Yeah - Tim coulden't be more wrong there. We've had a number of system errors in the last year that have been very much in favour of customers, but we tend not to shout about them and customers tend not to notice a positive problem nearly as easily they do a negative one.

I will make sure the cause of this is understood today and appropriate action taken - I agree that it is completely unacceptable to get something like this wrong.

Ian

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Either way Plusnet have stated publicly on this forum they are looking into it and you would not see that level of service from TalkTalk,Virgin, Tiscali, Orange etc. Just check how many of their customers have billing issues and want to change ISP

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I have to agree with you on that, you cant fault plusnet in that department.

Hi there,

I've looked into this issue, and can confirm that it was an error in one of our automated systems.

We only had the odd example of this previously, which is why it wasn't fixed as an urgent priority. I have just investigated and found a couple more examples so have upp'ed the priority of this problem to a P1. You can track this via our portal here.

I'd like to apologise for any concern caused by this.

Well done! sorted.
Barry King

Was with BT Openworld years ago as my first ISP. When I left they overcharged. They then adjusted it with a credit but the credit was for 2 months rather than just the 1 I had been overcharged. I got fed up in the end with trying to get them to recognise they had over credited and left it.

After about 3 years of still getting "invoices" from them showing I was in credit I rang them to get them to sort it out. The only way they could fix it was to credit my bank account for the money they didn't owe me. So, in the end it was cheaper for them to give me money I wasn't owed than to just sort the system out to show the correct - zero - figure.

In reply to:

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We've had a number of system errors in the last year that have been very much in favour of customers, but we tend not to shout about them and customers tend not to notice a positive problem nearly as easily they do a negative one.

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Ah, systems errors, you've not actually refunded/paid anyone by accident. The problems seen on TB are just the tip of the iceberg. I'll bet that plenty of other customers have handed over large sums of money so they can leave PN, or perhaps have been deterred from leaving, for now.

TT

I'll take your bet Tim and double it (following us writing off people's deferred fees).

The CSC team member who sent the ticket back with the incorrect sum was extremely gutted that he missed the problem. They try to be very careful to check for anomalies like this and it is rare that such a mistake gets made. These days, the overriding priority when a customer leaves is that we want to make it as pleasant as possible. That drastically increases the chances of the customer returning.

More to the point though, I don't think you give people much credit here. Very few customers will blindly accept it when they see charges they didn't expect. Where someone points out we made a mistake we're obviously going to correct that without further ado. This particular problem got picked up and dealt with before anyone saw this thread (Anyone on shift in the CSC at any rate).

It is very rare that issues like this occur. In this situation, once we had two examples of the same thing happening we prioritised solving the issue and the same thing now won't occur again. I don't think those actions are the ones of a company who set out to rip-off it's customers.

Oh, and yes, as much as it pains me I have examples from a number of problems in the last year where customers have had a direct benefit as a result of a system failure. In the example I'm thinking of we didn't bill at all for a period of months. In the old PlusNet we might have gone gung-ho and tried to recoup that, but it's a sign of how much things have changed that we didn't.

Ian

Edited by IanWild (Tue 12-Feb-08 11:26:25)

If things have really changed, you could waive the �49.49 charge in recognition of the concern the customer has been caused. After all, you want him to leave thinking well of Plusnet....

Partially agree but I still think people should honour contracts, if there are fees to pay then they should be paid. When you read the thread it a discussion about the excessive fee not about 'I don't want to pay a fee at all'.