Plusnet Retention offer

Hi all

Contract runs out next month and they offered me (or rather I asked) if I could keep on paying the same I'm doing now; £2.50 a month for BB with line rental saver (about £185). They said yes but the new contract would be for 18 months.

I added that TalkTalk offer BB for free and theirs is on a 12-month contract.

PN said they couldn't go any lower.

Do you think they possibly can?

Thanks in advance.

If Talk Talk offers you a deal you want then go with Talk Talk, simple as that really. It is like people who try to get cheaper deals from Sky by saying they will leave, Sky is calling their bluff these days.

Don't like the price, don't use the service, do you ask your utility company if you can get a discount on you r electric because another company does it cheaper?

Thing is, I've been quite happy with PN ever since I joined back in 2013. I don't really want to leave them to be honest. Any problems I've had, they've sorted them out more or less immediately.

I might give them a call again tomorrow and see if they'll budge.

well if you are happy and don�t want to leave then take the 18 month contract, prices will only ever go up from the £2.50 offered and you will not have to haggle the price in 12 months time.
and it will not make any difference if within that time you want to upgrade to FTTC.

In 18 months they will more than likely increase the price of something such as line rental so you can renegotiate (as I did once), stay or leave before your contract has run its full term.
Usually I have to ring twice at least to get a reasonable deal. A lot depends on who you speak to and how much they have left in their discount pot.

I rang them again and first the guy said he'd give me BB for £6.50 for 24 months (!!) and then after a while haggling, he said he'll reduce it to £3.33 (or something like that). Finally I said if it's possible to pay what I'm currently paying and he went away for about 30 seconds, came back and said yes, that'll be fine.

I mentioned I'll call back later if I wanted to query this further.

Mental.

The COT used to match prices from other ISPs e.g. Sky and TalkTalk providing the opposition had an LLU presence in your exchange they used to match Origin's product pricing for ADSL BB as long as you payed PN's line rental pricing.

Edited by Apprentice (Tue 07-Jun-16 11:51:33)

PN can match SSE FREE unlimited fibre broadband (up to 76Mbps) for 18 months contract with PN Anytime calls with phone line for £22.99

In reply to a post by adslmax:

PN can match SSE FREE unlimited fibre broadband (up to 76Mbps) for 18 months contract with PN Anytime calls with phone line for £22.99

You've said that before but others here have tried that and failed. Just because they do it for one person doesn't mean they'll do it for another.

True but it depend who u speaking to and the pot luck of the draw!

Edited by adslmax (Wed 08-Jun-16 20:40:36)

..... depend who u speaking to .....

From experience that is true.

Well I just tried and they couldn't even get within £10 of the SSE price for a 24-month contract (and for an inferior product - no inclusive calls). They basically said it was completely impossible to match as it was being massively subsidised from their power business (is that legal?). I'll give it one more shot with someone else.

Nothing illegal about an operator running a single product at a loss. Only becomes an issue for an operator like BT Consumer when competitors complain and Ofcom decides to take action.

So you are determined to go with a rubbish provider just because they are cheap - Notice I did not say inexpensive!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Nothing illegal about an operator running a single product at a loss. Only becomes an issue for an operator like BT Consumer when competitors complain and Ofcom decides to take action.

BT is of course only a regulated company because they have significant market power. Other operators can run at a loss without distorting the market; if they do then the competion & markets authority may investigate.

As ever, I have no idea what you are talking about. I am not "determined" to do anything - where on earth did you get that idea? I am with Plusnet, whom I know you hate and with whom I have been more than happy with. I am approaching the end of my contract and looking for a deal. I would be happy to stay with Plusnet but, frankly, if I can get a roughly equivalent service for £10 a month less then I am up for it.

One point to watch out for is the backhaul capacity. If that is under configured you will get poor performance during busy periods, such as the evening. The problem is you may only find out after the service is installed, and when any free cancellation period has expired.

Thanks for the warning. Meanwhile, back at Plusnet, result! They couldn't quite match SSE but got close enough for it not to be worth the risk and bother of switching so I am a happy man

Just to let you guys know, PN offered me £2.50 for BB on an 18-month contract as well as my keeping the telephone line with them. Also paid line rental up-front (about £185).

No problems at my end.

Did they throw in free any time calls as well?

Unfortunately they didn't. I'm not sure what the chances of that would have been in any case. They accepted my paying what I'm doing currently. Maybe they thought they couldn't give any more concessions.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

One point to watch out for is the backhaul capacity. If that is under configured you will get poor performance during busy periods, such as the evening. The problem is you may only find out after the service is installed, and when any free cancellation period has expired.

And i wish them luck if they do experience such issues because they will certainly need it, in my case they never got it fixed for me, resulted in me taking it up with CiSAS and claiming compensation full refund for period affected until i migrated away,

Edited by tommy45 (Sat 25-Jun-16 21:48:33)

Shame, they did for me, even though I didn't push for it.

Hmm, they seem to have got a bit carried away with my discount, having applied both the discount they originally offered and the one I subsequently obtained leaving me with a bill for next month of ... 25p! Being an honest kind of guy I will be contacting them to point out their generous mistake.

What deal did you get exactly? How close did they come to £21/month(obviously around £13/month - after cashback, though I know they won't recognise that for retention negotiations)?

I'd rather not say exactly what the deal was on a public forum but, as I said, it was close enough for me not to want to risk moving. As for my ridiculously low bill, I have raised it on a ticket and they seem to think it is correct, which it isn't. I'll probably leave it a month and see what happens. I don't want to get hit with a large charge in a few months' time when they realise their mistake.

Just stick the unsafe saving in a piggy-bank. Shock avoided. Also a nice windfall in a couple of years, as it would be very difficult for them to claim the whole period in arrears.

As it turns out, I have now worked out what they are doing and the bill is correct, it's just made confusing by the different start dates for the broadband and the phone (which I have now moved back from Pulse8 again). I have now had another bill, which offsets some of the reduction on the previous one, but that one is itself wrong for another reason! I think they;ll get there in the end.