Yes, the phone will be billed on the same day as the broadband once it's been moved over. I'd guess there'll either be a pro-rata payment or discount depending on which way that ends up moving the date.

There won't be any introductory offers or discounts though.

That's a somewhat dramatic way of phrasing the question.

All the Yourcalls customers have been notified by post of the takeover already. Yes we will be taking ownership of the assets, but I very much doubt anyone would view it as being 'slammed'.

I'm not querying you taking over all the assets incl. existing contracts, but you switching the account holder details on the contract w/out 1st getting the permission of that a/c holder.

Example: A parent rents phone line from YourCalls. One of his children places PN BB on that phone line with parent's permission.

Now that you are taking over YourCalls, you will takeover the parent's phone contract. You are saying that you will merge the parent's phone a/c into the child's BB a/c. Does the parent want that? Have you sought his agreement? It's his decision.

One side effect will be that the child will be billed for both phone + BB. Or will it be the other way round? It is quite likely that the patent wants to pay for the phone but allowed the child to have BB on it on condition that the child paid for the BB.

OTOH it may be that if the child is paying extra for having PN BB Only then the household will save money by having them together.

But in the final analysis it is up to the parent to decide how he wants it and you need to ask his permission whether he wants the 2 a/c's merged and, if so, how.

Well, as I said the owners of the phone line have already received a letter explaining what's going to happen and how it'll work. If there's already PN broadband on the line that's moving, that's mentioned in the letter as well as an explanation of how it'll be merged into the existing broadband account - so if there are any circumstances such as you mention, they'll have already been able to contact Yourcalls (or us, after November 1st) and address this. To my knowledge that's not happened, though it may have and I've not heard about it.

You'll probably start hearing about it when someone who was expecting a bill for broadband only gets billed for the phone as well.

Can you confirm that you sent a letter to BOTH account holders (the Yourcalls phone and the PN broadband account holders) where they were different? Just notifying the holder of the phone account only is NOT sufficient.

It may not be parent and child, it could be shared accommodation where one person pays the phone and another the broadband. The person paying for the phone gets the letter and thinks if I keep quiet I won't be billed for the phone.

Also, is suddenly billing someone for extra charges without getting their permission not illegal?

Edited by jelv (Wed 06-Nov-13 15:48:16)

In reply to a post by orbrey:

If there's already PN broadband on the line that's moving, that's mentioned in the letter as well as an explanation of how it'll be merged into the existing broadband account

Well, at least you've covered the base I'm concerned about in the letter. So they will have been warned that you are removing their ownership of the phone line and so can object.

Good point! Overlooked that as assumed both a/c holders were in communication, as is the OP.

Well, technically speaking broadband can't be installed on a line without the permission of the line owner, so if broadband has been installed on their line in someone else's name it's their responsibility.

However, I do see your point - I'm just waiting for the person who arranged all the letter sends to become available so I can ask them about this.

Actually in my case the bill payer didn't get the letter - I did (it was addressed to me, and I dont pay the line rental/telephone). I used to for YourCalls, but stopped several years ago now...

Edited by deleted (Thu 07-Nov-13 00:48:33)

Further thoughts:

I gave just 1 example of shared occupancy between a Yourcalls phone renter and a PN BB customer. Of course it applies equally well to house sharers, as previously pointed out, and landlord & tenant, where in all cases the landline owner has given permission to the BB user to install BB on the owner's line and for the BB user to bear the BB cost. Is it right for a landlord to be deprived of his own landline in his own house and for the tenant to bear the cost of the phone previously agreed to be supplied by the landlord, just cuz the tenant chose PN as his ISP? That would indeed be dramatic slamming !

Also by PN assigning the phone contract unilaterally to the BB customer, a third-party to that contract, if it is indeed allowed by the T&Cs, PN has broken the phone contract with the other first party to the contract. Thereby opening itself to adverse legal action. It's not like you can plead that the slamming was caused by other suppliers, like BT OR, outside your control, as in previous cases; you would have brought it upon yourselves.