topic Phone billing problem in Plusnet Feedback

Phone billing problem

williamlees — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:08:08 GMT

I have the same problem stoneyard reported in http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,79098.0.html -
- account has gone £10 over credit limit, no mails were sent (and how did it manage to get £10 over the limit?)
- the call record logs only add up to about £48, but the total is displayed as about £65
- my phone is locked and I can't make outgoing calls
Would appreciate any help to get this sorted. It's taken a few days to get support to understand the problem, and I am not sure what I need to do in order to get the phone working again. I could add some credit, but (a) I don't particularly want to untul the call records are sorted out, and (b) my direct debit normally goes through today, so the money may have been taken anyway.
Support call ID: 29861416
thanks
William Lees

Re: Phone billing problem

williamlees — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:27:54 GMT

I've also found on my bill multiple instances where I've been charged for a call to a mobile, and then 20 or 30 seconds later been charged again for a call to the same number. I can't account for that, I've quizzed my family and nobody understands it. Maybe this is the 'duplicated calls' problem? I had expected calls with the same timestamp for that, though.
I just spent a very frustrating hour talking to the support centre about this latest issue and overall progress with my problem. They do not seem to have any details of the widespread 'duplicated calls' problem: they couldn't tell me whether I was suffering from that or whether my issues were unrelated. They couldn't get to grips with the idea that the total on the calls summary page didnt agree with the total value of the calls shown in the call detail. They kept saying over and over again that they had sent me warning mails about going over the credit limit but wouldn't lift a finger to check whether the mails had actually arrived in my plus.com mail account. They didn't display any desire to manage my problem in a coherent way. The only good news is they agreed not to charge me for 'exceeding my credit limit'.
Finally we agreed the following points which I have noted on the call log. The person I spoke to committed to note them also and I will be checking for that and will be back in touch for another frustrating hour no doubt if I don't see that happen:
I noted the following commitments in a call with **** just now.
---------------
On Monday, Plus Net will:
- investigate why the emails did not reach my accounts, and in particular the ***.plus.com account that is under their control;
- investigate the discrepancy between the total call bill for the month ending 3rd Sept of some £65 and the call records which only amount to some £48;
- investigate the mobile call records showing repeated times at which two calls were made to the same number within 20-30 seconds;
- refund the 5.76 charge for 'exceeding credit limit'
In addition I requested that Plus Net should refund the line rental for the period I could not make outgoing calls, if the above investigations reveal that the line was ceased in error, either because I didn't exceed the credit limit or because the emails were not properly sent to me. Provided this is done I will not pursue any compensation for my wasted time this week in resolving the problem, which amounts to several hours.
*** agreed to update this support log with the above commitments within 2 hours.
------------------
I have to say this whole experience has been immensely frustrating. There are some really simple things that would help improve the customer support experience immensely - and also get call waiting times down:
- When there's a widespread problem such as the current billing problem, the support desk needs to be provided wtih *full details* both of how to recognise the problem and of what action is being taken with respect to customer issues such as refunds, credit charges, billing and so on. I can assure you that they have very little information on either.
- The support desk also need to be briefed to pass on any information that might be relevant to the people that are doing the technical investigation - such as the discrepancy in the totals on my bill and the missing emails. They do not have a mechanism for doing this.
- Where someone calls in with an issue that can't be resolved right away, the support analyst should take a couple of minutes to note an action plan such as the one I've written myself above. That way there is a clear record of what is going to happen that can be checked later for status.
regards
William

Re: Phone billing problem

pierre_pierre — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:48:49 GMT

my duplicate calls all have the same time stamp, the calls to 47100 were my wife pushing the redial for the Doctors reception

Re: Phone billing problem

williamlees — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:58:15 GMT

Thanks, I see there's a difference in the call cost too - I assume that the calls should have been free, but the 'duplicate' set is charged even if your call plan says they should be free - is that correct?

Re: Phone billing problem

pierre_pierre — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:04:33 GMT

yes and the incorrect total was taken out of my credit, but the bill is not due yet

Re: Phone billing problem

VileReynard — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:05:23 GMT

Pierre - did you know that some of those calls have identical start times - you're making multiple simultaneous calls!

Re: Phone billing problem

pierre_pierre — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:06:58 GMT

for me between the 14th and 19th Aug all calls were given a duplicate entry, one free and one charged

Re: Phone billing problem

Oldjim — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:09:46 GMT

Time to raise a ticket - I have got duplicate charged calls

Re: Phone billing problem

wiseacres — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:24:08 GMT

I think this is me too. I'm not laughing now.
My calls have been being barred. On Sep 1st at 7:14 and 17:47 I received two different mails telling me I had gone over £55. Never happened before.
On Sep 2nd I called their callcentre and pointed out that I had had no alerts e-mails to tell me I was approaching the £55 credit limit.
She looked this up and agreed that no such mails had been sent (though she could see my broadband usage allowance reminder mail).
I was told the call bar charge £5.76 would be waived - it would be taken then repaid within 14 days (!).
She told me she took an interim payment on my account and I would be fully billed on 4th Sep. However, calls remained barred.
On Sep 4th I called 2 more times and was told each time I would be called back. Nix. Third time I got someone to admit that the payment had never been taken.
I got assurance that the payment was now taken, I would not be charged for the support calls, and that call bar had been removed but that this might take 24h to take effect.
I had to push hard to get offered £1 compensation for 3 days' loss of service.
All of the call handlers repeatedly told me that their customer service systems were down or unusably slow.
Today 5th Sep at 14:49 I have received a new e-mail telling me my calls are barred and I will be charged a £5.76 barring fee. (I haven't been able to use the phone yet since the first time!)
I haven't even checked out the itemised bill / original cause yet - will do so!
I'm about to log a support call - wonder whether that will go to someone in Sheffield who actually knows what's going on.

Re: Phone billing problem

pierre_pierre — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:29:20 GMT

hope you get it sorted quicker than me, the Service status says all those affected have been contacted.
I only noticed as my credit had been knocked by £4.24, and it was before my last bill on the 24th Aug

Quote
Home Phone / Talk Itemised Billing (58044) - UPDATE
Home Phone
Posted on: Friday 4 September 2009, 10:01
This is an update to the initial posting about problems we've been seeing with itemised billing. You can see the original post here:
http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1251965990.htm
Our Developers spent yesterday working to ensure that all customers who had been affected by this problem were refunded any erroneous payments as a result of their itemised calls being duplicated. We would like to assure customers that nobody due to have been billed from yesterday onwards will have been charged for their calls.
We're spending the course of today fixing the underlying cause of this problem and will have a further update on Monday.
Again, please accept our apologies for any inconveniences caused.

Re: Phone billing problem

pierre_pierre — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:59:47 GMT

there are other moans here http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,79098.0.html

Re: Phone billing problem

Oldjim — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:09:02 GMT

You mean the link which was given in the first post of this thread

Re: Phone billing problem

pierre_pierre — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:15:04 GMT

Ive had 40 winks since then

Re: Phone billing problem

itsme — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:26:15 GMT

Glad I'm still with BT When BT charged me for 3 months free evenings and weekend calls when this should have been free with the automatically renewing contract they refunded the money without any of this 14 days that PN seem to work to.

Re: Phone billing problem

williamlees — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 20:03:54 GMT

I'm pleased to say that the service desk have at least noted the agreed actions on my ticket now, so hopefully they will get some attention on Monday. And although I'm away from home this weekend I understand the phone has started working again - so the 2 hours I've spent on the phone to PN today seem to have achieved something...

Re: Phone billing problem

williamlees — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:06:19 GMT

I should have kept quiet - my phone has been cut off again - I get the credit limit message again now.
Apparently even if I add credit it will take 48 hours to get the line working again, and right now I have no faith in PN to give me a refund if I give them more cash, so I will live without an outgoing line.
The support person I talked to just now said there are 3000 people in this position. I hope PN are working around the clock to sort things out.

Re: Phone billing problem

bobpullen — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:26:41 GMT

Quote from: williamlees
The support person I talked to just now said there are 3000 people in this position. I hope PN are working around the clock to sort things out.

Yes we are although it's worthwhile considering that only a small percentage of those will have artificially exceeded their credit limits and had call barring applied. If I'm completely honest I'm not 100% sure the call barring implications surrounding this particular problem have been fully considered. Our priority to begin with was to stop billing/call processing and refund those who had actually been invoiced for the duplicate calls.
I'll raise this with the developers who have been looking into the problem.
I'll also take a look at your account later today if I get the chance to see if there's anything I can do to help...

Re: Phone billing problem

williamlees — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:42:12 GMT

Bob
Thanks for your help - and as you might have gathered from the thread, if I'm honest I'm not convinced that the problem that stoneyard and I have had is directly related to the duplicate calls issue as currently stated - we don't see duplicated calls on our itemised statement, we just see a total that is significantly higher than the total of the itemised calls. So maybe this is a different issue, or maybe it will open up another aspect to the duplicated calls issue.
regards
William

Re: Phone billing problem

williamlees — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:43:21 GMT

So far there's been no visible progress in resolving my issues this week. There haven't been any updates on the call logging issue either - despite the Friday announcement saying that a further update woul dbe provided on Monday.

Re: Phone billing problem

bobpullen — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:04:05 GMT

Quote from: williamlees
So maybe this is a different issue, or maybe it will open up another aspect to the duplicated calls issue

We've a separate problem open about the inflated call summary charges (ref: 58054) although initial investigation would suggest that the people affected by this are also affected by the duplicated calls problem (ref: 58009).
I see what you mean about the absence of any calls with the same timestamp on your account and I've raised this with the developer whose working on the problem fixes.
I looked into the email notification issue you raised too but I can see a copy of this notice sitting in your Plusnet mailbox? Anyway, I've added some notes to one of your open tickets if you want to have a read through the next time you're online?
Really sorry about the continued problems