Late Payment Fee Increase

From 1 August 2010, Compass will charge customers who do not pay their bills on time an increased Late Payment Fee of $11.   

For the majority of our customers who pay their bills on time, thank you.  This increase won’t affect you.  But for those who don’t - the cost of chasing payments is significant and will need to be passed on.  This $11 charge is intended as a serious deterrent against not paying on time for the services used.  Both Telecom and Telstra Clear have also increased their late payment fees in the last year to reflect this growing cost to service providers.

Any customer who struggles with timely payments can set up a direct debit from a nominated bank account or register their credit card for automatic payments.  You still get an invoice to check your charges, but we make the payment for you before the due date.  You can download the forms here.

Standard Terms and Conditions

1. As a customer of Compass Communications these standard terms form the basis of Compass Communications’ contract with you. Our binding contract with you also includes your written application form or the recorded voice verification of your verbal commitment to transfer your services to Compass at the prices applicable at the time. If you use our internet, wireless or mobile services, then the Terms and Conditions specific to those services included at the end of this section will also apply and form part of our contract with you.
2. We may amend our prices, terms and conditions from time to time as updated on our website www.compass.net.nz or notified to you in writing. Any change in the prevailing rate of GST will result in a corresponding change to quoted rates/prices regardless of any term contract that may be in place at the time. Compass calculates call costs by taking our quoted rate, multiplying by the call duration, and rounding up to the nearest whole cent. Price lists or copies of our terms and conditions are available from us, upon request or from our website. Such amendments will vary our contract with you. We may interpret your ongoing use of our services after that date as constituting your acceptance of the amendments.
3. In this contract we use the terms “Compass Communications”, “we”, “our”, and “us” to refer to Compass Communications, “you” and “your” to refer to the person on our application form as our customer, and “services” to refer all or any tolls, phone line, internet, mobile or other services we provide to you under this contract. Headings in this contract do not affect their interpretation.

Our commitment of service to you:
4. Once you are connected to our network(s) we aim to provide you with consistently reliable and good quality services. Services can be affected by radio interference, atmospheric conditions, outages, maintenance or congestion. We do not guarantee that the service we provide will be perfect at all times, nor can we guarantee the integrity of data sent or received via the services. If and when any of your services are disrupted we will do our best to reinstate our services to you as soon as we can.
5. From time to time there may be changes to the ways in which you can access our network, and we will advise you of any such changes to your access in advance of them taking place.
6. The services we supply to you will be supplied to you in whatever way we think is appropriate. We can choose the carriers used to provide our services and we can change the carriers at our discretion.
7. Compass Communications’ Help Desk is available 8am to 9pm every day on Toll free phone: 0800 640 840 or Toll free fax: 0800 279 333

Your general responsibilities:
8. You agree that you will:
a) pay for all goods and services we provide to you, regardless of whether it is you who uses them.
b) be aware that some internet sites may have embedded within them the ability to program your modem to dial overseas numbers without your knowledge or direction if your computer is inactive for a period of time. You are liable for any charges arising from such calls. We accept no liability for such charges.
c) ensure that all of the information you give us is correct and complete.
d) comply with any legal requirements concerning the use of our services.
e) comply with any requirements of any other carrier in relation to the use of its network.
f) ensure that you, or anyone else who uses the services uses them only for the purpose for which they are provide.
g) ensure that you, or anyone else who uses the services follows our instructions for use of the services and abides by the terms of this agreement.
h) ensure that no services or products of Compass are resold without the express permission of Compass.
i) ensure that you, or anyone else who uses the services that we provide to you, do not use these services for any abusive, illegal or fraudulent activity.
j) do everything necessary to enable us to use and take over responsibility for your services, accounts and phone numbers to the extent this is necessary or desirable to enable us to provide our service to you.
k) provide reasonable access to our employees and contractors and representatives authorised by us or any other carrier to carry out any work required for the commencement, operation and continuance of our service to you, and the maintenance of our network or the network of any other carrier. We will normally carry out this work by appointment and during normal working hours. If we ask to perform the work at any other time you are not obliged to provide us with the access we require.
l) if required by us, pay us a bond or provide us with other comfort of your ability to pay our charges. If you pay us a bond it will not accrue interest and we will repay it to you when our contract ends, provided you have paid us everything you owe us at that time.
9.(a) You are responsible for ensuring that all calls or other communications (collectively, ‘calls’) specifically or inadvertently directed into our network from your communications equipment or systems (including but not limited to telephone, mobile phone, facsimile, PABX or computer software or hardware) relate to services you have ordered from us and services we have agreed to provide to you. You must ensure no ‘calls’ directed onto our network relate to services you have agreed to take from another carrier, and that you have no pre-programmed calling procedures installed on or linked to your equipment or systems.
9.(b). If the obligations in (a) above are not complied with you will be liable for our charges in conveying or dealing with such calls and we accept no liability for any discount or benefit you would have received had you complied with those obligations.

Payment for services
10. You agree that you will pay each bill by the due date for payment set out in it. If you do not we may charge you a late fee at the rate applicable at the time from the due date until payment of the relevant amount and we may also recover from you all legal and other costs incurred by us, arising from the collection of any amount which you owe to us and which you do not pay to us when due.
11. We reserve the right to impose a credit limit on your account, and will advise you if you get close to this limit. You agree that if at any time you exceed your credit limit we will be entitled to suspend the provision of our services to you, and any costs incurred by us as a result of such suspension and any recommencement shall be payable by you upon demand. We reserve the right to charge a minimum monthly fee of $11 to cover the cost of maintaining an account for dormant or low spend customers. If applicable, the use of Telecom services such as 0161, 059 and 018 Directory will incur additional charges on your Compass account. These charges may be at higher rates because these services are not managed over the Compass network.

Dispute Resolution:
12. If you have a genuine dispute in relation to amounts we have charged you, you must pay the undisputed charges and notify us of the disputed charges with details of the dispute and evidence to support its validity. We will look into the issue and you will comply with our good faith decision on the issues. You must make any claims for credits for disputed charges within 30 days of the most current bill sent to you. Any claim made otherwise than in accordance with this clause shall not be recognised.
Suspension or disconnection:
13. If you do not meet any of your responsibilities under this contract we may suspend or disconnect some or all of your services from our network and we may also terminate our contract with you. If you are suspended or disconnected from our network in this way you may have to pay a reconnection fee before you can use our network or services again.
14. We may also suspend or disconnect you from our network if a carrier interrupts its service to us and that interruption affects our ability to provide our services to you, or in the event of an emergency or other situation where another carrier or appropriate person considers this necessary or reasonable to protect persons, systems or other property.
15. Home Toll Free Numbers may be cancelled if unused for a continuous period of 6 months. We reserve the right to levy a small fee for repeated alterations required to a Toll Free number but we will discuss this fee with you in advance.

Compensation and liability:
16. If you are a residential customer, rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 may apply in addition to the rights set out above. If, however, you receive goods or services from us for the purposes of a business, then you agree that the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 will not apply to this contract or any of our business dealings.
17. If our service fails to operate for any reason and you use a service provided by another carrier, we will not be responsible for that carrier’s service charges.
18. We also exclude all other liability we may have to you for acts or omissions by us, our directors, employees, agents, representatives and contractors. This includes both direct and indirect losses, including loss of profits, loss of revenue and loss of any opportunity. These exclusions of liability also apply under the Contracts (Privity) Act 1982 for the benefit of any other carrier who allows us to use its network to provide our service to you.
19. We will accept no liability for any loss or damage, including, without limitation, indirect and consequential losses, caused by a carrier suspending or interrupting its service to us which affects our ability to provide services to you or any other cause beyond our reasonable control.
20. To the extent permitted by law none of the persons referred to in clause 18 are liable to you or has to pay you for anything else caused by or resulting from anything any of them does or does not do, or delays in doing, whether or not it is contemplated or authorised by these standard terms.
21. This exclusion of liability applies whether or not our contract with you has ended and regardless of the type of damage you suffer or howsoever it was caused. If you are a residential customer, these exclusions do not affect any rights you may have under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993.

Limitation of liability:
22. To the extent permitted by law if, despite the provisions contained in the previous section, we or any other carrier is liable to you for any breach of these standard terms, or for breach of any other obligation that might be owed to you, our liability shall be limited, at our discretion, to any one or more of the following:
a) If the breach relates to the provision of services:
- supplying of the relevant services again; or
- payment of the cost of having the relevant services supplied again; and
b) If the breach relates to goods:
- replacement of the relevant goods or supply of equivalent goods;
- repair of the relevant goods;
- payment of the cost of replacing the relevant goods or of acquiring equivalent goods; or
- payment of the cost of having the relevant goods repaired.
23. If you are a residential customer this limitation does not affect any rights you may have under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993.

Personal information:
24. You agree, for the purposes of this contract and the performance of our obligations to you, that we may collect information about you. The information we collect about you may be obtained from you and others. We may obtain information about you when the services offered to you are used, either by you or anyone else.
25. You may decide not to provide any information sought from you. If you do not provide it then we may not be able to provide our services to you.
26. We may use the information we hold about you and may exchange information about you with our contractors, agents and representatives, with other carriers, and with credit reporting and debt collection agencies for the purposes of our business, and to law enforcement agencies as required under law.
27. All information held by us will be held at our offices at 162 Grafton Road, Grafton, Auckland. You may obtain access to, and correct, any information held by us under the Privacy Act 1993.
Passwords and security:
28. Depending on the services we provide you, you may be given a username, password or PIN. You agree to keep these personal identifiers confidential and to take all reasonable steps to prevent disclosure of them to any person, other than members of your household or business who are considered authorised users. You are responsible for ensuring that all authorised users of the services also meet the responsibilities and obligations set out in 8. above.
29. You will be liable for all charges resulting from use of the service accessed through your personal identifiers whether authorised by you or not. You agree to indemnify Compass for all claims, proceedings, damages, losses or expenses however incurred arising from the acts of any person accessing the service using your username, password or PIN. Disclosure or loss of your username or password that results in the incurring of Charges or misuse of the service is your responsibility and any such occurrence shall be immediately communicated to Compass.
Delivery of invoices and notices:
30.a) Subject to paragraph b) we will deliver our invoices and any other notices to the most recent postal address you have given us. We may assume that any such invoice or notice has been delivered five days after we have posted it.
b) Where you receive your invoice via email or internet each month, it is your responsibility to view our invoices via our web site or your email account. We may assume that any such invoice has been received by you five days after posting to you by email.
c) It is essential that if you change your postal or email address or move premises, you must inform us of this event in writing enabling us to ensure that there is no interruption in our supply of service to you. If you do not inform us of this event we will not be able to ensure continued supply of our service to you. If your contact address changes and you do not inform us of your new details, you will remain responsible for all charges that may accrue against your account at the address that your account is held against.

Assignment and delegation:
31. We may assign or transfer our rights and responsibilities under this contract to someone else. We will give you written notice in advance if we intend to do this.
32. We may also subcontract the performance of any of our responsibilities under this contract to anyone else.
33. You may not assign or transfer any of your rights or responsibilities under this contract to anyone else without our prior written consent.

Terms separately binding:
34. If, for any reason, any provisions of this contract cannot be enforced or relied on by either of us, all other terms of our contract with you remain binding.

Termination:
35. If you do not pay any of the invoices we send to you or you otherwise fail to meet your responsibilities to us we may end our contract with you. We may also end our contract by giving you one month’s written notice. Ending the contract between us in this way shall not release you from any obligations or responsibilities you owe to us.
36. You may ask us to stop a particular service or cancel this agreement at any time by calling us on 0800 640 840 or writing to us at PO Box 2533 Shortland Street, Auckland 1140 and giving us 30 days’ notice. If a minimum term applies to any service, that service cannot be cancelled prior to the end of the minimum term by giving notice.
37. If for any reason we delay in exercising our rights that will not mean we have waived or given up our rights.
38. On termination of our contract with you, we will cease providing our service to you and all amounts which you owe to us will immediately become due and payable. We shall not be liable to you for any loss or damage suffered, or claimed to have been suffered, by you on or following termination of the supply of our service to you.

Fair Use Policy:
39.(a) It is important to Compass that all eligible Compass customers are able to access our services. For this reason, and to ensure the provision of a quality service, a Fair Use Policy applies to some of our services where your usage can affect that of other customers.
(b) We may apply this Fair Use Policy where in our reasonable opinion your use of our services is excessive and/or unreasonable as detailed below.
(c) We have developed this Fair Use Policy by reference to average member profiles and estimated member use of our services.
(d) If your use of our services materially exceeds estimated use patterns over any month, then your use will be excessive and/or unreasonable.
(e) If your use is excessive and/or unreasonable Compass may contact you to advise you that your use is in breach of this Fair Use Policy.
(f) We may then request that you stop or alter your use to come within our Fair Use Policy.
(g) If your excessive or unreasonable use continues after receipt of a request to stop or alter the nature of such use, We may without further notice, apply charges to your account for the excessive and/or unreasonable element of your use; suspend, modify or restrict your use of our services or withdraw your access to the services.

Compass Internet/ISP Terms and Conditions
Acceptance:
40. Your registration of an internet service account with Compass and your access, connection and use of Compass’ internet service is subject to the following ISP Terms and all applicable laws. By accessing and using the service you represent that you have read, understood and accepted these ISP Terms and agreed to be bound by them. If you do not agree to these ISP Terms please do not use the service or register an internet account.
Changes:
41. Compass reserves the right, at its discretion, to update or revise these ISP Terms. Please check the ISP Terms periodically for changes. Your continued use of this service following the posting of any changes to the ISP Terms indicates your acceptance of those changes.
Your responsibilities:
42. You are responsible for providing the telephone line, modem, computer, hardware, software and all other equipment required to access the service and for all charges in relation to the above.
Our service to you and your use of the service:
43. You acknowledge that Compass does not and cannot in any way supervise, edit or control the content and form of any information or data accessed through the service and the internet, and Compass shall not be held responsible in any way for any content or information accessed via the service. Furthermore, Compass disclaims all or any liability for any material on the internet that you may find offensive, upsetting, defamatory, and personally offensive and in any way unsuitable for minors.
44. Your service may be automatically disconnected after 3 hours of continuous use or after 15 minutes of usage being idle. You are not permitted to operate servers from the service and you are not permitted to on-sell this service without written approval from us. You are not permitted to send spam or bulk mail using the service and we reserve the right to charge you a clean-up fee to rectify the result of such activity by you at a maximum charge of $200 per article.
45. If you establish a continuous dial-up modem facility that operates upon disconnection, you may have your account terminated. If you establish multiple simultaneous connections you may be charged for each connection or have your account terminated.
46. Compass may shut down all or part of the service for the purpose of maintenance, or approving the reliability of supply or for any other reasons.
47. These ISP Terms apply to both business and private use of the service. If you are not acquiring the service for the purposes of a business (as defined in the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993) then the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 applies and nothing in these ISP Terms limits your rights under it.
Suspension:
48. Compass reserves the right to immediately suspend your access to the service or terminate your internet account if you fail to comply with any provision of the ISP Terms or the Fair Use Policy. Compass may also require you to pay a disconnection fee in respect of any action taken by Compass under this section.
Confidentiality:
49. You agree that the internet is a medium, which lacks consistent security, and confidentiality and that we have the right to check your use of the system. We will make reasonable commercial efforts to protect your confidentiality. However, you should assume that your use of our services is not confidential. If we consider in our discretion that your use of our services is defamatory, contrary to accepted community standards or illegal, you acknowledge that we have the right to disclose those activities to any person, including the police. Without limitation to the foregoing we can check your use of the system for the purpose of ensuring that your use is not breaching these terms and conditions or for assessing any charges which may be payable by you.
Governing law:
50. The ISP Terms is governed by the laws of New Zealand and the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of New Zealand in respect of any dispute or proceeding arising out of the ISP Terms.

Compass Wireless Terms and Conditions:
51. You are responsible for any loss, theft of or damage to the CPE (apart from normal wear and tear) and for insuring the CPE at all times. If a Compass authorised installer has to visit to repair an item that is not covered by normal wear and tear, we will charge you for the time plus materials required in the repair.
52. You are responsible for disconnecting any existing services that are required to be cancelled with other service providers.
53. The Wireless Phone line and Broadband connection will not function in the absence of a power supply.

Compass Mobile Terms and Conditions:
54. You agree not to use your mobile service for Voice over Internet Protocol and Messaging over Internet Protocol
55. If you lose your SIM card, you must contact us immediately. You are responsible for any costs incurred by the use of the services up until the time you notified us of the loss of the SIM card, and for the cost of replacing the SIM card.
56. Incorrect PIN entry three times in a row will block your SIM card. You will need to contact us on 0800 640840 to receive an unblocking code (PUK). Repeated blockings can disable your SIM card and you will need to purchase another if this occurs.
57. Each call is charged at the applicable rate when the call commences. You are responsible for all call and messaging costs regardless of any assumptions you may make about which network is carrying a particular number.
58. Roaming services may be offered to you at Compass’ discretion based on your account and payment history. To apply for roaming to be activated, you will need to a complete a Roaming Application Form. Download from www.compass.net.nz or call us on 0800 640840.
59. If you use roaming services then you will incur charges from the Network Operator(s) in the relevant roaming country in addition to our charges. The charges may include charges for connection to their network, charges for calls or messages sent or received, charges for content downloaded and any other charges which the Network Operator(s) may impose from time to time for using their services. Minutes or other entitlements which may come with your Compass Mobile plan will not apply when roaming; and it is your responsibility to be aware of the charges of the networks on which you are roaming.
60. If you access the internet via your Compass Mobile service, you agree to abide by the Internet/ISP Terms and Conditions above.

(NOV 09)