Topic 'Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?' in forum 'Canadian Broadband' - dslreports.com

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:08:31 EDT

Jeffer71 posted : Well done Ebox, while I'm not a client myself, I'm sure a lot of other people watch these threads to see how they pan out.

When looking to change providers, support that you have shown will be remembered...

Good Job & Yay for the customer!

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:43:34 EDT

rednekcowboy posted : I'm sorry, wasn't trying to be secretive, but didn't want to cause a panic either so that's why I left it up to u guys to explain!!

As far as I am concerned, you guys have come through when it counts and I count myself lucky to be an Electronicbox client!!

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:15:42 EDT

eboxnat posted : Hello!

There was nothing "secret" about this issue :P no need to hide the facts.
Facts are that after a lot of back and forth we finally found proof of a problem with the calculation tool, but not network wide.
We did spot checks of a large assortment of clients to assure total chaos is not about to happen, we see that the usage tool issue is only present in one client account (rednekcowboy's).

As soon as there was a confirmation of this issue, we retroactively credited all overage fees on account and added some extra usage to tide him over until this is finally settled.

This was not a simple case, we have been working on it for a few months now, and I am happy to see almost resolved.
--
Electronic Box Inc.
»ELECTRONICBOX
Natasha Contardi

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:41:32 EDT

rednekcowboy posted : Just a quick update here.

I'm not sure how much I am allowed to say, so I'll let diskace explain it if he chooses to do so.

All I have to say is that Ebox is absolutely freaking amazing. They have gained a customer for life and if anyone is in Ebox territory, I highly recommend that they don't look anywhere else!!

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 09:46:03 EDT

rednekcowboy posted : So, just an update from my side.

I've added DUMeter to the mix and just as I had suspected, it backs up my router stats. It actually shows a wider discrepancy with the Videotron Usage Monitor than my router, but that is to be expected as it does not take into account handheld devices and videogame systems.

I really do like DUMeter. It is a great setup. I can login to my account from anywhere and see the usage per device per day per hour if I want. Very nice piece of software.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 08:23:24 EDT

rednekcowboy posted : Just an update from my side here as well.

While I am working with Diskace, things are not quite as clear cut as he is portraying them to be here. 1st we have 4 seperate tracking methods (mine and then videotron's tool, a spreadsheet sent to me by Ebox and the nflow that Diskace is talking about).

I haven't had time to sift through them all as I have been working out of town but I will say, just on the face value alone that none of the 3 reports from the ISP side match. One shows 24GB, one shows 31GB and one shows 34GB. The data being given to me is also incomplete, missing time blocks and was sloppily thrown together mixing MB measurements into GB measurements and also, in some cases, double-counts and also even using different standards of measurement for what defines a GB (some methods are using 1024 MB=1 GB and some are using 1000 MB=1 GB). I will say, on their face, and with the discrepancies with the logs I am receiving from the ISP (in this case both Ebox and Videotron) that I cannot seem to rely on them at all. They can't even get their own reports to match, they send incomplete data and they can't even agree on a standard of measurement.

This also does not show if there was some sort of attack (which Ebox was claiming earlier) which I cannot be held liable for, as such attacks would be considered criminal and you cannot charge a victim of a crime for being a victim.

Once I get done working out of town, I will be setting up DUmeter in conjunction with my own router logs and make a comparison. I still do not feel that my logs have any errors whatsoever, however, if there is an issue I will most definitely post it in this thread, along with an apology to Diskace and his team. The problem with DUmeter is with my laptop. I do not solely use it on my own network as I use it for work as well. It also, though I'm not 100% on this, does not capture traffic from devices such as gaming systems or handheld devices (I have 3 gaming consoles and 3 handheld devices) as it has to be installed on the pc's specifically so it will not gather a complete picture (as with other such counters) which is why I went with the router log setup.

Also, on top of this, Diskace has stated that they are not disputing my logs prior to February, yet I have still not received a credit for the 30GB overage I was charged for November that I did not use, though to be 100% honest, I guess I have never come right out and asked for one but once he said they were not disputing those facts, I just assumed that one would be provided.

I was not going to post all of this here, however Diskace felt it necessary to post his side, so I'm updating from mine as well to keep all the facts straight.

I was also told Nitra that you did not have the same issue as me. I was told that you were billed for the wrong profile--not usage related at all, but yet here, he is admitting that it was usage related.

I'm not saying that Diskace is being deceptive, but he definitely did not put the whole story out there. The book is far from closed here.

I will also say that things are still following the same pattern as before. I reported a ~30GB discrepancy for Feb 1st, they did these traces, came back with "no issue" but the issue resolved itself and we've been within a few mb's since the day after I reported the issue.

If the problem truly was with my monitor, we should theoretically never be within a few mb's (especially not for weeks at a time), we should always report different values and the issues should not magically correct themselves. I know I haven't changed anything on my end and they claim they didn't change anything on theirs, however the issue is resolved so we need to find out what is causing the discrepancy and what is correcting that discrepancy. I did a small test yesterday and downloaded/uploaded 80 GB worth of data to see if I could replicate a discrepancy (to see if something was reporting error when confronted with large amounts of traffic in a short time) however the readings for both my counter and Videotron's were very close, so that is not the case.

Please, I'm not bashing on Ebox as they are doing much more than I thought they would and I appreciate that but I would rather reserve judgement until we have the whole, complete picture. If what they are saying is true (though the discrepancies within theirs and Vid's logs leave me pause) then we need to figure out why their modem is reporting traffic that my router is not receiving or seeing (ie that I'm not getting use of).

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:21:07 EDT

Nitra posted : Videotron really needs to fix that counter to poll every 15 minutes.
As well, stop banning people from refreshing the page.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:09:58 EDT

anon posted : Yeah I never had an issue with it.

I think over the course of a month a person can get about 500-meg of usage (under a gig) just by turning the modem on with no router or computer attached. That is the nature of a single wired cable.

When I went to Cuba everything was off except the modem itself (cuz the phone is on it) racked up something like under 100-meg a day.

Now if videotron ever charged me for going over by 1-gig, I would have something to say. But I never saw it spike like what this guy said. To my understanding the modem is polled once every 24-hrs. At least it used to be. No clue if that changed.

But it's good that you were able to do a check like this. +1

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:57:09 EDT

diskace posted : That is the whole point. I don't want people who think the counter is broken to start thinking we can setup this type of filter for every request. It's impossible business wise.

We wanted to see if there was something wrong and if that was the case like Mr. redneckcowboy suggested (30 GB discrepencies on Feb 1st) i would be the first in line to contact the engineers at the cable operator to point them at solid proof there is something broken.

There are some case like Nitra's one where the data consumed in the last 2 hours of the day in the month were reported into next month's cell causing someone to start with 50 GB on the first day of his month. The usage was not duplicated, only reported onto next month. I helped a couple of you guys with the billing side for identical scenarios but i think the tool is pretty reliable in reporting the data consumed.
--
Electronic Box Inc. - Jean-Philippe B��que
Ebox forum »ELECTRONICBOX

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:14:48 EDT

anon posted : Hey, neat that you did this Diskace. Didn't even know an ISP would do this, let alone a wholesaler.

So I guess videotrons tracker is right. At least, it was for the day(s) you captured.

So, umm, since you had permission to DPI this guy are you going to let us know what kind of kinky fetish porn he's in to? ;)
:o

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:39:37 EDT

Nitra posted : DPI makes me sad on many levels.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:57:24 EDT

diskace posted : Just an update on this thread.

We did setup a filter for redneckcowboy straight on the core router and captured logs showing that the cable company report is right.

It's not the kind of request we do process everyday as this involve getting permission from our client to deep packet each bytes of traffic and dumping that into a table + involve higher up staff such as CTO/CEO to connect into core router to capture all possible traffic on a given ip address.
--
Electronic Box Inc. - Jean-Philippe B��que
Ebox forum »ELECTRONICBOX

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:17:12 EDT

Nitra posted : In case people didn't see the link I posted above, NetForecast was hired by several American ISP's to audit their meters, it was found that, the vast majority of ISP's are not accurate at all.

You should have a read, it might give you something to go back to Videotron/Cogeco/Ebox, at least while you're fighting about right and wrong.

If the audit companies say something is wrong, you have ammo.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:33:48 EDT

Nitra posted : »gigaom.com/2013/02/07/more-bad-n···ccurate/

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 03:06:26 EDT

Davesnothere posted :
BTW, excellent thread title ! :D

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:32:45 EDT

Davesnothere posted :
Here are a couple of my own threads about how it can happen (overbilling, that is) :

»Why Cogeco Subscribers are NOT Notified

»Cogeco's Broken Usage Meter

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:00:30 EDT

Davesnothere posted :

said by resa1983:

said by hm :

said by resa1983:

And Ellen Roseman. - »www.ellenroseman.com/

Can't say I ever saw her write about Quebec companies.

She's very widely read, and has a lot of connections. If you managed to convince her to write about it, there'd be a large audience.

Tell her that Cogeco does exactly the same thing to/with THEIR retail customers.

That will broaden the readership/audience into Ontario, I promise !

Examples with common ground :

»[INTERNET] Absurd Cogeco internet charges

»[Niagara] 40gb of "usage" while the modem is unplugged

»[Burloak] Usage Based Billing Nightmare

»[INTERNET] 53gb upload in one day?!?

»[INTERNET] Overage usage skyrocketing

»Is this forum only for Cogeco haters?

»"Undesirable" customers: Cogeco, Audet

»Cogeco email can't autoforward to external address!?

»[NEWS] Modem Off? Get Charged For Usage By Cogeco Anyway

»[NEWS] Cogeco Still Can't Meter Their Users Correctly

THOSE (the last 2 are from DSLR Chief Correspondent Karl Bode) are from just the first 4 pages of the Cogeco forum here.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:03:52 EDT

resa1983 posted :

said by hm :

said by resa1983:

And Ellen Roseman.

»www.ellenroseman.com/

Can't say I ever saw her write about Quebec companies.

She's very widely read, and has a lot of connections. If you managed to convince her to write about it, there'd be a large audience.
--
Battle.net Tech Support MVP

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:13:24 EDT

anon posted :

said by resa1983:

And Ellen Roseman.

»www.ellenroseman.com/

Can't say I ever saw her write about Quebec companies.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:17:53 EDT

resa1983 posted : And Ellen Roseman.

»www.ellenroseman.com/
--
Battle.net Tech Support MVP

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 18:48:06 EDT

anon posted : And once you have everything and can conclude that it is a faulty B/W accounting, then also give the Montreal Gazettes tech guy and at least one French paper the same complaint you will file with the CCTS. Chances are they will run it.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:53:28 EDT

rednekcowboy posted :

said by derekm:

Is your router counting incoming
Bottom line--I can prove what I used and I will absolutely not pay for any overages occurred that I did not use. I'm not interested in figuring out how or why Videotron's counter acts the way it does or the behavior behind it.

If Electronicbox insists on building it's billing system around another company's equipment, they should have a method in place to double check that counter. At least then they could say our records show the exact same numbers for both Videotron's and our own counters, there must be a flaw in your system.

Right now I can prove that Videotron's counting is flawed, that there are other complaints in this regard, that Electronic Box has refunded others because of those complaints, what I used down to the kilobyte, if necessary and that every time I reported an issue, the issue was resolved almost immediately after. Logically, if my system was flawed in some way, we would end up with completely different numbers and while nothing is exact we are usually pretty close on a monthly basis, with the exception of every few months when Videotron's counter shits the bed.

Electronic Box nor Videotron can prove that my usage monitor is faulty in any way, shape or form. All they can stubbornly say is "our counter is the only one that matters." Which is completely false in real world expectations.

Electronic Box has been put on notice that I will continue keeping my logs and will continue to report each and every time there is a discrepancy and that those emails and logs will be used in a CCTS complaint, if necessary. They have also been notified that I absolutely will not pay for usage that I can prove I did not use. They are drawing a line in the sand with this Videotron counter business and while I do not like to threaten a complaint or flat out refuse to pay, should it come to that, they are not leaving me any choice in the matter.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:18:53 EDT

sbrook posted : If you are short counted on a dozen eggs, you have a civil case against the supplier. You can count em, the store can count em, the court can count em.

The 454 gm of butter you can't count ... you can put it on a scale ... and the scale must be accurate. Measurement Canada's role is to ensure that the vendor's scale is accurate, not that they are shorting you 54 gm for every pound of butter ... that again is a civil issue ONCE MC have declared the vendor's scale inaccurate.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:43:15 EDT

derekm posted : Is your router counting incoming said by sbrook:

No good counting Measurement Canada ... because they are counting discrete items, they won't consider it. Measurement Canada only gets involved when with weights and volumes basically.

So I guess if your egg container consistently came with 11 eggs inside despite having "12 Eggs / 1 Dozen" printed on the outside, you'd be SOL with Measurement Canada -- and have to resort to Provincial consumer protection legislation.....which doesn't cover internet bits on a wire because its conditional non-essential and handled by the Feds.?

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:13:39 EDT

sbrook posted : No good counting Measurement Canada ... because they are counting discrete items, they won't consider it. Measurement Canada only gets involved when with weights and volumes basically.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:03:19 EDT

anon posted : Don't they only update that page at one certain hour of the day? And depending on where you live, this dictates when your modem get poled and pushed online to the tracker.

At least, this is what I understood it to be a few years ago.

No clue if its changed, or if anything changed since then since I haven't looked at the B/W tracker in about 2 years now.

You should create a topic in the Videotron forum And ask when the usage page gets updated, and how etc.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 12:51:56 EDT

Nitra posted : It's also ridiculous that if you go to the site and refresh the Videotron usage page 6-7 times over a couple of hours, you get banned from the site for 3-6 hours.

Nice site that is, especially when you're getting billed for usage.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 23:38:15 EDT

anon posted : Anyhow rednek, your salvation to this injustice will be in showing your tracking records. Wait for a reply Monday from jean-philippe (unless that avenue is now closed) and then make the filing to the CCTS.

Keep records of the conversation to submit.

It costs you nothing.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:56:32 EDT

MaynardKrebs posted : It's time that Measurement Canada got involved.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:52:09 EDT

sbrook posted : This is an ongoing battle with every ISP that has caps and measures your traffic. There are constant threads about Bell's counters and Cogeco's counters. The fact that Videotron bill such high rates for overages makes it even more egrerious.

Unfortunately, there are very few consumer "wins" that are reported.

CCTS is the way to go to start with. Then if that doesn't work, a trip to small claims court.

The answer is simple. You have no way whatsoever to ensure the validity of the numbers they charge you, and therefore since it's a metered charge, their word simply is not good enough. When before a judge, it becomes your word vs theirs.

Theirs in this case, as the client of a 3rd party internet provider, is the 3rd party provider. Not with the incumbent who is providing the last mile service, even if it is the incumbent who has the measuring tool. Now it may be that the TPIA would bring in the incumbent as a witness. Now if the TPIA gets a case held against him, he can go to the incumbent and claim against him, either through the CRTC or the courts.

You have no claim against the incumbent.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:18:15 EDT

rednekcowboy posted :

said by Nitra:

You should PM Diskace here, see what he has to say.

I have and like I said, I am waiting.

I will say that I did receive an email from support which had his name signed to it, but it was very suspicious looking. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, here is the sig from the email:

quote:
Cordialement, jean-philippe.

Jean-Philippe
Support Technique - Technical Support
Electronic Box Inc.
1010 Serigny Street Suite 300
Longueuil, QC
J4K 5G7
Tél. TollFree: (877) 282-6933
Tél. Montréal: (514) 282-6933
Tél. Toronto: (647) 827-0504
Tél. Québec: (418) 948-8246
E-mail: support@electronicbox.net

Now I don't know about you, but I've never seen a CEO sign an email like this, but who knows. If it was him, then I'm afraid I already have an answer....

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:14:07 EDT

Nitra posted : You should PM Diskace here, see what he has to say.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 19:45:08 EDT

rednekcowboy posted :

said by Nitra:

I will say this again, this isn't an issue with Ebox, this is an issue with Videotron.
This has been an issue back several years, well before TPIA. Unfortunately, there's little Ebox can do, and I suspect there's little the CCTS can do either as you're not a client of Videotron.
The CRTC however can add rules for TPIA so the counters are counted more frequently, and mandate a way to object to those counters.
Thus far, Ebox has been very willing to deal with the issues, I cannot fault them in any way, the entire issue is with Videotron, I was a client with them for many years, it was an issue from the moment they started counting bandwidth.

You are incorrect, I am not a customer of Videotron. I am a customer of Ebox. Ebox bills me, it is their responsibility. When an error is brought to their attention in their billing, it is up to them to rectify it. For them to say, it's not us, it's Videotron is passing the buck and leaving the customer holding the bag.

While I am happy that they worked with you and resolved it and made it right with you, they are choosing not to do so with me. If they have an issue with Videotron, it is up to them to resolve that. I have no recourse with Videotron, but I do have recourse with Ebox, who provides my internet, my bills and collects my money.

However these are not the reasons I am here nor are they the route I wanted this discussion to go. I have my answer as to my only option left. Mods if you are reading this, please close this thread as it is digressing and will only do more harm than good from here.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 19:24:19 EDT

Nitra posted : I will say this again, this isn't an issue with Ebox, this is an issue with Videotron.
This has been an issue back several years, well before TPIA. Unfortunately, there's little Ebox can do, and I suspect there's little the CCTS can do either as you're not a client of Videotron.
The CRTC however can add rules for TPIA so the counters are counted more frequently, and mandate a way to object to those counters.
Thus far, Ebox has been very willing to deal with the issues, I cannot fault them in any way, the entire issue is with Videotron, I was a client with them for many years, it was an issue from the moment they started counting bandwidth.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 19:03:25 EDT

anon posted : >They are another government bureaucracy where the employees are all "make work" civil servants.

»www.ccts-cprst.ca/en/about/struc···-funding
>We are a not-for-profit organization under Part II of the Canada Corporations Act.
>We bill participating service providers for our services. They pay a one-time fee that is based on the amount of their Canadian telecommunications revenues.

Since when does government department have their own funding instead of taxes and classified as non-profit organization?

Can't comment about their usefulness.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 18:46:23 EDT

anon posted : I read of some people arguing B/W at the CCTS and winning. So don't count yourself out before even trying.

As for Ebox, I wouldn't worry. IF you show there is error and they rule in your favour, Ebox can just do a charge-back on Videotron.

Keep in mind the complaint has to be against Ebox and no one else. They have to do their job and deal with videotron before or after, not you.

And a company can't just drop you because you made a complaint heh.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 18:42:08 EDT

anon posted : Their website seems pretty clear to me, so is their mandate. Why not take the time to look it over and learn about it before discouraging others?

You just may find out why it was rejected.

Or can you call them out to re-evaluate the filing you did.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:54:47 EDT

WiMax posted :

said by hm :

said by rednekcowboy:

My question is what should I do in this situation to protect myself?

1. Go to the CCTS website here: »www.ccts-cprst.ca

Don't waste your time with CCTS. They are another government bureaucracy where the employees are all "make work" civil servants. I filed a complaint against Bell Mobility two weeks ago and after one follow-up email with 20 more questions for me, I received a reply that "my complaint was not within their mandate", but they didn't bother to explain what that meant. So I have no way of knowing why the complaint was rejected and there is no appeals process. They are yet another wast of taxpayers dollars.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:40:51 EDT

rednekcowboy posted :

said by hm :

said by rednekcowboy:

My question is what should I do in this situation to protect myself?

Well if you have software the logs everything in and out of all computers *to the net*, and same with whatever router you have, and if you have a few months worth of records showing this, then the answer is simple.

1. Go to the CCTS website here: »www.ccts-cprst.ca

2. Write up a complaint against Ebox stating how they refused to listen that the counter is wrong.

3. State you are not the only one who noticed this and yet Ebox claims it's only you. Link back to here or get the other guys Email addy and do a group filing (more than one person with the same issue) which is a allowed with the CCTS.

4. Include all your data in raw form (months worth would be preferable). The name of the software collecting the data, Router make and model if using router counters etc.

5. Highlight the problem(s) on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

6. Make a demand in your complaint for a retro-active compensation for overages with interest from Ebox for the X-months you have been over-charged, apparently for nothing.

7. Make a demand for damages (forget the proper term) that you are allowed (think it's a max of 1000-5000$) and demand something like 200$ for the aggravation of dealing with them when you showed them the proof and the fact that they told you it's only you when in fact it isn't, and them not wanting anything to do with the situation as they took your money.

8. Ask how you are supposed to trust this counter if nothing regulates it.

9. Ask how they, the CCTS, can confirm that the counter is 100% accurate and not deprive you of your hard earned money for nothing again in the future.

10. Hit the send button.

11. Wait for a reply.

12. Keep us informed.

Or, alternatively...

Do nothing and continue paying for what you see as an injustice and keep this forum topic alive and well for years to come.

I may do this, if I have to. So far I'm only out of pocket $15, however what makes me nervous is the potential that I could be out of pocket should a large discrepancy puts me over my usage by a large amount.

I was also kind of hoping that Electronic Box would just do the right thing and can't understand for the life of me why they are taking this stance. I could kind of see their point when they told me that I was the only one reporting the issue, however that turned out to be completely false.

I'm just in shock now really because Electronic Box is not known for this kind of behavior. I'm leery of filing a complaint with CCTS for a couple of reasons:

1. The process is extremely slow and will likely end up with no satisfactory resolution.

2. When I filed a complaint against Rogers, Rogers turned around and summarily dropped me as a customer and the CCTS claimed there was nothing they could do to help me despite emails from Rogers techs stating the issue was in house (another long story). This was when I lived in New Brunswick and had no other viable alternatives for cable tv or internet so it really put me in a hard spot and left me with a sour taste in my mouth for the CCTS.

3. I was really hoping for an amicable solution such as Ebox stating, "OK sir, please continue to keep your records, they are most helpful and don't worry, if there is a large discrepancy you will not be billed." I'm not making things up, nor am I looking for anything for free (the 30 GB overage happened in a month where I was already 100 GB over to begin with, if I was making it up I would simply claim the whole overage, not just 30 GB) but at the same time I don't want to be charged for usage that I did not incur.

Thanks for your advice HM, I'll wait until Diskace replies either here or my PM and what support has to say on Monday before I decide how to proceed.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:17:03 EDT

anon posted :

said by rednekcowboy:

My question is what should I do in this situation to protect myself?

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:15:22 EDT

Nitra posted : I check my counters internally and via Videotron nearly everyday, they are not entirely accurate, not in the least. Further to this, it has not just been an issue with TPIA, it's been an issue as far back as the counters have existed, I called Videotron many times myself regarding it while I was their customer.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:13:07 EDT

rednekcowboy posted :

said by Nitra:

For your issue, you might have something running the in background that's creating traffic you're not aware of, some games have P2P stuff built in. It seems if you're running over with amounts like that, it very well may be something generating traffic.
You may have some downloader running, etc.

I would firstly, install a program called DUMeter on all your computers. It will keep track in real time, and see what the computers are generating, see if after a few days, this matches with the Videotron counter.

None of my PC's are used for gaming or use downloaders of any kind (utorrent is used on my htpc and it's just fb and forums on the others) and the reason I am setup the way I am is so that all in/out traffic gets logged through the router (with the exception of internal traffic, ie streaming from one pc to another or copying files from one pc to another) that is directly connected to the Ebox modem.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:11:06 EDT

rednekcowboy posted : I'm going to digress a little here and add a little more information.

I'm glad that you spoke up because Ebox told me that no other users reported issues. They refused to apply a refund for overages and added that I would be charged should another discrepancy occur.

While I agree that Videotron's counter is not Ebox's issue, Ebox's customers are and when a customer can prove that the counters are wrong, Ebox should provide a refund to that customer.

That is the end of me picking on Ebox, but your post got me fuming. At least I now know that I am not alone.

As far as Videotron's counters, you are 100% correct. In fact, I just finished off updating my spreadsheet for the month of January and there is a 10 GB difference there and for one day (Feb 1.) this month, there is already a 30 GB difference, though, in all fairness, this will probably level itself out over the next day or so.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:06:43 EDT

Nitra posted : For your issue, you might have something running the in background that's creating traffic you're not aware of, some games have P2P stuff built in. It seems if you're running over with amounts like that, it very well may be something generating traffic.
You may have some downloader running, etc.

I would firstly, install a program called DUMeter on all your computers. It will keep track in real time, and see what the computers are generating, see if after a few days, this matches with the Videotron counter.

Re: Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:02:59 EDT

Nitra posted : I had the same issue last month, Videotrons counters were way off, I called EBOX, they agreed, said there was little they could do as the counters were with Videotron and not them. They rebated the issue for me.

Few points that Ebox should address with Videotron/CRTC.

#1, the Videotron Extranet counter website doesn't update often, it can be 2 hours, it can be 8 hours, it can be 2-3 days. This needs to be resolved, if we're being billed and having usage tracked, this needs to be hourly, at maximum, or even every 30 minutes.
With larger pipes and small caps, we should have a way to check the usage in near real time.

#2, the counters are not entirely accurate, I have hardware that tracks all the usage on my lan by port, I know for a fact it's not adding up, most of the time, it's not off by much, but there's times it's off by 10GB in an 8 hour period. There's really no way for a client to object to this, and in fairness to Ebox, there's little recourse for clients. Ebox needs to rely on Videotron to provide accurate counters, if those counters are not accurate, what can we do? How can we object? This would be partially solved by providing near real time counters.

#3, because of the nature of the counters, if you are on the last day of the month, and download/upload before the counters reset at midnight, there's a strong possibility it will not be counted in the current month (this happened to me in Dec.) I knew I was 80GB shy of my cap, so I downloaded 4 games from steam. The download started well before the midnight roll over, in the morning, all of the data had been counted by Videotron as traffic that happened in the new month. Not acceptable IMHO.

This isn't so much an EB issue, but a Videotron issue, either lack of caring, or because they can get away with it. I feel the only resolution to this, is the CRTC will need to mandate serious changes here.

I've talked here to Diskace, my issues have been resolved quickly, and they will be again should this issue come back. I also, won't download a ton with 6 hours left of go on a given month, until Videotron fixes the issues with their counters.

Am I Crazy and What Can I Do?

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 09:53:17 EDT

rednekcowboy posted : When I first moved to Montreal, I noticed a huge overage on my internet, which I asked about but was told with no proof there was nothing that could be done.

This led me to setup my current setup which is ISP single port modem, a tplink wr1043nd with ddwrt that handles only lan traffic then another linksys router connected to this tplink for wireless and some lan. The tplink logs all of the traffic on the network which I keep a spreadsheet of counting the daily usage and it compares to Videotron's usage monitor which I update once every week or two (used to be every month).

On 3 seperate occasions now (one of which I was charged a 30 GB overage charge) I've noticed a large discrepency (the last one being 100 GB difference, but thankfully, I was still under my usage allowance), reported the discrepancy, the issue was resolved and, apparently Videotron, claimed there was no issue on their end. However things went back to normal (ie this month, there is only a few MB difference, as is the case most months).

I've never forced the issue until now as 30 GB is only $15 so I just ate that, however the 100 GB has me extremely nervous. Ebox, which has been good up until now, has come back at me and said no matter what my records show Videotron's monitor trumps all and I would be held responsible for any and all overages as my usage logs don't show things like ARP/DDOS/Flood attacks which could be responsible for this discrepancy, however there is no proof that this is the case.

Basically they are telling me I have to suck it up and put up with discrepancies regardless of how much they cost me. They said there is nothing they can do as it's Videotron's rules. I explained that I am not Videotron's customer, I am an Ebox customer and if they can't find it acceptable to eat the cost of an overage that is not justified, how can they expect me to? However that question was never answered nor have I been provided with a solution to this issue.

My question is what should I do in this situation to protect myself? I think I've already gone over and above what a customer should have to do but at the same time, I don't want to be stuck with overages every month that I can prove I did not use. I mean, I could setup a syslog server as I do have the technical know (configuring would be another story, it would just capture everything) how to set one up, but my networking skills are not that great so I doubt I could actually read the logs...however that just seems like I'm going too far in order to protect myself.

I also want to add that this post is not an attempt to bash on Ebox in any way, shape or form but to look for solutions to this particular issue. I'm at a loss of what to do next, which is why I posted here.