Zen Marketing still trying to con users

As previously commented I'd received multiple emails from Zen promoting digital voice for an extra £6 per month which includes a calls package. I don't have a calls package at present and my call costs for the last 6 months were £0, £0, £0, £1.98, £0, £0 (I had serious words with the other half about that one call), so I'm not prepared to pay them £6 for an unwanted call package. I suspect if I did take up the offer I'd also lose my price for life guarantee.

When I contacted them I was told it was marketing email and that in time I would receive an email which would include the option to switch to digital voice like for like (i.e. same price, no included calls and keep the price for like guarantee). To stop the unwanted emails I've unsubscribed from marketing emails.

So what happens? The cheeky b.....s send me a letter through the post with the same con!

Edited by jelv (Wed 22-Mar-23 17:27:39)

Not sure why you are getting so upset, considering what some companies are charging £6 isn't a lot and you aren't being forced in any way.

Edited by techguy (Sun 26-Mar-23 17:15:18)

Why did you have "serious words" with someone over £1.98? I think you need to take a step back and re-asses what you feel is important, stress isn't good for people.

Where is the con?
It's an offer, you are free to take it up or not.
Obviously it's not in your interest to do so, so don't.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Why did you have "serious words" with someone over £1.98? I think you need to take a step back and re-asses what you feel is important, stress isn't good for people.

I hate to think what I should have done when my wife ran up a £7 call to her daughter's mobile during some fraught incident, instead of using Zen DV for £0.

Post deleted by GonePostal

All of the pile-on merchants seem to be missing the point here. If the OP does not respond to the proposed deal then Zen will ultimately have to move their service over to VoIP within the terms of their existing contract including the price guarantee for life. It is not the customer's responsibility to make the transfer. If the OP does respond to the marketing spiel they lose the price guarantee and see Zen's take increasing year on year. £1.98 is the starter for an ongoing and increasing contribution to Zen's revenue stream which the customer avoids by doing nothing.

It is a marketing con.

Thank you.

What is really getting my goat is that it's not one or two marketing emails, it's many. And having opted out of those it comes in the post. Strikes me that Zen are desperately trying to get as many as possible off the price guarantee for life.

In reply to a post by jelv:

Thank you.

What is really getting my goat is that it's not one or two marketing emails, it's many. And having opted out of those it comes in the post. Strikes me that Zen are desperately trying to get as many as possible off the price guarantee for life.

Did you even establish that is the case though, as you've not actually said it *does* remove that - you've just said you suspect...

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

All of the pile-on merchants seem to be missing the point here. If the OP does not respond to the proposed deal then Zen will ultimately have to move their service over to VoIP within the terms of their existing contract including the price guarantee for life. It is not the customer's responsibility to make the transfer. If the OP does respond to the marketing spiel they lose the price guarantee and see Zen's take increasing year on year. £1.98 is the starter for an ongoing and increasing contribution to Zen's revenue stream which the customer avoids by doing nothing.

It is a marketing con.

If the OP does nothing, they'll simply find their landline stops working when BT turn the kit off.

I've been a Zen customer for 9 years and with the exception of my requesting an upgrade the only price increase I had ever from them was 80p for line rental, I did move my line rental to a dfferent provider a year later as the call package was cheaper as the landline was getting a lot of use at the time but the broadband has remained with Zen as it just works and the price is reasonable.

Compare that the CPI+ percentage of the OPs previous provider.

Always found them to be helpful provided you treat them as you would wish to be treated.

In reply to a post by techguy:

If the OP does nothing, they'll simply find their landline stops working when BT turn the kit off.

I think you are missing the point. The point at issue is not the delivery method, it is the Zen contract. If the Zen contract with the OP is of the typical format, then they are being paid to supply a telephone voice service with no stipulation about the delivery method. As long as the OP does nor break that contract it is up to Zen to maintain a voice service by whatever method of supply they choose. When PSTN is turned off, it is Zen's responsibility to maintain the voice service by another method or to inform the customer that they (Zen) are breaking the contract which may be problematic depending on the Ts&Cs of the price for life guarantee.

That is a different situation to the current Zen marketing ploy to try and get people to move to VOIP earlier by allowing the customer to break their existing contract and sign up to a new contract with less advantageous terms.

Yes!

I'm being plagued by spammy you've been charged £95 for Amazon Prime calls with faked caller ids and I've seen suggestions that VoIP is better at dealing with them so I called. The Zen rep advised me to wait for the email with the like for like option.

In reply to a post by jelv:

As previously commented I'd received multiple emails from Zen promoting digital voice for an extra £6 per month which includes a calls package. I don't have a calls package at present and my call costs for the last 6 months were £0, £0, £0, £1.98, £0, £0 (I had serious words with the other half about that one call), so I'm not prepared to pay them £6 for an unwanted call package. I suspect if I did take up the offer I'd also lose my price for life guarantee.

When I contacted them I was told it was marketing email and that in time I would receive an email which would include the option to switch to digital voice like for like (i.e. same price, no included calls and keep the price for like guarantee). To stop the unwanted emails I've unsubscribed from marketing emails.

So what happens? The cheeky b.....s send me a letter through the post with the same con!

When I received the email the other week I phoned Zen to check into it and their answers to my queries were:


(1). If you take up Digital Voice it can be a completely separate contract to your Zen Broadband Service. (ie. Not Bundled). - So the Price for Life of the Broadband Contract remains in place.

(2). Zen Digital Voice will start a new 12 month contract for Zen Digital Voice.


Since others have found ways to use their own routers to access Zen Digital Voice it seems to me that the Zen Digital Voice could be worth taking up if you broadband connection is/has been consistently good and for me there is the rub.

At present my Zen 900 mbps FTTP Broadband is good but every so often it can have a Brain Fart when my finger hovers over the migrate to BT button.

While the Zen 900 maps Broadband stays OK I will stay with Zen but I am out of contract and I cannot lock myself in to a 12 month contract in case the nightmare starts again.

The Zen Digital Voice offer seems a good deal and if Zen Digital Voice was for a rolling one month contract I would take it up.

When I received the email the other week I phoned Zen to check into it and their answers to my queries were:


(1). If you take up Digital Voice it can be a completely separate contract to your Zen Broadband Service. (ie. Not Bundled). - So the Price for Life of the Broadband Contract remains in place.

(2). Zen Digital Voice will start a new 12 month contract for Zen Digital Voice.

On the basis of Zen Digital Voice being an entirely separate contract from Zen Broadband, does it follow that after the minimum term of 12 months one could port their number to another voice provider and not lose broadband service? If it does, that would be £72 for the year and then either a number port out to an alternative provider or reduction in price to a cheaper Digital Voice product with less or no minutes that Zen may have introduced by then.

Edited by EvD (Wed 29-Mar-23 06:35:58)

They must already have a PAYG Digital Voice service for those moved over on like for like basis and who previously had no calls package.

In reply to a post by EvD:

On the basis of Zen Digital Voice being an entirely separate contract

The person that I spoke with definitely said that it could be kept completely separate as a separate contract and not bundled.

However, I suspect that anyone taking up Zen Digital Voice may need to insist on it being kept completely separate to ensure that it is not inadvertantly bundled in some way by the sales person.

In reply to a post by techguy:

If the OP does nothing, they'll simply find their landline stops working when BT turn the kit off.

I don't think that's a given at all.

What you're suggesting is that Openreach will transparently migrate any WLR+FTTC services, which are live at the time of PSTN switchoff, to SOGEA. I have not yet seen any indication that this will be the case.

Openreach could instead simply cease the WLR, which ceases the attached FTTC, and the end-user loses service completely. It would be the CSP's responsibility to migrate the user to SOGEA before that, and any refuseniks would have to accept the consequences.

This is arguably better than silently migrating: otherwise, users who pick up the phone rarely (or expect it to be working for 999 calls only) will have no idea that their service is not what they originally ordered and are paying for. At worst Openreach could be held liable for large consequential damages, especially in the case of delayed emergency calls.

Furthermore, there are still people who pay their WLR to one provider and their FTTC to another. It would be impossible to migrate these to SOGEA without changing who bills what.

In Mildenhall, Openreach are trailing periods of broadband speed degradation as a way of notifying users that their service is reaching end of life. To me, this implies that the broadband itself is going to be cut off, unless the user talks to their CSP to migrate to SOGEA.

Technically it would be possible for the CSPs themselves to move people over from WLR+FTTC to SOGEA without the end-user's involvement. But since that would involve a change of product and services delivered, and hence a change to an existing contract, I think it's going to require the customer to agree to it first.