Anonymous caller reject

[#1]

the sharp  eyed amongst us have noticed that no fanfare was given to the massive price hike for the above service to £4 a  month extra!

[#2]

Me thinks PN may well have shot themselves in the foot with these massive price increases and people will simple cancel the extra features. I also don't think PN can legally enforce the increases without prior notification which, apart from the line rental increase, they have not done.

[#3]

@glloyd,
notification of the changes has been given over 30 days before the changes are due to take place. For those customers where the changes are deemed to be detrimental, they can cancel their Home Phone contract without penalty. It is not a legal requirement to put every change that we are making into the email notification itself. All of the changes are explained in the blog and FAQ and the email content and links to the blog & faq are also being added as tickets to all applicable customer accounts.
Have a look at Question 5 in the FAQ for more details of how these changes affect customers on our different Home Phone products.

[#4]

For this feature Plusnet has managed to outdo even BT which charges £3.91 p.m.

[#5]

Chris - it may or may not be a legal requirement - but if Plusnet want to still be thought of as a caring company that promotes good customer service, then I suggest that all these details should have been made crystal clear.
Did Plusnet not learn anything from the Broadband product refresh where people were complaining that details were hidden in various web pages and these web pages took several days to get 100% correct ?

[#6]

Well said Mal. And what's more if a price increase isn't obvious from the information provided, then it doesn't comply with legislation. (And I missed that one myself!).

[#7]

Yes Chris,
Also - during the B/B product refresh - wasn't there a post from a person who is a trading standards officer with a council, and he was saying that ALL details MUST be  in the email/letter and it couldn't be on a website / blogg

[#8]

Don't know. If it was in the mammoth thread, I still haven't finished reading it 

[#9]

Peirre-Peirre knows the guy - so he may be able to find it 

[#10]

hulls is the man

[#11]

just done a search of the monster it wasnt hulls in that thread -hint,  do a print, which puts up a searchable short form, then if using firefox, Ctrl F and enter the search, i.e. hulls

[#12]

No Chris, notice has not been given for ALL price increases, you have to hunt them down. The first most customers  will know about them is when they get higher bills. To not mention the massive increase in connection and extra feature charges at the very least  in the email is indefensible. Plus I think you will find that you ARE required by law to inform customers under contact of ALL changes, that's why you have contracts. Contacts are not one sided where one side can change the rules as and when they like without informing the other party.

Quote from: chrisc

@glloyd, notification of the changes has been given over 30 days before the changes are due to take place. For those customers where the changes are deemed to be detrimental, they can cancel their Home Phone contract without penalty. It is not a legal requirement to put every change that we are making into the email notification itself. All of the changes are explained in the blog and FAQ and the email content and links to the blog & faq are also being added as tickets to all applicable customer accounts. Have a look at Question 5 in the FAQ for more details of how these changes affect customers on our different Home Phone products.

[#13]

I'm sorry Chrisc but the least Plusnet should have done is to detail all the changes in the email.    That is common courtesy, I would have thought so why was it not done?  Plusnet received plenty of flack over the product refresh so were lessons not learned?   
The email was deliberately constructed to hide the adverse changes (ie: huge hike in the set up fee and call charges) and to concentrate on the 'carrots' of free international minutes and the like.      Which 'spin' doctor was responsible for that email, surely not our CEO who conveniently answered all the questions less than 2 hours before the emails release?  Another exercise in Spin.     

[#14]

When the product refresh were announced there were several suggestions PlusNet was slipping back to it's bad ways again - I think the home phone debacle only goes to confirm this. How on earth they think they can legally increase charges without informing customers is beyond me. I get the impression they think their customers are a load of idiots and won't notice or challenge this sort of thing but I'm afraid they are wrong.
These days every penny counts so customers will soon be looking for cheaper alternatives.

[#15]

With a customer base of over 300,000 I'm not sure how many have Home Phone with Plusnet, but if they do not participate in the forums, and did not follow the links in the email, a high percentage may still be unaware of all the new charges.