Plusnet renewal

My broadband is up for renewal after 18 month contract. Currently just broadband paying £19.99 a month and asked about moving to the fibre option, which they offered £23.99 and wouldn't price match Vodafone £21.95, apparently they were a few weeks ago but dont now.

Anyone else had luck with getting them to come down in price?

What is the switch notice to go from Plusnet to Vodaphone?

Thanks!

You need to call and speak to the Retentions department, not Sales or Support, and tell them you are thinking of moving and why.

All migrations are mandated by Ofcom as 10 days. Do not give notice of migration! That is handled automatically by the current Ofcom compulsory system, and triggered when you place an order with your chosen new provider. But don't order a migration while still in your minimum term contract, even in the last ten days.

Even using the words like Cease or Leave when talking to staff can screw things up, with a cease being put on line, broadband or both. That preventing the migration. You can end up in deep shtuck!

In the past, when I've been 'negotiating' I have even found that a second call the day after improved what was on offer. It has been said that the agents only have a limited allowance each of reductions and it could be you got one who is running short, don't know to what extent there's any truth in it.

I was out of contract and wanted to upgrade to fibre. Their bottom line for me was £22.49 for a TWO YEAR contract (which would have spanned three inflation-busting automatic increases).

NOW were offering £22 for 12 months, with free anytime calls. PN couldn't/wouldn't match - not even without the calls.

So I initiated a switch to NOW - and fibre. Unfortunately, NOW accepted the order and triggered a cease with Plusnet before discovering there is no capacity at the cabinet.

Plusnet wouldn't lift the cease unless I took a new 18-month contract - for my crummy 2Mb ADSL. They had me over a barrel, because I couldn't get fibre full stop, so my choices were to live with what I have or risk being disconnected at the end of the month.

To add insult to injury, they are charging for the ADSL the £22.49 that was previously their price for fibre. For several weeks the ADSL price had shown as between £18 and £19. Now it has become apparent I couldn't switch to fibre with PN or anybody else, the price for ADSL has risen.

I've been with PN over 20 years, all told, so one of their most loyal customers. Far from being rewarded, I feel punished that I even tried to move - and for the unfortunate circumstance that an upgrade isn't currently available - so they'll fleece me for the only product I can get.

I feel really sorry it has got like this. I still remember the golden age when they minded if you weren't happy, and somebody you knew by name would sort it out.

In reply to a post by TLM:

So I initiated a switch to NOW - and fibre. Unfortunately, NOW accepted the order and triggered a cease with Plusnet before discovering there is no capacity at the cabinet.

Surely they should have checked that first.

I agree, but having researched it since, articles (including on this site) suggest it's common that this is the first and only inkling the customer has of any problem - it's not exclusive to NOW.

I will give it a try again with the retention department. So don't switch until the contract has come to an end is the message?

Edited by clearcl (Thu 17-Jun-21 13:16:50)

Definitely don't switch until you're out of contract, as that will be a breach of your contract, and entitle them to levy a cancellation charge. That's the reason they have fixed-term contracts; to stop you leaving prematurely, or at least make it costly if you do.

Oddly though it should be possible to initiate the switch within the last 10 days as you won't move until after the contract is finished. But, some suppliers understand this and some don't. I had arguments with a previous mobile company who I said I was giving 30 days notice to less than 30 days before the end of the contract and they wanted to charge me a penalty - but they require 30 days notice so in essence your contract is with them for the initial minimum term plus the required notice period.

In reply to a post by TLM:

Definitely don't switch until you're out of contract, as that will be a breach of your contract, and entitle them to levy a cancellation charge. That's the reason they have fixed-term contracts; to stop you leaving prematurely, or at least make it costly if you do.

The Vodaphone website gives an option on the day you want to switch, so if its passed the contract date it should be ok?

In reply to a post by clearcl:

The Vodaphone website gives an option on the day you want to switch, so if its passed the contract date it should be ok?

THis seems to be missing from most other iSP sites and really should be compulsary, given the charges levied if you don't switch on the exact date you are out of contract!

Edited by hk11 (Thu 26-Aug-21 10:50:31)

Signed upto plusnet way back on 2004, and always managed to get a good/competitive deal from them.
This time round retentions were having none of it .
In the past they have been friendly, lively and eager to try and match or at least come close to competitors prices.
This time round it was completely different , the call centre/retentions staff sounded bored, tired and not bothered. phone up three times and the most i got was some waffle about them having an UK based customer support centre and thats why plusnet are a premium service.
am now about to switch to Now Broadband

You will need to get ready for the Now price hike after the introductory year and unshackle from the call package. I had a look at it, but after a year more expensive than Cuckoo.

the plan is, at the end of the 12 month period to either haggle and stay, or jump to another ISP when the broadband and call package minimum term ends - if thats what you mean by unshackle.
As for Cuckoo, looked into them but couldn't see any benefits to joining other than higher prices

Edited by Rich_T (Sat 26-Feb-22 10:26:56)

In reply to a post by Rich_T:

Signed upto plusnet way back on 2004, and always managed to get a good/competitive deal from them.
This time round retentions were having none of it .
In the past they have been friendly, lively and eager to try and match or at least come close to competitors prices.
This time round it was completely different , the call centre/retentions staff sounded bored, tired and not bothered. phone up three times and the most i got was some waffle about them having an UK based customer support centre and thats why plusnet are a premium service.
am now about to switch to Now Broadband

Maybe they had reached some monthly target and so did not have to try so hard?

Either Now or Cuckoo will make little difference in cost at the twelve month point and BOTH unbundle your line away from BT costing you a lump of money to get back to a BT line should your negotiations require one. From what I can see you won't beat the price by staying put where you are.

I see Sky proper are now doing broadband for £25 with no price increase for eighteen months, which is much the same by the end of the contract.

In reply to a post by Rich_T:

Signed upto plusnet way back on 2004, and always managed to get a good/competitive deal from them.
This time round retentions were having none of it .
In the past they have been friendly, lively and eager to try and match or at least come close to competitors prices.
This time round it was completely different , the call centre/retentions staff sounded bored, tired and not bothered. phone up three times and the most i got was some waffle about them having an UK based customer support centre and thats why plusnet are a premium service.
am now about to switch to Now Broadband

I did not even have to haggle, I had a email saying that my contract was coming to the end, and they offered me I think £24 a month or something like that, I ignored it for a couple of weeks, and they sent me another email with another offer of £21 a month, it will go up slightly in March, but it is still less than what I was paying last year.

In the next couple of years, I can see a lot of providers losing a lot of customers here,

In reply to a post by professor973:

I see Sky proper are now doing broadband for £25 with no price increase for eighteen months, which is much the same by the end of the contract.

Never trust any ISP say freeze price for 18 months, cos they never do, they will increase price anyway!

Never trust any ISP say freeze price for 18 months, cos they never do, they will increase price anyway!

Virgin did this to me in under a month of signing up to a contract. They said we won't raise your price until the end date. I'm sure you can guess how fuming I was when I called up billing and they go, "the price is correct" I explain and they go "you are right sir" "we will fix it" they say "I will speak to the manager" they put you on hold come back and go "the manager is busy, I will email and ask for the fix".
Nothing happens

I start a complaint and then contact the forum team, they then fix the issue in under three working days.

The issue was:
They decided that the agreed £31 a month was too little so they changed the whole contract without telling me from £31 for 18 months to £61 a month on a one month contract, they keep insisting that it was me who made the change, being in contract I'm not sure how I would leave a contract for a one month one, it's just impossible without them charging the full 18 months.
I put in a complaint and it's now £29 a month for M500 with a month free as compensation.

Ultimately price rises can be good, this is a perfect case of where Virgin have dug themselves into a hole and have forced themself into giving lower prices.

I can't comment for plusnet but felt it was a good example

In reply to a post by adslmax:

In reply to a post by professor973:

I see Sky proper are now doing broadband for £25 with no price increase for eighteen months, which is much the same by the end of the contract.

Never trust any ISP say freeze price for 18 months, cos they never do, they will increase price anyway!

That is not true, whenever I have been sold a fixed-price contract it has been honoured. It has to be. Sometimes you need to read the small print.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

In reply to a post by professor973:

I see Sky proper are now doing broadband for £25 with no price increase for eighteen months, which is much the same by the end of the contract.

Never trust any ISP say freeze price for 18 months, cos they never do, they will increase price anyway!

Oddly enough I've just been on the VM website and looking at the broadband only deals it says that across the top!

So everyone is at it.. although I guess that's right VM are not sneaky they are upfront about the price rises - and let you leave.. Unlike Sky and some others.

https://ibb.co/Fq2vc7x

The reason Virgin have to be upfront is so you can remortgage your house to be ready for their 200% increase.
Jokes aside they have done a substantial increase on my connection in the past.
They do give a months notice via letter normally, but you have to give a months notice to leave so you still get billed for one month of the increase.

For what it's worth, on behalf of a family member I recently called the Plusnet 'Customer Options Team' (on 0800 013 2632) to get a better deal just after they went out of contract on an FTTC connection.

They were paying £22.95 a month (this itself was a 24 month retention deal, which I think was a price match for Vodafone a couple of years ago - seems this deal kicked in before the annual CPI + 3.9% rise became part of the contract).

The out of contract price was £47 or so. As per the new Ofcom guidance, Plusnet sent an email offering to recontract for a "best price" of £24.99 (on an 18 months contract) with a link to the Plusnet customer portal where you could opt for this. However I was pretty sure I could do better than that.

I'd intended to call in the 10 days before the old contract ended but didn't quite get round to it, so I called just afterwards - meaning paying for one month at the out of contract price of £47 odd.

(Out of interest, at this point I followed the link for the £24.99 "best price" in the earlier email - this was no longer shown as being available, instead a message to call Plusnet was shown.)

A quick shop around showed NOW Broadband offering FTTC at £20 a month (12 month contract) - this had recently dropped from £21 a month - and Vodafone at £22 a month (24 month contract).

Armed with this, I spoke to a nice chap at the Customer Options Team in (I think) Leeds. His system still showed a price match for NOW at £21 a month rather than £20 - as I think NOW had only just dropped the price by a quid and Plusnet hadn't caught up with that yet.

Anyway I couldn't be bothered to quibble about the extra quid a month and so took it at £21 a month deal on a 24 month contract (though this time it does include the annual CPI + 3.9% rise), effective from the next monthly bill.

Also retained BT Sport app access, continuing to pay the price of £10 a month - for anyone signing up now via Plusnet it's £17.15 (with the CPI + 3.9% annual rise). I'm a bit hazy about the BT Sport app contract aspect but it seems to be a monthly rolling contract, so I imagine that legacy price won't last forever - particularly bearing in mind the upcoming merger of BT Sport into Warner Bros. Discovery's Eurosport operation. We shall see what happens on that front.

And in a couple of years time when this contract is up, FTTP might be available.


Long story short - my experience dealing with Plusnet's Customer Options Team aka retentions has been very easy going. I was prepared to call back another day if the agent couldn't offer a good deal, but there was no need.