Telco 2degrees is being accused of "ghost-updating" a phone plan's terms and conditions online, but the company is playing it down as the simple correction of a "typo".
The company was accused of "trying to screw" over a customer who tried to cancel their plan in a social media post this week, the terms for which originally said customers did not incur a get-out fee after six months.
"In June this year I signed up for a 2degrees pay monthly plan with a 50 percent discount for 6 months. It was an offer for the King's Birthday," the post on Reddit said.
According to the post, the customer allegedly tried to cancel the deal after six months - only to be told there was a get-out fee within nine months.
In a separate post, a fellow Reddit user said they'd taken a snapshot of the terms' web page using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine on December 10.
"Then just now I got a reply on my Wayback comment saying the terms have been ghost updated to say 9 months - and I say ghost updated because the date on the page makes it appear as if the terms haven't been updated in months... and the Wayback snapshot has been deleted (which they do when companies request it)," the post said.
"Unfortunately for 2degrees I'm a bit of a nerd and I know Wayback aren't the only people keeping copies," added the user, sharing a snapshot of Google's cached page of the terms which it said was taken on December 10.
The page, viewed by Newshub on Thursday, said it was last updated on May 29, 2023.
In a statement, a 2degrees spokesperson explained the terms should've originally said 9 months instead of 6.
"Having identified the error in our website terms and conditions, we have now corrected these to make them consistent with all our marketing materials relating to this promotion," the spokesperson said.
"However, should a customer, who signed up while our terms were incorrect in this single place, be unsatisfied with our service and seek to leave after 6 months, we will honour our mistake and not seek to recover any of the discount. It's the fair thing to do."
The customer in the original Reddit post confirmed their fee had since been waived.
But Newshub also asked 2degrees to explain the allegations of ghost-updating and asking for the Wayback snapshot to be deleted, questions that went unanswered.
"The typo (in a single place) was 6 months when it should have said 9 months," the spokesperson responded, adding "we have made this change but will of course honour the six months for people who signed up when the typo was in place".
According to Consumer NZ, if a shop discovers a mistake after a purchase is made, "it generally can't then ask you to pay more. By then, you have a contract".
"The only exception is if you knew the price was a mistake and it was considerably less than it should have been," the watchdog said.
"For example, if a shop assistant only charges you $30 for a pair of sunglasses you knew were $300, you can be asked to make up the difference."
