topic Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this? in Plusnet Feedback

Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

johpal — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:43:30 GMT

I arrived home this evening and had received the email below:

Quote
Your username: johpal
Dear Mr Jxxx Pxxxxxx,
This email is to confirm that your cancellation request has been
processed. Your account with us will finish on 27/09/2010.
Email ref: E0307

Plusnet have received a recorded delivery letter, in good time, detailing the transfer of my broadband and home phone services, effective 15-Sep-10. I do not accept, nor recognise 27-Sep-10 as the date of termination of my account (my billing date is 18-Sep-10 anyway).
Logging into the Member Centre to query this, I find a new ticket that appears to have been raised by me and to which I can append no comment:

Quote

Ticket number 35241652:
Your Response
4:08pm, Thursday 16 Sep 2010
The cease on 0114xxxxxxx was rejected on 16/09/2010

Plusnet, I have fulfilled my obligations to you by giving the required notice. I no longer receive any services from you, effective 16:00 on 15-Sep-10. This is precisely the mess I feared from you Accounts. I now expect a full explanation and an apology for this sorry affair. I am no longer a Plusnet customer; GET ON WITH IT!

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

adamwalker — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:52:37 GMT

johpal,
I'm looking into this now and will get back to you ASAP.

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

adamwalker — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:12:21 GMT

Having looked at your account the scheduled cancellation has been actioned correctly.
We do acknowledge that your services were migrated out on the 15th, however residential accounts are cancelled with 10 days notice. That notice period began when you sent the letter to us. We could have closed the account straight away for you but you would not have received any of the confirmation e-mails from us or had a chance to log into the portal, this is why in cases like this we use common sense and have added a few extra days so that the account can be closed on the day before your next billing date.
No further payments are to be taken and the account now and we can confirm that you no longer hold any services with us, to confirm the account will close automatically on the 27th of September, that's unless you would like me to change it to a free pay as you go account so that you can continue receiving e-mail to the Plusnet address you originally registered with us.

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

johpal — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:19:07 GMT

@ _Adam_Walker_
Thanks for the response. It would, however, IMHO saved a lot of effort if it were made clearer to the (ex-) customer, what was intended!

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

Lorenzo48 — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:19:25 GMT

Having just left I didn't know any of this either.
Any chance it can be added as auto text to the MAC ticket response?

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

adamwalker — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:32:18 GMT

johpal,
I'm sorry if this wasn't made clear, its a simple matter of if we had been transparent about this you wouldn't have had to raise some concerns about it.

Quote
Any chance it can be added as auto text to the MAC ticket response?

Lorenzo48 ,
I'll raise this issue with the customer options team who handle these requests.

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

jelv — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:48:17 GMT

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_
We do acknowledge that your services were migrated out on the 15th, however residential accounts are cancelled with 10 days notice. That notice period began when you sent the letter to us.

How did he migrate out? I was unaware of any way of migrating without using a MAC. If so his 10 day notice period started the day he requested his MAC. Is it a case that when the letter was received someone overwrote the date notice was given (date MAC requested) with the date of the letter?

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

johpal — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:49:03 GMT

Perhaps of interest, I migrated using a MAC key, issued 28-Aug-2010. My letter was dated 03-Sep-2010 and received by PN on 06-Sep-2010 (recorded delivery).

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

jelv — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:13:15 GMT

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_
Having looked at your account the scheduled cancellation has been actioned correctly.

Wrong! I think you need to look again Adam!
I believe he is due a refund for the period 15th to 18th as he gave notice more than 10 days before the 15th having requested his MAC on 28th August.

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

WebDude — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:09:36 GMT

Quote from: jelv
. If so his 10 day notice period started the day he requested his MAC.

I could be wrong, but it looks to me as if the notice period was extended by the migration not taking place earlier. If the 10 days notice from the issue of a MAC was used and all service stopped, you'd have some very unhappy customers who were still deciding, or waiting for a date to be fixed by another ISP.
From what I've seen in the past, the migration is the trigger for PlusNet accepting a customer really wants to go, if someone did not use the MAC, there would be even louder howls from customers whose service was cut off. The situation appears to have developed this way, because, over the years, quite a proportion of customers have asked for a MAC (perhaps in the heat of some problem) and then found the grass was not greener elsewhere. Rather than be handling the "pausing" of an account and then reinstatement when the customer comes back and says "I never left after all", PN has adapted to act once the migration has taken place.
Seems not too unreasonable, though it does beg the question about any refunds when one cannot be using the service once the migration has happened, but the 10 days appears to start only once that migration has happened...

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

jelv — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:27:29 GMT

No you are wrong. There are two totally separate parts to this, the contractual and the termination of the service.
Contractually, the notice period starts the day you request your MAC and is 10 days. All that this notice period relates to is the minimum period you must pay for your connection. You pay for either the 10 days or to the date your service is terminated whichever is the later.
Termination of service occurs either when Plusnet receive notification from BT Wholesale or when the user notifies Plusnet that the migration has completed. Either of these can occur after the event, but Plusnet can find out the date the actual migration completed.

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

WebDude — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:41:14 GMT

So maybe the wording "your account will finish with us" needs some clarification too...
It seems clear from the posts that PN has no wish to charge for any of this period, but it is also unclear as to how the date of 27th was calculated.
Maybe PN systems need to lay down a set of dates to go on tickets and into any 'you have cancelled' messages so Customer Services and the customer are both clear.
eg
28 08 2010 - MAC request accepted
<optional items, such as letter from customer - I don't know many people who take that step!>
0? 09 2010 - end of paid-for service (ie after 10 days notice)
<not sure what else would be known>
18 09 2010 - next billing date (if MAC not used)

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

jelv — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:08:09 GMT

I suspect someone actually processed the letter on the 16/17th and set the start of the 10 day notice on the account not noticing that there was already a notice period in effect as a result of the MAC request. Letters like that should only be actioned AFTER the 30 days of the MAC validity has expired.
I suspect the confusion has arisen because the letter said he wished to terminate the account (i.e. instruct BT to turn off the broadband totally) when he was actually migrating out.

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

johpal — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:29:08 GMT

Let there be no doubt; my letter was crystal clear that my service was being transferred on 15-Sep-2010, I quoted the MAC key, its generation date and included a copy of the confirmatory email from O2. PN had acknowledged the transfer of my home phone, but not broadband. I wanted to take no chances, but this is what I ended up with.
A model of clarity (NOT).

Re: Plusnet, what is the meaning of this?

BenTrimble — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:13:35 GMT

Thanks for your feedback guys, it's clear that this process does need to run a little smoother. The problems tend to be encountered when there is an indeterminate cancellation date, i.e. when a MAC key is requested. In your particular case we put a ticket on hold to monitor for the outbound migration then instead of closing the account immediately, the closure was scheduled. I'm sorry for any confusion that this may have caused. Your billing date is on the 18th of the month and you migrated out on the 15th. As such, we owe you for 3 days service which I have refunded to you. The date of the actual account cancellation will not affect your billing in any way because your billing date is automatically moved forward to the day after the cancellation is due to complete.
I hope that this clears up any outstanding issues.