DISPUTE BETWEEN MS. DESSHERN TUCKER AND CABLE AND WIRELESS (FLOW)
- Complaint
Ms. Desshern Tucker of Roseau Sion Hill filed a complaint form 1 against Cable and Wireless SVG (T/A “Flow”) on July 19, 2022, claiming that she was double charged on July 8, 2022, when using the Flow mobile app to settle charges on her postpaid account. Ms. Tucker stated that she made an attempt to pay $500.00 on the bill which had a total of $674.92 but was unsuccessful after receiving a payment error. She claimed she went through the procedure again after checking her internet banking. After the second attempt, she received a notification from FLOW indicating that one payment had been received, despite the fact that her online bank statement showed two pending payments to FLOW. According to Ms. Tucker, she informed the bank that only one of the payments was approved, and that the other should be reversed. Ms. Tucker stated that she also tried calling the FLOW’s virtual store WhatsApp number (784-494-5464) but was unsuccessful because the employee was unhelpful. The bank representative then stated that she would reverse the first payment and after realizing the difficulty Ms. Tucker was having with resolving the issue through Flow’s agents. After that, Ms. Tucker said that she had assumed that the issue had been settled at that point.
Ms. Tucker added that on July 11, 2022, at 11:21 a.m., she received a text alert about a second $500 payment to her FLOW account, which she did not process or authorize. She checked her bank account right away and saw there was no pending payment from the bank.
At 10:45 p.m. on July 13, 2022, Ms. Tucker checked her bank account once more and discovered that the bank had taken $500 without her permission and paid it to FLOW under the justification that FLOW had requested both payments. As a result, FLOW received $1000 in total from her BOSVG account. Ms. Tucker reaffirmed that she never gave the bank authority to release the second $500 payment to FLOW and that she never authorized it. She stated that FLOW credited her account and applied the excess amount as a credit to the bill which was due to be generated on July 29, 2022. Ms. Tucker stated that the $500 in unauthorized monies were planned to cover other expenses in her budget for the month of July. She became even more frustrated as a result of not being able to pay several institutions that month. She therefore filed to complaint to seek the assistance of NTRC to ensure FLOW refunded her $500.00 that was not authorized.
On July 21, 2022, Ms. Tucker contacted Mr. Hull, the general manager of Flow, through email. She was then sent to Ms. Kimisha Horne, who assured her that the refund request had already been sent to FLOW’s finance team for processing and that the check had not yet been written. FLOW said that they would check back internally to find out an estimated pick-up date for the check.
According to Ms. Tucker, from July 21, 2022, and the time she sent the email to NTRC on August 22, 2022, FLOW did not contact her once more or provide her with any new information on the refund.
On August 29, 2022, Ms. Tucker filed a complaint form 2 to the NTRC requesting the commission review documents and make a decision.
2. Decision of the Tribunal
Based on the cases put forward by both Ms. Tucker and Flow the tribunal decided that they would deliberate further on the matter and issue a decision on the matter at a later date.