manager told us we would be given a copy of all forms signed on the date at the end of the meeting – which never happened and had he done so we would never have gone ahead with this arrangement. The contract we were told would be sent to us very soon and that somebody else would speak to us in the near future to have the installation of the phones. It was within 1 or 2 days that we were informed that the telephone phones and installation would take place on the following 2nd June 2008.

05/06/08     Email to the Sales Manager asking him to please respond to phone calls made prior to this date.

12/06/08     We emailed out banking details to a person from Fusion email address vicfinance@fusion.org.au so as the $220.00 per month could be taken out. We found out later that it was not Fuzion but a company called Quikfund that was taking the money out.


12/07/08 (approx) Our first account arrived totalling $435.50 charging us 12 cents per local call, $356.55 for Service and Equipment (plus the $220 taken out of the nominated bank account).

When we received the account from Clear Telecom we rang them and queried it - as to why they were billing us and not 3 call who we had signed with and also to the call charges - said they would ring back - never did.

The argument commenced there and we now have a bill which we have not paid of $4259.00 over and above the $220.00 per month which we have been paying as we were advised to do by the TIO during the period of the dispute. The TIO have now stated that we can break out contract with Clear Telecoms for nothing AFTER we pay them the excess monues and with Quikfun if we pay them out somewhere in the vicinity of $13000.00. We are at a stage now of not knowing where to go next - any advice would be appreciated.

I just had a call from a new Telco with the same type of scam. Be careful.

Choicecom Pty Ltd
www.choicecom.com.au
abn 63 133 941 643
Commenced on 29/10/2008
Changed company name on 2/2/2009 from Citrix Networks Pty Ltd

I wonder if they are the same Directors as one of the already Bankrupt companies?

Cheers
Greg

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