Cessation Charge...Eh?

Could someone please have a look in their Account Summary, and see if 'Cessation Charge', dated 28/10/2008, is mentioned as Activated?

Edited by dieselglider (Tue 28-Oct-08 22:55:46)

Hi there,

We rolled out some changes to our back-end code early this morning to automate the application of the cessation fee should you need to cease your service.

It's explained in a bit of detail here and most of you will have received an email about it some time ago.

Plenty of discussion over on Community here.

Yes.

Thanks Bob, I understand about the cessation charge in general. But the fact that it's listed in my account summary with a date, and an order status of 'Activated' has made me wonder if my connection is Activated to be ceased??

@ greyposter, thanks.

Edited by dieselglider (Tue 28-Oct-08 23:28:57)

Hi dieselglider,

It doesn't mean that a cease is scheduled on your account, be assured of that.

The way we've applied this is as a deferred contract, much like the activation ones, which just means it'll sit on your account indefinitely. If you do cancel your account this will become payable prior to the cancellation.

I did work out after some searching that this was not an "active" charge. However, I do think that you should find a better way of making this obvious - at first glance it definitely looks like a cease is in progress.

To my knowledge this is the first I have heard about cessation charges.
I cannot believe that this charge can be legal. If I go to the Cinema, Pub, Theatre etc. and pay for a service I do not pay again to leave. So after first paying to have Broadband connected and paying for the service for many years I am damned if I will be paying a cessation charge if I decide to leave! Not that I intend to cease at the moment, I have however been looking at other ISP's and many seem to be offering a cheaper subscription for a similar service. So if I move ISP, the cessation charges could eventually be self financing and save me a lot of money by the time I grow to old for Broadband.

The cessation charge is not payable on a migration. It is payable to BT via plusnet if you cancel your broadband.

It also needs to be said it's not a Plusnet charge. It's a charge made by BT to the ISP.

Edited by wingco1 (Fri 31-Oct-08 10:27:43)

"It also needs to be said" that the majority of providers take this cost on the chin.

I know I'm no longer a PlusNet customer but this seems really odd to me.

There now apears to be no way of cancelling your contract with PlusNet without occuring a penalty charge - apart from migration but then this isn't really cancelling your contract.

How would you all feel if BT turned round to you and said they're introducing a �100 cessation fee should you cancel your landline, or if your gas supplier turned round and said they're introducting a �150 cessation fee if you terminate your gas supply.

The gas supplier actually has to do something as, should a property be wothout gas supply for a period of time, they're legally obliged to ome and physically disconnect the supply at the premises for safety purposes.

I really can't believe this is actually legal - and if it is legal, then it's entirely immoral.

/me is glad I left when I did!

I understand what you are saying. However this charge is levied by BT to ALL ADSL ISP's. It is a matter for the ISP's how they deal with it. Plusnet has at least been upfront and publically said the cost is to be passed on. Others have not commented on what they are going to do.

It could be argued that the introduction of this charge is a fundamental change to the Terms and Conditions, to the detriment of the customer. Therefore PN should have given customers the opportunity to leave without penalty, however with monthly contracts that's academic.

They did - except for deferred hardware and similar costs.

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They did - except for deferred hardware and similar costs.

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As far as I'm aware there can't be any exceptions. If the Contract is altered to a customers detriment then the whole contract is void if the customer doesn't agree to the changes.

This was the response in the Plusnet forums which, AFAIK, has not been changed.

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Because we have made a change to the terms and conditions that you agreed to when you signed up we have given 30 days notice period, within which you can serve notice that you do not agree to the new terms and would like to cancel. We really don't want you to do that of course, we value your custom - but we legally have to give you that option. We would not hold you to the 12-months subscription but you would have to pay any deferred activation, housemove or hardware costs incurred at the start of your contract

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In reply to:

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but you would have to pay any deferred activation, housemove or hardware costs incurred at the start of your contract

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I'm not sure they can insist on that as it is they who have changed the contract terms.

As I understand it they have terminated the existing contract and invited users to accept the new one. They cannot therefore hold users to the early termination clause of that contract as that represents a penalty in the circumstances.

If they were able to do so it would completely negate the point of the legal requirement to accept rejection of the new terms.

I agree.

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we have given 30 days notice period, within which you can serve notice that you do not agree to the new terms and would like to cancel.

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Cancel means the whole contract, not just the parts that PN agree to let you cancel.

Exactly. They haven't given a 30-day notice. They have unilaterally repudiated the existing contract. The law has required them to invite rejection of a new contract within 30 days. If the user rejects it he cannot be liable for any termination, delayed setup or penalty payments - though I think it likely the return of a free router within the original contract period may be enforceable as that will be still Plusnet property supplied purely to enable the service.

I'm happy with my lot.

Presumably that notice was emailed to all customers since announcing it only in the forums wouldn't be worth a light.

Simon

Yep, all customers were emailed back in September, and the charges came into effect on the 29th of October.

As has been said, this is a fee applied by our suppliers, and is not one we can absorb across the board.

this is a fee applied by our suppliers, and is not one we can absorb across the board.
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Does that mean that you will absorb it in some cases?

Simon

No Simon.

It means we will pass it on to any customer where the charge is applicable. The relevant circumstances where this charge applies has been communicated to our customers.

From that esteemed ISP Tiscali's T&Cs:-

"12.14 If you end your contract for Broadband Services with us and do not request and use a MAC, you agree to pay us a cessation fee of �40. This fee is to cover the cancellation charge that we must pay BT and associated administration costs. The cessation charge will not be payable where you are moving home and either you have subscribed to our Broadband Services at your new address or we are unable to provide the Broadband Services at your new address."

Plus are in good company . Of course if Plus did not charge and one was a Tiscali customer wishing to cease what might one be tempted to do?

Would it be fair to assume that if they opt for a cease they no longer want that type of adsl service. If they did surely they would migrate and avoid the cease?

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/na_splitends.html

There's only one answer to that.

Simon

Has anyone compiled a list of ISP's that do not pass the charge on, would be interesting to see and could influence future choice of ISP!

I presumed that one would only ask for a cease if one wished to give up broadband (at least via BT copper). Assume you were made redundant and decided to give up BB as an economy. Customer of Tiscali - get MAC - move to PN (if no cease charge) then cease under 90 day money-back guarantee. PlusNet pick up the cease charge - good business.

It would be easier to do the other way around. Hardly any charge the cessation charge at all.

Correct. Plusnet have to release you without any penalty.

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Plusnet have to release you without any penalty.

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Or rather they would have done if you acted within the 30 days. Just checked & I got the email (as I presume everyone else did) on 25 September. Whether people read it or check the email address it is sent to is a different matter.

Good point. Any idea when the change was made though?

And I although I haven't read the actual T & Cs where it has changed, that in itself is not relevant as customers are not expected to check all their T & Cs daily or even monthly.

The date of notification of the change is the relevant date. As email to the user's registered address is presumably the declared method, if the user allows that to go out of date then Plusnet can claim to have fulfilled their responsibilty. However I don't know the case law on contract changes especially regarding receipt of mail-list emails and detection of rejections.

The date of reading the email from the user's mail server and then actually reading it on screen will be irrelevant, in the same way as snail-mail left in an incoming mail-box or just unopened is the recipients problem.

mkelly said earlier in this thread (here) that it was implemented on 29 October.

Plusnet T&C also state:-

"8.1.1 You must accept and read regularly email to postmaster@<username>.plus.com." (Although I thought there was talk of a change to that some time ago - as long as there was another email address official stuff could go to.)

If someone signs up with Plusnet then they've agreed to check their postmaster address - if they don't that is, as you say, their problem. As that is a Plusnet managed address the only place mail is likely to get rejected or blocked is because of something that the user has implemented.

I think the main problem is how Plusnet can insist on payment of deferred charges, in a contract they have changed to the customers detriment, if the customer rejects the changes.

They can't, but that's what the dates discussed in the last couple of posts or so are about.

The user has a limited time to reject the change from the date of notification, otherwise acceptance is by default as in all such changes at other companies.

I would argue that the "false" information given by Plusnet could probably have influenced some customers to accept against their better judgement.

I hope such misinformation is not an indication of the "old" Plusnet re-emerging.

Depends on whether they are considered separate contracts or not. If the deferred payments are a separate contract then they could still enforce even if they change the terms of the ADSL contract.

I fail to see how they could be. Plusnet agree to supply ADSL. They also offer to defer certain costs as part of that agreement. The various ADSL packages refer to these deferred costs as inclusive, should the customer wish to take them. Therefore the deferred costs are part of the ADSL packages.

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Plusnet T&C also state:-

"8.1.1 You must accept and read regularly email to postmaster@<username>.plus.com." (Although I thought there was talk of a change to that some time ago - as long as there was another email address official stuff could go to.)

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Indeed we did talk about that - We got the sign-off in principle to change the wording of the AUP and I was planning to get it changed the next time we did an update. Annoyingly there wasn't time during the latest round of work though and a number of items we had hoped to add in had to be dropped. We have a bigger project underway to look at the wording and structure of all our contract terms and AUPs (For Plusnet, Metronet and MAAF) to see what we can do to bring them together and improve them generally (we've been looking at things like Plain English reviews as well as the terms themselves). However it's a far from easy rewording such things as we've no desire to make our terms seem less attractive to people, which is easily done without taking a lot of care.

In regards of other ISPs passing this charge on, I have a feeling it's inevitable at some point, but I think people should wait and see a bit - especially in the current climate a lot of businesses in our market have a handful of hard decisions to make. It's normal for supplier costs to be passed on, but they can take a while to filter through so it's probably too eatly to identify who will charge this and who won't long term.

Ian

Can you say how many, if any, customers rejected the recent updated Terms & Conditions Ian.

Of course he can't. I highly suspect you knew that we wouldn't be in a position to answer that question anyhow.

By the way - regarding the deferred charges remaining payable under the 30 day notice period. That is not correct and my apologies if that caused any confusion, although I do believe that it was cleared up at a later point. I know I certainly did on MoneySavingExpert, but I can't remember if I did on the Community Site.

However. It was trained out internally that the only fees that would be payable under a cancellation request under the detrimental change in the terms and conditions would be any subscription fees owed over that period of time. So any deferred contracts and also anything outstanding under a fixed term contract outside of the 30 days period would be written off.

I trust that clarifies the situation.

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Nov-08 13:33:17)

That actually made me laugh James. So most of the indignation and legal explanations in this thread are based on a factual inaccuracy in the PlusNet forum that this post quotes from.

Ah hang on.

I've confused myself for a change.

From a Madasafish perspective, there would be no deferred charges owed. They would be owed on a Plusnet perspective. I'll try and dig out the relevant clause in our terms and conditions and suitably continue to look like an idiot...

(from our main terms and conditions)

23.2 If we give you notice, you must pay the Charges applicable up to the end of that notice. If you give us notice, you must pay us the Charges that would have been due within the notice period.

(from signup)

6. If you cancel your service before the end of the 12-month minimum period, you will be expected to pay the full cost of the hardware, in addition to any other cancellation fees that may be payable.

There isn't a specific instance which covers deferred hardware, apart from the charges that would have been owed within the notice period.

I'm *really* sorry for the confusion I've caused here. The Madasafish terms and conditions are a little different, hence my clarification on the MoneySavingExpert site on the matter over an initial oversight.

Feel free to laugh away...

I think you were right before James, as what you said, which now seems applicable to Madasfish but not to Plusnet, made sense.

If the Plusnet position still is as that quote, and paragraph 9 of this FAQ then all I can say is Madasafish legal advice was better than Plusnet's.

They may get a few customers to pay, if any actually do migrate because of it, but if anyone challenges it I think Plusnet would have no chance of enforcing it in court.

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Of course he can't.

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Unlike in the past, I would have been happy with answer of, "none", or "a few"

Your clarification that deferred fees are not payable where the customer rejects the new T&C's is welcomed. The question remains has anyone actually left but paid these fees?.

He changed his mind about that and said it only applied to Madasfish. Plusnet want to charge them.

I'm trying to remember but I thought the last full T&C change months (maybe over a year now) ago introduced a clause to allow for charging the termination charge (even though it may not of been applied at that time). My (probably failing) memory seems to think it was around the time BT first started to talk about the charge last year.

It was a clause in the Broadband Your Way terms and conditions from last April.

Even though the clause had been in there since then, we felt it was a sensible option to contact all customer, including those on broadband your way, advising them of the change, in case they had missed it when they had signed up, or potentially changed product.

I wasn't going mad then....In that case I think it actually means PN are offering more than legally required since BBYW customers in this instance haven't had a change of T&C's to their detriment by this. It is just PN enforcing the T&Cs the customer originally agreed to.

James said;

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It was a clause in the Broadband Your Way terms and conditions from last April.

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So what about those who signed up before last April Vince?.

They were all emailed last month.

Vince was just referring to customers who had signed up on resi products over the last 18 months.

They would only be on a monthly contract, hence would not have any deferred fees - I think. The longest contract PN offered was 1 year and BBYW has been around since April 2007 when the term was added to the T&Cs.

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They were all emailed last month.

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OK, but if some wished to reject the new T&C's, would Plusnet persue the payment of deferred fees?.

Thats the point I was trying to make though. Those customers on contract that didn't have the cancellation charge clause in their T&Cs from the start are now out of the first 12 months and should not therefore have deferred fees left. Anyone who has joined or upgraded to BBYW and possibly started a deferred fees based contract has been on BBYW for over 18 months now.

I must be missing something here James says the new clause was introduced in April.

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It was a clause in the Broadband Your Way terms and conditions from last April.

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That's April 2008. So it is possible some people who signed up to BBYW with deferred charges prior to April 2008 would still be within a 12 month period.

Or have I lost the plot?

I was taking last April last to mean April 2007 - perhaps James can confirm that as it would potentially make a lot of difference. My reason for thinking this is I thought the change to the T&Cs was introduced when I was still a customer, and I have been with Sky/UKO for 15 months now.

Edit to correct a quoting error

Edited by ScaryMonkey (Tue 04-Nov-08 18:48:32)

In reply to:

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from last April.

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Seems pretty clear, but only James can clarify.

To me last April would be April in the previous year, this April would be April in the current year and next April to be April in the next year, hence my interpretation. We both agree though, only PN (and hopefully James when he reads this) can clarify whose interpretation of the comment is correct.

Aint the English language good lol... possible to interpret a comment in a number of ways.

Pedantry on.

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To me last April would be April in the previous year

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http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/last

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most recent; next before the present; latest: last week; last Friday.

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Last April

Just had a look at the T&C's

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PlusNet Terms and Conditions for Internet Services and/or the sale of Equipment ("Conditions")
These terms and conditions apply to all new customers that registered from Wednesday 11th April 2007.

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Sorry to spoil the discussion

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Sorry to spoil the discussion

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Not at all. It clarifies the situation.

Now why didn't I think of doing that lol.

In that case AIUI there shouldn't be any deferred fees for anyone whose T&C didn't have the cancellation clause included in it.

2007.

If I'd meant April 2008, I'd have omitted the word "last".

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Nov-08 09:01:46)