If we end PN retention deal contract today? fees? penalties?

I've been reading around the forum for a bit and I'm slightly concerned after reading about adslmax's recent problems and I just want to see if anyone can confirm my option to leave Plusnet without issue?

Today is the last day of the 30 to notify Plusnet of our intention to leave their service. Our current deal given to us by the retention team was a 2 year contract which will otherwise come to an end in 4-5 months. Under the account section 'View your products' it says we have:

Broadband & Home Phone packages:
Plusnet Unlimited (Contracted) £16.99
Talk Anytime £5.00
Line rental £15.99

N.B. there is a monthly discount from the retention deal, it's just not listed on that page.

Now I don't see any reason we can't leave, I can't see anything to interpret that we have separate contracts for phone and ADSL that Plusnet might try to use to require an early termination fee for cancelling the Plusnet Unlimited.

The one potential issue I see is that it's too late to give 14 days notice before the current billing period ends. However I think I can just notify them that we want to leave and say we want our service to terminate the end of August, or at the end of the next billing period early in September?


EDIT: also I assume we'll have to pay for a whole month even if we migrate 1-2 weeks into the billing period?

Edited by deleted (Wed 29-Jul-15 00:57:48)

The billing period doesn't matter. You keep the Direct Debit active and after leaving a final bill or credit is produced, with the usual 10 days to argue if you think it's wrong. Then they take or pay and you can kill the d/d/facility. Unless you have referrals being credited to you. That's a different question.

Re adslmax's difficulties, those were all resolved - I've been in close touch with him throughout the last 3-4 days. In the end he has got what he regards as a great retention deal and decided to stay. (Though it seems he still has 14 days in which he can change his mind again ).

He was able to show that the two contracts were in fact two parts of the same retention deal, so that cleared the way. Most people haven't had to do that, so maybe there was some specific confusion.

I'm not sure they accept a delayed leaving as such, but that question has only arisen where people have their Line Rental Saver in place where Plusnet say you can't have a partial refund. The LRS difficulty has effectively been knocked on the head by vimto_girl on these forums who got Ofcom to step in wrt an account she is involved with, The customer got the refund. But you aren't on LRS so the situation is different.

Under the new migration system you order from your new supplier and that triggers the dates. Historically you have been able to request a forward date from the new supplier if that is convenient because of holidays or whatever. I haven't seen anything saying you can't still do that but of course it depends on the new supplier.

You obviously can't give a rigid 14-day notice at this stage. I think you just need to tell Plusnet you are leaving, but that the date isn't yet known.

Thanks Roberto

We were all set to order Sky fibre until I discovered the temporary cabinet capacity issue.

It's really thrown us and we've been discussing whether to just put up with Plusnet for another 4-5 months so we don't lose our discount only to find that this temporary fibre capacity issue is actually a long term thing and not resolved by the estimate.

I'm now looking Pulse8 thanks to the discussion about them, it looks like a potential option to tide us over until the fiber can be ordered. I may be posting questions about Pusle8 shortly, but I will do so in the general ISP sub forum as that seems more appropriate.

@ Roberto is correct there. I think u have four option choices:
1)Speak to PN and see what offer deal they will do for you
2)Migration to Sky
3) Migration to Pulse8 (Static IP Address are charged £2.00 a month, be vary of FTTC>ADSL>FTTC but they probably do FTTC to FTTC direct but no ones know if it was true or not. £30 migration fee.
4) Migration to TalkTalk Business (They do have free Static IP Address and more features plus a better control panel on their member site)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

1)Speak to PN and see what offer deal they will do for you

I think this is off the table as an option. We previously agreed to stay in a 2 year deal that was actually more expensive than some of the other options at the time, partly to avoid hassle of moving and partly because we'd had a good service up to that point.

However, when fibre was initially available in our area PN caused a certain degree of upset - basically they stuck two fingers up because we were under contract, they offered a trivial discount for an absurdly long contract. IIRC £2.50/month discount for 3 years?

Of course they didn't have to give us a competitive offer for fibre while we are under contract, they weren't obligated to, but we feel we gave them the loyalty for previous good service. Now the service has subsequently degraded and they've made clear we're only a valuable customer when we're leaving, so time to move on and hopefully find something better.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

...Sky... ... Pulse8... ...TalkTalk Business...

Sky on paper is a good deal - good monthly cost, vouchers etc. Although I wonder what sort of performance/service we would get from Sky given our market 1 exchange.

Pulse8 is very interesting, more expensive than Sky but maybe we would get better performance? especially if we have to stick with ADSL for the time being.

TalkTalk Business isn't available.

BT via Topcashback is a tempting option at the moment if you are happy with 40/10 (I just chose BT via Quicdo).
£17 phone, £10 unlimited broadband, 12 month contract, £157 cashback
Make sure to go for Unlimited for the same prices as 40GB

Of course, I know some people are not too happy with BT service so you may rule that out.

@All
As said in the OP's new thread in Which ISP, we need to know the exchange.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 29-Jul-15 10:41:41)

In reply to a post by Ichneumon:

I've been reading around the forum for a bit and I'm slightly concerned after reading about adslmax's recent problems and I just want to see if anyone can confirm my option to leave Plusnet without issue?

Today is the last day of the 30 to notify Plusnet of our intention to leave their service. Our current deal given to us by the retention team was a 2 year contract which will otherwise come to an end in 4-5 months. Under the account section 'View your products' it says we have:

EDIT: also I assume we'll have to pay for a whole month even if we migrate 1-2 weeks into the billing period?

Plusnet staff here. You should be able to leave without issue, provided that you're still within the 30 days. Message me if you have any problems.

In terms of your edit; you are likely to pay the whole month up front, and then we refund you up to the day you leave.

Hope this clarifies.

Matty

In reply to a post by MattyPlusnet:

You should be able to leave without issue, provided that you're still within the 30 days. Message me if you have any problems

Thanks for the help and confirmation.

In reply to a post by MattyPlusnet:

You should be able to leave without issue, provided that you're still within the 30 days

Done, notice given over the phone and email confirmation received. We are now officially out of contract.

Fairly straightforward, the only negative was the wait time on the phone, but I suppose that's to be expected these days. Would prefer it if there was still a contact form to raise a ticket to avoid the phone queue.

Credit where it's due, the rep on the phone was polite and didn't get pushy about staying, just asked if I would call back and give Plusnet a chance to match whatever deal we go for later.

they are not allowed to try to get you to stay - OFCOM Rules

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

they are not allowed to try to get you to stay - OFCOM Rules

That seems rather odd - which rule is that? I can understand that they are not allowed to be "pushy" but what is the problem with offering a deal to entice a customer to stay? If that is true then I am surprised Sky hasn't been shut down completely!

they are not allowed to try to get you to stay - OFCOM Rules

That seems rather odd - which rule is that? I can understand that they are not allowed to be "pushy" but what is the problem with offering a deal to entice a customer to stay? If that is true then I am surprised Sky hasn't been shut down completely!

I don't really deal with consumer stuff much, but I believe it's a new rule as part of this new switching process.

Specifically I believe that when you contact them to advise that you do not accept the changes in T&C.s or where they have been advised that you are leaving because of the Gaining Provider Led Process they cannot offer you an inducement to stay

Only once they have received notification through the system that you have placed an order elsewhere.

The OP hasn't done that.

Even after that, if you ring them and ask if they can offer you anything, they can then do so. It's initiating such a conversation they cannot do as a result of being notified.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 30-Jul-15 10:29:53)

I take it that when your contract is just about up and you phone the COT they can/will still offer inducements in the form of reduced package prices?

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

I take it that when your contract is just about up and you phone the COT they can/will still offer inducements in the form of reduced package prices?

I've recently been down that route, and was offered free broadband in exchange for a two-year contract.

In reply to a post by kbturner:

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

I take it that when your contract is just about up and you phone the COT they can/will still offer inducements in the form of reduced package prices?

I've recently been down that route, and was offered free broadband in exchange for a two-year contract.

I'll keep that in mind in a few months time.