Plusnet lying to customers when offering new contracts

A warning to people being offered cheap contract renewals.

We have now seen a number of identical cases on the Community forums where people approaching the end of their current contracts are offered new contracts for £5 less per month if they take out a 18 month contract. They are told that there will be no change to their service. This is a lie. When the new contract kicks in they are downgraded to the 40/2 service meaning their upload speed is drastically reduced. After kicking up a fuss some of the users affected are getting put pack on to the 80/20 provision.

Um, I am not surprised.
I noticed some extras channels have been added to thier TV service, a couple that may interest me, but if I went for it, I would have to start my contract again, and I bet they would knock it down to 40/2, not that I get much more than two upload for some reason.

I said this would happen... naughty of Plusnet to do it the way they are but in there 'defence' , there new staff don't seem to understand things like upload and are about as clued up as the standard customer who's been sold download speeds and doesn't know what they can do with them or what things like upload or ping are!

Edited by mlmclaren (Tue 22-Sep-15 10:05:50)

I don't think that failing to train or even properly inform staff can count as a 'defence'. Especailly as it seems fairly common, not just an few isolated incidents.

Edited by StephenTodd (Tue 22-Sep-15 09:31:10)

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

I don't think that failing to train or even properly inform staff can count as a 'defence'. Especailly as it seems fairly common, not just an few isolated incidents.

Yeah thats true... it was supposed to be a sarky remark but being in a rush forgot to fix it!

Same thing happened to me last week.
Got phoned and offered £5 off for a new up to 20 service as "I am not currently getting more than 20 at the moment anyway".
No mention of a reduction in upload or committing to a new 18 month contract.
I replied that as my contract was up next month I would wait until then and go month to month to see if Plusnets recent problems ironed out.
Sounds a bit devious to me.

It appears that any of Plusnet customers approaching the end of their contract or no longer in contract and connected to service other than 40/2 or 80/20 will become the target of these calls to move people off the higher 'wholesale' cost products.

I remember when the 40/20 product from Plusnet first became available, everyone flocked to it... hell if I was able to get FTTC at the time, I would of too! but it was also said to be a stupid idea from Plusnet's point of view based on them paying for 80/20 and reselling it at similar prices to 40/10!

The confusing part of this move though is that even if someone is prepared too pay extra to get the required product they still have to prove there line worthy of such a move...

I also get the feeling this may be a move to push people toward BT Infinity 1 when you consider the offers on that service being pretty constant since these changes.

Post deleted by ZenUserJP

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

It appears that any of Plusnet customers approaching the end of their contract or no longer in contract and connected to service other than 40/2 or 80/20 will become the target of these calls to move people off the higher 'wholesale' cost products.

I remember when the 40/20 product from Plusnet first became available, everyone flocked to it... hell if I was able to get FTTC at the time, I would of too! but it was also said to be a stupid idea from Plusnet's point of view based on them paying for 80/20 and reselling it at similar prices to 40/10!

The confusing part of this move though is that even if someone is prepared too pay extra to get the required product they still have to prove there line worthy of such a move...

I also get the feeling this may be a move to push people toward BT Infinity 1 when you consider the offers on that service being pretty constant since these changes.

This wasn't just a dumb move on the financial side, but it wasn't going to give optimum performance on those lines that weren't capable of much more than 40mbps where as the 40/10 product variant would have performed better,(less DLM intervention)
As for this 40/2 idea apart from copying the likes of Stalk talk i don't see the point why they didn't choose the 40/10 instead,
Also with the max upload being so low, it will be far to easy to saturate the connection, so another dumb move ,

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 22-Sep-15 13:46:19)

They are still at it!

Today we've seen an example where a user was on 80/20 and re-contracted with line rental. He was told this would have no affect on his speeds but they changed him to Plusnet Fibre and capped his speed at 40/20 (this was before this account type was downgraded to 40/2).

They are now arguing the toss about giving him back 80/20 (which won't cost them anything as that is how the line is still provisioned).

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1454...

Edited by jelv (Fri 06-Nov-15 14:13:16)

Muppet's clueless muppets is what they are, the capped by plusnet 40/20 product has been withdrawn , according to info posted on their community forum, Seems that the underlying reason could be down to the amount of BT [censored] haul capacity needed to fix their peak time issues lower sync products can't consume as much data as quickly

That same thought had occurred to me!

Here is my account with a few Screenshots to illustrate the degregated Speed test results since renewing my package.

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1454...

The fact that your sync speed - as shown by the IP profile - has dropped is nothing whatsoever to do with changing products as you are still on the 80/20 product so any drop in speed isn't due to anything Plusnet have done

I totally agree with you Jim. majika2007 (majikaz) 's problem is not related to this thread.
I would have said that it looks possibly like a banded speed, but Chris Parr mentioned a sync speed of 50.2Mbps so I'm scratching my head atm. The fact that eci kit is involved will probably not be helping, along with any modem swapping (a huawei 612 was mentioned in the thread) etc. There may even be a REIN issue involved.

You can add me to similar thoughts

yeah those exec's have now integrated over to BT behaviour.

I dont blame the support staff, they need to earn a living.

Plusnet has been using sharp practices for a while.

When we first got FTTC, the downstream estimate we were given was mid-40s. Clearly above 40Mbps.

At the time, Plusnet was charging end-users a fixed price for up to 80/20. However the wholesale price for 40/10 was a couple quid cheaper a month. So they were provisioning people like us on a 40/10 rather than 80/20. Screwing us over for £2 profit.

When we remonstrated, Plusnet said those with "borderline" estimates - only somewhat above 40Mbps - were always provisioned on the lower speed. Arguing that our speed would probably drop below the threshold any way, because of crosstalk. Which it eventually did. But that's not the point.

Sounds like they're doing the same by provisioning only 40/2 when the upstream estimate is somewhat below 10Mbps.

The wholesale price differential between 40/10 and 40/2 is just £6 per year:

In reference to www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDeta...:

Up to 40Mbit/s downstream and up to 2Mbit/s upstream (including Simultaneous Provide) £82.80
Up to 40Mbit/s downstream and up to 10Mbit/s upstream (including Simultaneous Provide) £88.80

Bit of a joke when the profits from Plusnet, a wholly-owned BT subsidiary, end up in the same BT Group coffers any way.

--

Edit: thanks Robert; corrected to 80/20

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-Nov-15 15:51:44)

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

When we first got FTTC, the downstream estimate we were given was mid-40s. Clearly above 40Mbps.

At the time, Plusnet was charging end-users a fixed price for up to 80/10.

There is no Openreach or BT Wholesale 80/10 FTTC product and Plusnet have never offered one.

Sounds like they're doing the same by provisioning only 40/2 when the upstream estimate is somewhat below 10Mbps.

Plusnet don't offer the 40/10 product under any circumstances. Also 40/10 and 40/2 have never appeared simultaneously in their price list.

The wholesale price differential between 40/10 and 40/2 is just £6 per year:

In reference to www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDeta...:

Up to 40Mbit/s downstream and up to 2Mbit/s upstream (including Simultaneous Provide) £82.80
Up to 40Mbit/s downstream and up to 10Mbit/s upstream (including Simultaneous Provide) £88.80

That's the price to BT Wholesale. Not the price Plusnet pay BT Wholesale.

Your edit, whilst removing the clearly incorrect statement that they charged the same for 40/10 and 80/10, now makes it look decidedly odd. "At the time, Plusnet was charging end-users a fixed price for up to 80/10" means what?

the 80/20FTTC product = £119.40 Rental per year + VAT

So Plusnet were still paying that amount when they sold the Capped to 40mbps (40/20)
So the saving are a little higher some £43.92 inc Vat less the fee for changing products so around £25-£28 per year per customer

Vat is irrelevant to what Plusnet pay, other than in respect of cash flow.

Plus, as I said, they buy FTTC from BT Wholesale, not Openreach. That will be more than £119.40.

Bulk discounts from both may also play a part.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 11-Nov-15 14:07:28)

Sorry, slip of the keyboard; corrected to 80/20.