Billing Confusion

[#1]

The following received today (would have been yesterday if my broadband had been working)

Quote

This advance notice is to let you know that a payment of £0.98, for your PlusNet Internet account will soon be taken, on or after 28/05/2009.

Quote

This advance notice is to let you know that a payment of £20.94, for your PlusNet Internet account will soon be taken, on or after 28/05/2009

and just to add to the confusion

Quote

We're sending this message because you've reported a fault with your broadband. To help find out what's causing the problem, the Broadband Fault Checker

No I didn't all I did was get through to the help line to find out why I had no internet, listened to the recorded message and rang off.

[#2]

I think I can explain all these (which makes a refreshing change).
The £0.98 is call charges.
The £20.94 is broadband subscription and phone line rental.
The automated message will be because you opted via the IVR (the automated message thing that asks you which department you'd like to talk to) to speak to the faults team.
Unfortunately I can't explain why you've received a separate notification for the call charges, but I'll ask for you when I get back into the office and post back.

[#3]

Thanks Matt.

[#4]

I, too, received a separate notification of my phone charges this month.  The following day I received an email with my broadband and home phone rental.
However for the third month running I have been incorrectly billed.  This time my referral discount is incorrect.  I have raised ticket about this (28872817 ).

[#5]

There is obviously something very strange going on in respect of billing.
Suspecting that mine was incorrect, I rang in yesterday only to be told it was OK and to ignore one of the recent billing emails.
Not satisfied with this reply, last night I checked them from January 2009 and there isn't one month where it is correct.
I won't go into details because it is rather boring but the figures are completely up the creek.
I have sent in a ticket and CS now agree and transferred my ticket to the accounts department.
*Correction - January was actually billed properly.

[#6]

Not just us then!
I got this today "This advance notice is to let you know that a payment of £0.53, for your
PlusNet Internet account will soon be taken, on or after 28/05/2009."
Looking at our Account page it reads
Value  Balance  Invoice Date  Status  Description
£0.53 £0.53 25/05/2009 Pending Outstanding Call Charges
No mention of our internet account there!
As this will be the first month with the higher telephone line rental and lower call feature charges, I wonder if the partial billing at this stage is something to do with that kicking in, especially as status is 'Pending' whereas it usually shows as 'Part Paid' (taking into account a referral discount which isn't shown yet either).

[#7]

I've now had notification of our broadband and Home Phone subscription charges, but this still doesn't include call features!
What a muddle!!!

[#8]

My billing date is the 16th. I got just one email for the full amount (BB+phone+calls), but I didn't make any chargeable calls between the 11th when the new charges would take effect for new customers and my billing date.
I wonder if those that had a seperate mail for chargeablen calls were at the old rate between 11th and billing date?

[#9]

Our chargeable calls were:
04/05/2009  01XXXXXXXXX  10:21:48  00:05:00    £0.20
09/05/2009  0061XXXXXXXXX  09:16:50  00:03:00  £0.18
07/05/2009  0845XXXXXXX  11:33:36  00:05:00  £0.15
So, all before 11th May like yours.

[#10]

Wow!!  We seem to have opened a can of worms here.  Like Poppy, I won't go into details of my incorrect billing but it would appear that the billing system is not 100% efficient and needs to be looked at.
My last ticket update states that is

Quote

on hold to check with Comms if there is a known Problem on this

[#11]

It appears that I have underpaid by £5.35 so if I am correct I will have to pay that back.
Glad that I read the forum and was prompted to go through the account.

[#12]

I opened a ticket on mine yesterday. They told me the seperate invoice for calls was to do with the product refresh and that it would be back to one invoice next month.
I asked what was happening about the charge for call features, which wasn't showing anywhere, and I see on my ticket that's been raised internally. I wonder if it's maybe because it's under £1 now (just caller display which is 99p) and I'll be charged in arrears next month. Who knows?

[#13]

Morning guys.
Sorry for any confusion caused by the two separate invoices.
This is a culmination of (at the time), billing running a couple of days behind due to a couple of senstive pieces of working which occurred, which required billing to be manually tested before being run again.  There was also the problem whereby home phone call processing was running a few days behind, which I've spoken about here last week.
There haven't been any errors in the amount that you have been charged, it's just been broken down into two invoices rather than just the one.
Again - Please accept my apologies for any undue concern.

[#14]

Thanks for the explanation, James.
In my case, do you have any idea why Caller Display hasn't been charged for yet? Would it be because it's under £1 now, or just another glitch due to the product refresh? (I've raised it as a Question - ID: 28897282.)

[#15]

Hiya,
When did you turn on your Caller Display?
I can see that you've been moved over to the new variant of the Home Phone/Talk product, but I can also see that you haven't been charged for Caller Display.
I suspect that it will be charged on your next billing date as all of the line items (or components as we see them) are in place as I'd expect them to be.