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Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

hadenough
Dabbler
Posts: 11
Registered: ‎06-04-2010

Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

I've been on PlusNET over a year now and am looking to change provider as soon as possible. However before I do, I'm hoping someone can offer an explanation for my phone charges. Before we switched, my call charges were between 30-40 pounds a month. Now they are between 70-80 pounds and we simply can't afford this. The bulk of the cost seems to be mobile charges. There are many calls timed at exactly 00.01.00 at 23p each which we find strange. There are also many calls that are timed at exactly .00 seconds or .30 seconds. It seems od that dozens of calls would be exactly 1 minute long and many more end on exactly the minute or the half minute. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Add this to the fact that no one will take ownership of fixing the crakling on our phone line, problems with Broadband speeeds and tha appauling attitude of the call centre (a stark contrast to the nice lady that sold us the service in the first place) and we seem to be suffering a pretty lousy service.
12 REPLIES 12
reserved
Grafter
Posts: 617
Registered: ‎08-11-2008

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

Quote from: hadenough
There are many calls timed at exactly 00.01.00 at 23p each which we find strange. orIt seems od that dozens of calls would be exactly 1 minute long and many more end on exactly the minute or the half minute. Can anyone shed any light on this?

From the bottom of the call charge or itemised bill pages:
Calls with a duration of less than 60 seconds are rounded up to one minute
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

Crackling phone line: when you reported this was it at the same time as complaining about your broadband speed? Raise a fault about the cracking phone line and concentrate on getting that fixed first; the problem with talking about both is that the BT engineers haven't got enough brain cells to consider two issues at the same time.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
hadenough
Dabbler
Posts: 11
Registered: ‎06-04-2010

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

reserved, I am aware of that, but the sheer number of these calls simply does not correspond to our experience of then calls we believe we are making. There are several of these per day for most days. We simply do not make that many calls. Because of the high call charges we have made every effort (my wife and I) to keep calls to a minimum so for the last few months (since December) we have used the landline only when absolutely neccessary yet this does not seem to be reflected in our monthly bill which for call changes still seems to run at about 70-80 pounds a month. This is a residential line, not a business, and only myself and wife use the phone. We tend to use our mobile phones for most calls using themobile only for incomming calls and when credit has run out on the mobile. It just doesn't seem to add up and we are baffled.


pierre_pierre
Grafter
Posts: 19,757
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

are the call to the same number and is that number in you phone memory.
What type of phone do you have?.
The numbers are displayed on your member centre  https://portal.plus.net/plustalk/index.php?page=wlr_calls_made
hadenough
Dabbler
Posts: 11
Registered: ‎06-04-2010

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

Here is a snippet of the sort of thing I mean:
24/03/2010  0797*****80  11:12:26  00:01:00  no  £0.23
24/03/2010 0794*****63 11:11:54 00:01:00 no  £0.23
24/03/2010 0794*****63 11:11:17 00:01:00 no  £0.23
24/03/2010 0794*****63 11:10:44 00:01:00 no  £0.23
24/03/2010 0798*****84 10:58:45 00:01:00 no  £0.23
24/03/2010 0798*****84 10:57:44 00:01:00 no  £0.23
24/03/2010 0753*****07 10:28:18 00:28:42 no  £3.77
23/03/2010 0798*****84 15:49:30 00:01:00 no  £0.23
23/03/2010 0797*****36 15:45:03 00:03:42 no  £0.57
22/03/2010 0790*****38 14:10:05 00:01:36 no  £0.30
The first two calls on the 23rd are genuine, but what is the one at 15:49?
Likewise, the first one on the 24th is genuine, but what are all the others that appear to be in two groups just seconds apart? We do recognise the numbers as ones we call regularly but we are puzzled by the short duration repeated calls. We have a lot of these and they often make up more than half the cost of the bill for any given billing period.
We have a DECT phone (Panasonic) but we do not store anything in the phone's memory. We usually use the phonebook feature on our personal mobile phones. If the DECT phone is responsible, we would have expected to have heard it attempting to dial out but that has not been the case.
pierre_pierre
Grafter
Posts: 19,757
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

I have  Panasonic DECT phones and on them they have a small black button below the screen, the one on the right has an over lapping white and black circle, this recall the last numbers dialled, it only needs that and the phone button pushed and there you go.
hadenough
Dabbler
Posts: 11
Registered: ‎06-04-2010

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

Mine has somethning similar but the button has to be held down for a couple of seconds for the number to recall. It is therefore unlikely that this, and especially both actions to have been done accidentally. Even if it had been done accidentally, I could accept once or twice but not this many times on several days throughout the month.

paulby
Grafter
Posts: 1,619
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎26-07-2007

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

I had a similar list a while back.  Turned out to be my wife dialing my mobile while I was on the phone or it was switched off and getting diverted to voice mail (and hanging up without leaving a message!).
hadenough
Dabbler
Posts: 11
Registered: ‎06-04-2010

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

Paul,
That seems to make sense although she must be doing this quite alot. She has sometimes said that the phone number she is calling must be out of reach or switched off and she tries them again a couple of times after waiting a few minutes and gets through.
I presume this 23p is made up of two charges: the mobile call connection charge and the minimal per minute charge and all of this without a call actually speaking to anyone although technically I suppose you are getting connected to an answering machine. That would also seem explain the exactly one minute timing of the call. I wonder how many people are aware that they are paying two charges for these calls.  If my bill is typical, then the service providers must be making a packet from these failed calls.
I'm wondering whether it might be cheaper to go on contract with her mobile rather than using the landline. I'm given to understand that all service providers levy these charges although I'm informed by BT that they only charge for 'calls that are connected'. I had to ask them whether 'calls that are connected' includes answering machines and eventually they conceded that it did. That being the case, I presume that the only way to reduce my bill would be not to make calls to mobiles from the landline?
Therefore, is there any way of barring calls to mobiles from the landline?
pierre_pierre
Grafter
Posts: 19,757
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

I have an O2 PAYG and on that I get 500 mins to Land base and some mobiles from my home location for £10 per month, which I can use for paid calls
paulby
Grafter
Posts: 1,619
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎26-07-2007

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

@hadenough
We're now mostly pretty disciplined when it comes to calling mobiles - we only use a mobile to call a mobile as it comes out of inclusive minutes on the contract. 
The trouble with calling mobiles (and landlines with voicemail if it's not an inclusive call) is that you're charged as soon as you connect to voicemail.  With mobiles, voicemail tends to kick in when the mobile is switched off, has no signal or the user is on a call (or chooses to reject the call).  You never (in my experience) get an engaged or unavailable tone - unless the call is answered by someone you will get voicemail!
These charges happen regardless of provider (it's not just PN - BT, TalkTalk etc. all do the same) as they cannot distinguish between a call connected and answered by the intended recipient or by an answering service.
reserved
Grafter
Posts: 617
Registered: ‎08-11-2008

Re: Fed up with Plusnet Phone charges

Quote from: hadenough
I presume this 23p is made up of two charges: the mobile call connection charge and the minimal per minute charge and all of this without a call actually speaking to anyone although technically I suppose you are getting connected to an answering machine. That would also seem explain the exactly one minute timing of the call. I wonder how many people are aware that they are paying two charges for these calls.  If my bill is typical, then the service providers must be making a packet from these failed calls.
Mobile calls are 12.5p daytime and 7.5p evenings plus 9.3p set up fee.
Weekend calls will be charged at the daytime or evening rate

That being the case, I presume that the only way to reduce my bill would be not to make calls to mobiles from the landline?
That's right
Therefore, is there any way of barring calls to mobiles from the landline?
Cut her fingers off  Smiley