ISP trouble/advice

Factual Questions
1

First the background.

My fiancée and I use two different ISP’s. Since she had prepaid for the next year when she moved in with me we decided to keep both of them. Last week her ISP went out of business. She received an e-mail from them on March 19th. This e-mail said that effective the 14th they would be winding down operations and allow another ISP to service their Denver customers. All of her account information was moved over to this new ISP’s database. The e-mail also said that she would be billed $15 effective the 14th… Keep in mind this note was not received until the 19th. When we try to contact someone at the old ISP they had a temp answering all phones who said that no one was there to talk to. When we call the new ISP they only ask for a name and callback number. Looking over the website for the new ISP it is identical to the old one, with a new logo slapped on it. We are worried because this new ISP is billing her card without her authorization, indeed without her even giving them her card number. They billed her before she was even made aware of this change. She sent an email off to the indicated address asking to have her account deactivated and not billed anymore. There has been no response and her account is still active. The charge that was on the card has not been refunded.

Now the question.

Is this something that is legally actionable? Is it worth pursuing? What do we do now? We have contacted the credit card company and they recommended a new card with a new number to prevent them billing and we could dispute the charge from this month.

I appreciate any thoughts on this as well as legal opinions. Thanks in advance!

John

2

This is strictly my opinion, so go with it as you will.

She pre-paid for services, a new company has since taken over, they also have taken over previous contracts. I have seen this before with a company that I worked for, a company that takes over another for what ever reason usually is bound by the original terms of the first company’s contract unless it was explicitly stated in the original contract.

With that in mind, contact the credit card company/bank to dispute the charges. Usually they will suspend the charges and will require a letter of explanation in return.

If nothing else, since you already have service, quit her service and dispute the charges in full.

Again, that’s my opinion, but a company that has taken over another usually is bound by the contracts of the original one.