Escaping from plusnet

Hi all, i signed up for PlusNet Broadband Plus up to 8Mb (Annual Contract, Activation and Modem Offer) on 11/06/2005, i moved flat on 26/09/2007 an stayed with plusnet, they gave me a 'Free House Move' �40.00(upon cancellation)

I am now moving flat again, this time to an area that o2 & be-unlimited supply, i raised a ticket about cancelling my broadband and they have requsted �210.89 as final payment.

This breaks down as:
Deferred House Move= �40.00
Subscription charge covering period between next invoice and end of contract (342 days)= �170.89
Total= �210.89

Can someone please give me some advice as to how i can get out of paying the full years subscription charge, i was under the impression that i would only have to pay one months charge as i had been with them for well over a year.

In reply to:

---

PlusNet Broadband Plus up to 8Mb (Annual Contract, Activation and Modem Offer)

---

Clearly says you signed up for an annual, not monthly contract.

When you moved house you signed up for another year, and took the free move (which has to be paid back if you cancel within a year).

So no, you can't get out of it because of the choices you made...sorry.

Due to the contract you signed up you don't have much choice. What you try asking them about is moving to a product that suits your needs better.

Like i said i was under the impression that after the first 12months i would be on a monthly rolling contract, thats usually the case with annual contracts.

I was thinking i could possibly upgrade to option 1 or 2 which are monthly contracts i believe, then cancel after my first month, then i would only have the �40 defered house move payment.

When you moved house you renewed your contract for another 12 months.

Not sure whether your plan will work. If you wait until tomorrow someone from PN will confirm, I'm sure.

Moving house does not start a new 12 month contract. The only T&C with a house move is if you move within 12 months you have to repay the deferred �40+VAT house move costs, which is what you will have to do in this case.

All PN residential annual contracts revert to a monthly contract after 12 months and that is the situation you are in now.

The CS agent has not understood what has happened so you need to query the costs and state you have been with PN for more than 12 months so are on a 30 day notice period..

Note: even though you revert to a monthly contract after 12 months, the product description remains as it was and will still say annual contract.

If you post the ticket number one of the comms team may see this and explain further.

Just to check - did you at any stage take up a �5 off for 6 months offer?

To expand on what Jelv is hinting at, if you did, it means you started a 12 month contract when you accepted the offer.

No, at no stage did i take that offer.

I can confirm i never took up that offer, i never even knew it existed.

Thanks peter, i dont have a problem with the �40 house move fee, i was fully aware of that.

Ticket number: ID: 24101750

That is an excellent reply and no doubt factually correct. But it is worrying that PlusNet's systems/personnel seem to be working to a different agenda when it comes to customers' final statements. Surely the majority of final bills will not include a balance for an annual contract, so any which do should be picked up, investigated and stopped if they are wrong. We have seen a few similar queries here of late and one has to assume that these are the minority. The majority of customers who are overcharged or wrongly charged on their final invoice would pay up because they don't know any different. Others who do query with PlusNet would not find their way here. They may have been persuaded that their incorrect bill was correct or they may have succeeded in getting it adjusted. We don't know.

Hopefully, PlusNet will review their final billing process and make sure that no customers are overcharged. It would be helpful if an easy-to-find, easy-to-understand page on their website listed exactly how much different types of customer should expect to pay on leaving PlusNet.

Simon

If no one else gets here first I will take a look at this tomorrow morning and give you a quick call. It could be that a mistake has been made, or something else missed about why the charge is due. In any case, the last thing we want is customers who leave to go with a bad taste in their mouth and we will certainly do our best to prevent that.

Ian

>Subscription charge covering period between next invoice and end of contract (342 days)= �170.89

It seems patently wrong just on that basis. How come 342 days when you moved in September?

You quoted a activation and modem offer and I see no reference to the modem which I assume if taken would have to be paid for when leaving early.

No doubt this will get picked up on here, or if not dispute the amount, nothing adds up.

Deferred Activation & Deferred Hardware have been writtin off, i have no idea where they got the 342 days from.

Hi Ian, looks someone had a second look at it:

Thank you for your update.

The fees which you have been quoted in your ticket are incorrect, our system has not recognised the fact that you are no longer in an annual contract period. The final fees required on your account are actually as follows:

- Deferred house move: �40.00
- Subscription fees covering full 30 day notice period (19 days): �9.49

Total: �49.49

If you do require any further assistance then please let us know.

In reply to:

---

our system has not recognised the fact that you are no longer in an annual contract period.

---

Seems to be a rather serious flaw there Ian.

Glad you got it sorted, hopefully Ian Wild can dig a little and understand why the system never realised you were monthly now, perhaps its something to do with the deferred house move fee that triggered something in error.

In reply to:

---

Seems to be a rather serious flaw there Ian.

---

Curious how all the systems flaws are always in favour of BT. I've never once heard of BT accidentally giving money away to a customer. In true BT fashion this glitch with the system will be corrected in around nine months time after much consultation with Ofcom.

TT

"Curious how all the systems flaws are always in favour of BT."

People don't generally go out of their way to complain about things like this that happen in their favour. You will find in customer service people tell everyone about bad experiences or problems but not as many people about good service unless it is very good. 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. It is as much the problem that occurs and the manor in which it is resolved that tells you alot about a company.

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

In reply to:

---

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

---

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:

---

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.

---

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'.