Dial-up-access in Europe

chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn
wrote:

I know that France
and the Netherlands have similar types of numbers, but I don't know what
the charging structure is for them.

We also have the trick of "false" local calls. A *real* local call to a
real geographic number in 01, 02, 03, 04 or 05 in your local zone is
0.11 euro for connection then a rate per minute depending on your
operator. It varies from 1 to 2,4 eurocents a minute.

A call to "local Internet number" in 08 92 - which end-landline you
don't know - is 0.11 euro for connection then 2,4 euro cents per minute.
And apart from a few exceptions they're charged by France Télécom.

Even if you find the real geographical number of the ISP's modem, the
ISP will not allow a PPP connection to establish unless you're calling
from a mobile phone-modem.

Since "unlimited" calls are now available on French PCTN with some
operators, that's a way to ensure people don't use dial-up access for
free: 08 92 numbers are not included in the "free" numbers.

It's even scarcer with VoIP free phone lines that DSL providers offer:
they simply can't carry modem signal. Neither they can have a fax
working...

Cheers


Stanislas


--
inversez "kertanguy" et "de" pour me joindre

nitram [on Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:24:35 +0200] wrote:

Tiscali reserve the right to change contract conditions at any time.

....in which case, by National Consumers Laws, you have the right to
immediately - and without costs - terminate the contract.


--
Low Countries By Bike - http://lowcountriesbybike.info
Riding on two wheels in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany

nitram [on Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:24:35 +0200] wrote:

Tiscali reserve the right to change contract conditions at any time.

....in which case, by National Consumers Laws, you have the right to
immediately - and without costs - terminate the contract.


--
Low Countries By Bike - http://lowcountriesbybike.info
Riding on two wheels in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany

I spend about 5 mos./yr. in France and access the internet for email
only using an Orange cell and Compuserve. I use the IR on the phone
and laptop (no wires) for the connection. To the best of my knowledge,
Compuserve is the only international ISP that has a non (0)8 number
that can be dialed from a cell. Compuserve does not publish this
access number and many Compuserve "consultants" have told me that it
does not exist. Nevertheless... All cell calls in France have the
same charge and the number, in Paris, is good all over the country.
The monthly fee for this service with Compuserve is less than $10 US.
You pay for the cell time, of course, but just for email, that is
minimal and I simply buy the mobicartes locally. Be advised that there
are 2 kinds of Compuserve and the one with this service is the "old"
Compuserve Classic, not the Compuserve 2000.

I spend about 5 mos./yr. in France and access the internet for email
only using an Orange cell and Compuserve. I use the IR on the phone
and laptop (no wires) for the connection. To the best of my knowledge,
Compuserve is the only international ISP that has a non (0)8 number
that can be dialed from a cell. Compuserve does not publish this
access number and many Compuserve "consultants" have told me that it
does not exist. Nevertheless... All cell calls in France have the
same charge and the number, in Paris, is good all over the country.
The monthly fee for this service with Compuserve is less than $10 US.
You pay for the cell time, of course, but just for email, that is
minimal and I simply buy the mobicartes locally. Be advised that there
are 2 kinds of Compuserve and the one with this service is the "old"
Compuserve Classic, not the Compuserve 2000.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 19:26:54 +0200, nitram wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 17:35:49 +0200, Erick T. Barkhuis
wrote:

nitram [on Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:24:35 +0200] wrote:

Tiscali reserve the right to change contract conditions at any time.

...in which case, by National Consumers Laws, you have the right to
immediately - and without costs - terminate the contract.

Well I would have done if I'd known that Tiscali NL, can legally
inform me of changes of conditions by posting notes to what I
considered was a dead e-mail account.

I find it outrageous that when a direct debit authority given to
another bankrupt company has been cancelled, a take over company can
use the information about my bank account to extract money from my
bank account, without consulting me or me giving them authority. My
bank did recover the money, when I complained.
The Dutch have a long way to go in consumer law. For a start when a
contract reaches the end of a period the default should be terminate,
not automatically extend by default for another period and if a
company thinks it can do things by e-mail legally than the customer
should have the same rights. A company purchasing another company
should not be able to access and use private information held in a
database without the customers permission. I was particularly upset
that somebody in the Dutch Consumenten Bond gave me the impression
that my case was unique, only for the CA to publish recently that they
had had a record number of complaints about the behaviour of Dutch
ISPs when they asked for comments.

I would like to know where this doesn't happen! Personally, I NEVER
EVER pay for a service like this with a card after having a similar
thing happen in the UK a few years ago. And yes, when I kicked up a
fuss, they acted like it was the only time it had ever happened. I
demanded a written explanation from someone of director level, which I
was assured I would get, and never heard from them again.

To make it even more interesting, they can even request payment from a
card that has expired, and your bank might just allow the transaction.
It happened to me.

(*resists the urge to say the bank name*)
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 19:26:54 +0200, nitram wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 17:35:49 +0200, Erick T. Barkhuis
wrote:

nitram [on Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:24:35 +0200] wrote:

Tiscali reserve the right to change contract conditions at any time.

...in which case, by National Consumers Laws, you have the right to
immediately - and without costs - terminate the contract.

Well I would have done if I'd known that Tiscali NL, can legally
inform me of changes of conditions by posting notes to what I
considered was a dead e-mail account.

I find it outrageous that when a direct debit authority given to
another bankrupt company has been cancelled, a take over company can
use the information about my bank account to extract money from my
bank account, without consulting me or me giving them authority. My
bank did recover the money, when I complained.
The Dutch have a long way to go in consumer law. For a start when a
contract reaches the end of a period the default should be terminate,
not automatically extend by default for another period and if a
company thinks it can do things by e-mail legally than the customer
should have the same rights. A company purchasing another company
should not be able to access and use private information held in a
database without the customers permission. I was particularly upset
that somebody in the Dutch Consumenten Bond gave me the impression
that my case was unique, only for the CA to publish recently that they
had had a record number of complaints about the behaviour of Dutch
ISPs when they asked for comments.

I would like to know where this doesn't happen! Personally, I NEVER
EVER pay for a service like this with a card after having a similar
thing happen in the UK a few years ago. And yes, when I kicked up a
fuss, they acted like it was the only time it had ever happened. I
demanded a written explanation from someone of director level, which I
was assured I would get, and never heard from them again.

To make it even more interesting, they can even request payment from a
card that has expired, and your bank might just allow the transaction.
It happened to me.

(*resists the urge to say the bank name*)
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 19:26:54 +0200, nitram wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 17:35:49 +0200, Erick T. Barkhuis
wrote:

nitram [on Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:24:35 +0200] wrote:

Tiscali reserve the right to change contract conditions at any time.

...in which case, by National Consumers Laws, you have the right to
immediately - and without costs - terminate the contract.

Well I would have done if I'd known that Tiscali NL, can legally
inform me of changes of conditions by posting notes to what I
considered was a dead e-mail account.

I find it outrageous that when a direct debit authority given to
another bankrupt company has been cancelled, a take over company can
use the information about my bank account to extract money from my
bank account, without consulting me or me giving them authority. My
bank did recover the money, when I complained.
The Dutch have a long way to go in consumer law. For a start when a
contract reaches the end of a period the default should be terminate,
not automatically extend by default for another period and if a
company thinks it can do things by e-mail legally than the customer
should have the same rights. A company purchasing another company
should not be able to access and use private information held in a
database without the customers permission. I was particularly upset
that somebody in the Dutch Consumenten Bond gave me the impression
that my case was unique, only for the CA to publish recently that they
had had a record number of complaints about the behaviour of Dutch
ISPs when they asked for comments.

I would like to know where this doesn't happen! Personally, I NEVER
EVER pay for a service like this with a card after having a similar
thing happen in the UK a few years ago. And yes, when I kicked up a
fuss, they acted like it was the only time it had ever happened. I
demanded a written explanation from someone of director level, which I
was assured I would get, and never heard from them again.

To make it even more interesting, they can even request payment from a
card that has expired, and your bank might just allow the transaction.
It happened to me.

(*resists the urge to say the bank name*)
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 22:40:31 GMT, Deep Foiled Malls
wrote:

|To make it even more interesting, they can even request payment from a
|card that has expired, and your bank might just allow the transaction.
|It happened to me.

Not on dial-up, but ccs.

I rented a car one-way Edinburgh-Oxford, good price, Peugot 307. On
pick-up they gave me a large Vauxhall - I didn't mind (although I
would have preferred the smaller car for the back lanes in the
country), and they were all cheerful about the free up-grade.

Obviously, they wanted me to ferry the car south.

No problems, we wandered for a week, returned the car in good order
with a full tank, and forgot about it.

As soon as our world trip was over, we deliberately cancelled the
cards used for the trip and transferred to new ones with the same
bank. We thought this would stop any problems. Wrong.

Months later I received an Adobe.pdf invoice by email - showing that
my cc had been debited more than double by the car rental company (for
the "free" upgrade) - and the bank had paid up and debited my new
card.

It took many emails and international phone calls before I got a
re-credit, compensation and an apology from the car-hire company. The
bank informed me that all closed credit cards are actually still
current for 12 months after closure for late debits.


Cheers, Alan, Australia

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 22:40:31 GMT, Deep Foiled Malls
wrote:

|To make it even more interesting, they can even request payment from a
|card that has expired, and your bank might just allow the transaction.
|It happened to me.

Not on dial-up, but ccs.

I rented a car one-way Edinburgh-Oxford, good price, Peugot 307. On
pick-up they gave me a large Vauxhall - I didn't mind (although I
would have preferred the smaller car for the back lanes in the
country), and they were all cheerful about the free up-grade.

Obviously, they wanted me to ferry the car south.

No problems, we wandered for a week, returned the car in good order
with a full tank, and forgot about it.

As soon as our world trip was over, we deliberately cancelled the
cards used for the trip and transferred to new ones with the same
bank. We thought this would stop any problems. Wrong.

Months later I received an Adobe.pdf invoice by email - showing that
my cc had been debited more than double by the car rental company (for
the "free" upgrade) - and the bank had paid up and debited my new
card.

It took many emails and international phone calls before I got a
re-credit, compensation and an apology from the car-hire company. The
bank informed me that all closed credit cards are actually still
current for 12 months after closure for late debits.


Cheers, Alan, Australia