topic Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare. in Plusnet Feedback

After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 09:34:06 GMT

My current Plusnet contract dates from 2008, but I had a Plusnet account for several years beforehand.

For many years my extra monthly spend has been capped at £0.00 using
using https://www.plus.net/data_transfer_watch/. I have been happy with that.

But without asking me, Plusnet has removed this cap, meaning that if I inadventently use more than 10GB Plusnet automatically charges me £5 extra for this billing month.

On 21 October I reaffirmed my extra monthly spend to be £0.00 using
using https://www.plus.net/data_transfer_watch/

Plusnet removed this, meaning I have been automatically charged an extra £5.

On 22 October I reaffirmed my extra monthly spend to be £0.00 using
using https://www.plus.net/data_transfer_watch/

Plusnet removed this, meaning I will still be charged an extra £5.

On 23 October I rang [CSA Removed] at Support (I waited 30 minutes to speak to him) and insisted my extra monthly spend be capped at £0.00.

Plusnet failed to do so and has now sent me a message saying I will be charged yet another $5 making a total of £10 extra charge for this billing monthly.

I can see no alternative but to end my Plusnet account after more than 10 years and make legal claim against Plusnet for breach of contract.

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): CSA name(s) removed (to an area staff can see) as per Forum rules.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

markhawkin — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 08:40:05 GMT

It sounds like you are on one of the low cost 10GB/month deals (no longer sold).

My guess is that if you phone up and select the "I'm going to leave" you will get a reasonable offer.

I'm not sure what you would get swap to as an equivalent to your current Plus Net tariff however.

A relative had this and as I recall it was £8.49 for 10GB a few years back but that was fairly poor value compared with a bundled ADLS and broadband deal. They liked it because they could leave the phone line with BT.

The best deal would be to get something with an inclusive phone line and that (and more or less all other current deals) would have no usage cap.

You should get that for less than your current phone line and broadband payment.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 08:46:16 GMT

Thanks, yes you are exactly right I am on a deal like your friend was and for the same reason.

I will swap to a phoneline inclusive deal ...

BUT NOT WITH PLUSNET!!!!

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Dumbledore — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 13:12:15 GMT

Hello @mjones07

I am sorry to hear you are no longer happy with services. As per the response from @markhawkin, you are on one of our services we no longer provide.

Our Customer Options Team will be happy to discuss our latest offers You can call our Customer Options Team on 0800 013 2632, they are open Monday-Friday 8am-8pm, Saturday 9am-7pm and on Sunday 9am-6pm.

Alternatively, should you still wish to leave you can contact them to terminate your services with us.

I hope this information has helped.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 14:19:06 GMT

Dear Dumbledore,

If I am CONTRACTED on one of the services you no longer provide, why then are you providing it and taking money from my bank account each month?

PLEASE EXPLAIN.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 16:03:29 GMT

I have pm'ed you my username, but it is really very simple, someone just needs to respond to support question 183841963, or rather the extra comments I was forced to leave because despite my patient insistence that [CSA Removed] in Support raise my support question all he actually typed was:

"Please be assured that we take this very seriously, and will work hard to resolve your issue as soon as we can. I will take the following actions in order for us to reach a resolution:XXX

You can expect to receive an update on this by XXX" (and I quote exactly, I have not added the "XXX"!)

In what possible way does that justify waiting 30 minutes to speak to him?

The suggestion by your colleague 'Dumbledore' is deeply offensive, it amounts to:

"we will decide when and whether we will provide the service we are contracted to supply, we will not address customer complaints, and if the customer doesn't like it they can [-Censored-] off".

To cap it off I am now receiving text messages asking how I would rate your customer service, as if you have provided ANY service in this matter whatsoever.

SUBSEQUENT EDIT: Oh, I must apologise to Matthew Wheeler, it was not me you sort to help, it was directed @Wurzel32 (who, as I understand it, is no longer a Plusnet customer), I humbly apologise for thinking someone might wish to address my own concerns.

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): CSA name(s) removed (to an area staff can see) as per Forum rules.

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): Avoidance of swear filter edited as per Forum rules.

I have no problem with those edits, however I can't help but note how prompt you are in making them and how tardy Plusnet is in answering my support question 183841963.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Baldrick1 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 15:26:52 GMT

You are obviously feeling very bitter over the way you have been treated.

Plusnet do leave people on legacy products unless they request a move. If you had come here with your problem before it became such an issue for you then you would have been advised how to negotiate a new unlimited contract, probably for less money then you're paying now.

Again if you gave the Plusnet staff on here the opportunity I have little doubt that the wheels would quickly be put into motion to refund your excess usage charge.

I can see that you have also been given some poor advice regarding leaving. Do not ring Plusnet cancellations and cancel. That can lead to loss of your phone number if you have it with Plusnet and loss of broadband. If you sign up with a new provider they will do the transfer and cancellation for you, hopefully seamlessly.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 15:37:24 GMT

Hi Baldrick1,

Thank you for your comment, but I am slightly confused.

It is true, my first response was to contact customer support rather than to join the forum, and my experience shows you are quite right to suggest that contacting customer support is pointless.

As you say, I am on a legacy product and I am happy to be so, but

a). Plusnet is not servicing it as they are contractually obligated, ie, they will no longer let me set a monthly maximum spend.

b). the response from Dumbledore shows they have no intention of fulfilling the existing contract.

Why would I negotiate another contract with them?

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Baldrick1 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 16:32:40 GMT

It is a pity that service tends to be better on this forum than ringing custower services. Maybe it's the public scrutiny that makes the difference.

I agree that Plusnet are no longer controlling your usage limit charges correctly. I suspect that this is more a case of the system they use for managing this being on its last legs than it being a deliberate policy. I don't know why they don't just give up and move every-one still on this plan to unlimited accounts.

I also agree that the response from @Dumbledore could have been worded better. I suspect that his real intention was to encourage you to change to an unlimited account rather than invite you to cancel your account.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Satss — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 18:22:57 GMT

Hi @mjones07 I am sorry to hear about this issue. I have responded to you via a ticket on your account here

Kind regards,

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 21:19:57 GMT

The information provided in your response is false and I have asked for your response be reviewed by your line manager.

I have had the opportunity to review the documentation. Whilst I previously accepted the notion that I was on a 'legacy product' and somehow that made any overcharging inevitable or understandable, I now realise my contract's terms and conditions and pricing where all renegotiated in April of 2018 and came into effect on 5 June 2018.

MY CONTRACT IS NOT LEGACY ... IT DATES FROM JUNE OF THIS YEAR!

(and why has Plusnet described me as 'Hooked' in the side bar, is this sarcasm, am I being reeled in like a fish?)

Please can someone tell me whether my contract with Plusnet is best enforced under the Consumer Contracts Regulations, the Consumer Rights Act 2015, or the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008?

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Mads — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 10:08:32 GMT

Thanks for getting back to us @mjones07,

I am sorry you feel this way however a legacy product is something that we no longer sell to our new customers as of 2014. Therefore this is a legacy product you are on (Plusnet Essentials). I'm afraid that you would need to call our Customer Options team to upgrade to the unlimited broadband package as we no longer support these types of products that you are currently on in terms of usage caps. The rest of my response can be found here.

The"hooked" at the side of your name on the forums is a rating you get for the amount time, fixes and comments you have made on here.

Let us know if there is anything we can help you out with.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 11:11:00 GMT

I would prefer answers to my support query

Question #183841963

rather than my comments on the public forum, but it is clear you are more worried about public perception than offering customer support, I therefore ask you here (so others may form a better understanding of your company):

When you say you have no longer offered my product to new customers (as of 2014) you subtly imply that you no longer need to fulfil your obligations to existing customers. If so:

1. why was I not notified of the fact in 2014?

2. why have you continued to debit my bank account each month since 2014?

3. why did you notify me of other changes to my terms and conditions and increase the price as of June 2018?

Again I repeat my request to other forum members:

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Baldrick1 — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 11:39:54 GMT

I am totally staggered by the response from @Mads.

If I read this correctly Plusnet are happy to leave you and other customers on this product but no longer support the download cap condition included in this contract. At some time in the past this has been dropped and allegedly you have not been advised of the contract change.

Quite honestly I wouldn't bother to try to get this obsolete contract enforced. It would be far better for Plusnet to say sorry and transfer all the customers on this obsolete legacy product to unlimited contracts at no additional cost.

And of course, re-imberse any customers such as yourself that have been wrongly charged for data in excess of their contractually agreed data limit.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

MauriceC — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 11:48:57 GMT

Superuser citation

This topic has been cited by one of the Superusers; the purpose of which is to provide a note for information which might help to focus continued discussion (but might not result in a staff response).

I raised an internal question on this subject earlier today, but so far not had a response.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Mads — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 11:58:22 GMT

My sincerest apologies @mjones07, it was not my intention to make you feel that we are not offering the level of support needed here. I have now updated your ticket with further information.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 12:02:52 GMT

@Baldrick1 Thank you so much for your support.

Yes, you have understood the situation precisely.

But with 2 added points:

1. I can still access the url's which cap my usage, but Plusnet has some coding which 'undoes' my capping.

2. According to my account it will cost me £30 to end my contract or transfer to another product.

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Baldrick1 — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 12:24:18 GMT

I think you will find that the £30 cancellation charge only becomes payable if you leave Plusnet and join an ISP that doesn't use the BT network. It doesn't apply to taking a different Plusnet product.

It's not all bad!

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

mjones07 — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 15:43:20 GMT

@Mads Your response via the support question was as follows:

"I think I have identified the issue in regards to your Plusnet essentials account not letting you set a usage, it seems our legacy products do not work correctly with the new billing system and as such usage can no longer be set."

Then I think you have a legal obligation to make your new billing system work correctly, don't you?

Please stop using this as an opportunity for upselling.

When will the new billing system be corrected?

[and btw, it can be set, please see attached, but your coding rectifies an naughty little users who attempt to limit the amount you lift from our bank accounts]

Re: After 10 years with Plusnet I am leaving ASAP - the company has become a nightmare.

Jonpe — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 19:22:39 GMT

@Baldrick1 wrote:

I think you will find that the £30 cancellation charge only becomes payable if you leave Plusnet and join an ISP that doesn't use the BT network.

That's what I thought, but @OllieC corrected me here: https://community.plus.net/t5/Broadband/Cessation-charge-quot-active-quot/m-p/1580255#M327511