In reply to a post by keymaster:

Hi
Recently had very similar with family member and had to settle all utilitly contracts and had to pay termination fee etc with Plusnet, so I believe posters on MSE are not correct.
K

Sorry for your loss.

PN used to demand birth cert but they dropped that after some hot water. I remember that well.

At its best, MSE forum discussion contains a lot of helpful and accurate information. At its worst, MSE forum discussion is frustrating, with posters contradicting correct information based on what they believe is the correct answer or what they believe should happen.

Having ploughed into the MSE thread, I wish I hadn't bothered. There are several people who appear unwilling to accept my explanations that the customer's death doesn't frustrate the contract but refuse to give any legal justification for their assertion.


Though it was necessary to consider frustration to give a complete answer, it is important to remember that frustration of a contract is a rare event. Most customer death situations are resolved by explicit contractual terms about customer death (which might be found in a force majeure clause - a key purpose of a force majeure clause is to bring greater clarity to situations that might otherwise lead to frustration) or by agreement between the successors and the provider.

I don't share the opinion of those who feel that Zen should automatically write off an early termination fee following the customer's death. In this case, the fire might mean there is insurance cover for utility termination fees. If that turns out not to be the case, hopefully Zen can agree terms that are acceptable to the executor in order to bring this matter to a dignified close.

This situation is very sad indeed but aside from asking the poster to make contact a company isn't likely to act on a forum post on a third party forum because it will be bound to protect personal details by law.

I agree - all very sad.

But a simple reply here responding to the original poster asking them to contact them directly would have been nice to see...

The original poster has updated the MSE thread to say that, following further discussion, Zen have agreed to waive all the charges.

Sounds good.
As they are TBB members some sort of response here would have been nice to see...

I see no reason to think they are TBB members. It was the mention of Which? that helped apparently.

And to add another to your list, house rent, with associated items.

When a relative died, the only items that were not actually charge for in that group, but could have been, was the clearance of remaining odds and ends of furniture and cleaning of the property.

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I wonder if any of those who think that contracts are "void" at death have ever seen the notices generally published in the newspapers of the area, asking that anyone who is owed cash etc by the Deceased or owes cash to the Deceased, should contact the Executor.

If all contracts were voided by Death, there would be no need for such adverts.

I am surprised no one from here has said anything on the thread at all.

I am glad it has been sorted and I am flagging this internally as well. I have noted over the past 12months a decline in the presence of staff on the forum and I'll do what I can to rectify this.

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Edit: Just to follow up on this. I have been made aware this morning that we contacted the customer directly after seeing this post to resolve the issue directly.

Edited by deleted (Tue 23-Jun-15 09:28:05)