Beware: Plusnet Will Take Advantage Of You If Vulnerable

On Christmas Eve myself and my kids were made homeless by my wife. We are all victims of domestic abuse. In Jan I called Plusnet to cancel my account and was told that I could put it on hold for two weeks then transfer to a new house if I found one. I managed to secure accomodation and rang them within two weeks. Plusnet kindly said that they would transfer me and find me a better price.

What they failed to say is that they did not make me aware of what packages were available and signed me up to a 24 month contract that costs more than the shorter ones. Only got connected today and managed to see the messages on my account. I am in rented accomodation and would not sign up to a two year contract., Nice to see a company with a social conscience happy to take advantage of the vulnerable. Would love to complain but the phone line does not work and the waiting time, ringing by mobile, is over 20 minutes.

Thank you Plusnet.....

sadly many contracts are not compatible with short assured tenancies and as such you just have to hope things work out.

One bright spot on the horizon is you'll be able to leave your 2 year contract for free as soon as Plusnet put the price up.

Not a happy tale , starting no doubt before Dec 25. Commiserations.

Wrt the phone line it is probable that will be working tomorrow, so at least you may be able to see about getting it sorted out. I think it more likely a script-monkey has done this rather than a deliberate policy to screw you.

Is it a FTTC, FTTP or ADSL2+ connection? I ask because they do have a monthly ADSL2+ contract at the bottom of this page, if that's any use to you.

I also suggest that if you haven't posted on the Community Forums, you do so. If they still have an Accounts one it may be the best place.

Best wishes.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 01-Feb-17 19:35:11)

In reply to a post by ASP:

What they failed to say is that they did not make me aware of what packages were available and signed me up to a 24 month contract that costs more than the shorter ones.

By law, they were obliged to make it clear. If they didn't, the contract is not in force.
I suggest you do not phone them yourself. Seek help from your local Citizens Advice Bureau and have them contact plusnet by phone and by letter. That will force them to take your case seriously - if you were to call them, they might as well ignore your complaints.
And, btw, onus is on them to prove they did tell you over the phone that the contract was 24 months long, and that you said yes. They record all calls, so shouldn't be an issue for them to find and listen to that recording.

In reply to a post by Mml:

I suggest you do not phone them yourself. Seek help from your local Citizens Advice Bureau and have them contact plusnet by phone and by letter. That will force them to take your case seriously - if you were to call them, they might as well ignore your complaints.

That is not good advice. You should always try to contact the company first before involving a third party like CAB.

I believe Pnet would take a blind man's dinner and toss him for the plate.

Likely that advice from CAB might be to contact PlusNet and highlight that the contract term was not made clear and might have changed customers decision making process if it had been brought to their attention.

So I'd say, that what was given was reasonable advice, i.e. seek help from those trained in these consumer rights matters. The danger of contacting a firm when you are not 100% and have some backup that you are right is clever sales patter may make you back down, and given the situation here support from people is very important.

Contacting CAB is very different from going down the full legal path, certainly would be extremely unlikely the first action from CAB will be to contact PlusNet, I would only imagine that happening once reasonable attempts at resolution via the consumer themselves had failed.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Likely that advice from CAB might be to contact PlusNet and highlight that the contract term was not made clear and might have changed customers decision making process if it had been brought to their attention.

That is fair enough, but I wouldn't expect CAB to actually make the first call, as was suggested.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Likely that advice from CAB might be to contact PlusNet and highlight that the contract term was not made clear and might have changed customers decision making process if it had been brought to their attention.

So I'd say, that what was given was reasonable advice, i.e. seek help from those trained in these consumer rights matters. The danger of contacting a firm when you are not 100% and have some backup that you are right is clever sales patter may make you back down, and given the situation here support from people is very important.

Contacting CAB is very different from going down the full legal path, certainly would be extremely unlikely the first action from CAB will be to contact PlusNet, I would only imagine that happening once reasonable attempts at resolution via the consumer themselves had failed.

I believe the CAB would be willing to ring Pnet on behalf of the customer or would help the customer write a letter. I do not believe they take up the matter as CAB, it would only be to be the voice of the customer. Though I think that saying who they were might get some reaction.

One problem would be that advisors get a limited time with a client and I am not sure they could get through the Pnet phone system within that time limit, it can take well over 30 minutes to get through just to talk to a front line person, who may only have been employed by Pnet a short time.

Good luck, whichever way you go to sort anything out with Pnet, they are a nightmare.