Premium Rate Numbers Incorrectly Assigned to Bill

[#1]

Javert - As long as you have active valid payment details on your account, this would not happen.

[#2]

I would not in the future combine phone and broadband because I lost both through this incorrect billing saga. This meant I could not make any outgoing calls on the landline and also my wife and I have been unable to check our emails from home in the evening - important to both of us. PlusNet have really screwed us up with all this.
I just had a call from James who has referred my case to management who have agreed to credit the disputed charges and reinstate the line. He has also agreed to issue a MAC number and release me from my contract so that I can go elsewhere. However, PN refuse to pay for my costs and expenses, not even the £20 cost of calls to the PN call centre. This is apparently because I should not have used the 0845 number (you know, the one advertised on their web site) - I should have known to use the other number which would have then just used up my inclusive minutes on my mobile. Hmmm, right ho. As for the hours of my time wasted, the incredible upset and inconvenience for a month of no broadband or phone, the allegations that my wife made calls to male sex lines etc. etc. - well I guess I'm just supposed to put that all down to experience and the cost to my own account. James even pointed out that this has cost PlusNet money to resolve, including writing off £150 to allow me to abandon my 12 month contract on the phone! When I asked him why I should be concerned about the costs incurred by PlusNet when they caused this problem, he was lost for words.......
And I see the response to Javerts post below is essentially that if I had paid my bill like a good little customer then I would not have lost both my broadband and phone. Javert - my experience is that in fairness you will probably not experience any problems with broadband (I was fine for 4 years with a reliable broadband connection), but when you do you will be treated like muck. We are not especially price conscious and came to PlusNet due to the reliable broadband experience. Ditto with our business broadband. As it turns out, our mistake was to reward PlusNet with this loyalty because it has not been reciprocated.
Well now I await a management decision on my costs and expenses. I have asked that if they refuse to refund my costs, that the reply is in writing with their agreement that I can take this to ADR within the 3 month time limit.

[#3]

How did they know you had any inclusive minutes on your mobile phone contract, and if you did have, what other plans you had to use them?
You have alleged that a crime has been committed and you have said that Plusnet have obstructed the police in their enquiries. Is Plusnet now co-operating with the police?
Beware that any refunds are "In full and final settlement". If you accept them you will have no further legal claim for your additional losses. If you don't get satisfaction you may wish to consider the Small Claims Court.

[#4]

exactly - I made the calls to PlusNet, to try to resolve a PlusNet problem, on the PlusNet advertised support number using my mobile because PlusNet had disconnected me. It's only too obvious I should have checked the relative cost of using each number and compared that with my mobile phone contract to ascertain whether it was best to use inclusive minutes and then think ahead about the cost of future calls I might make using those same minutes.............
................... sorry sir, we are not prepared to refund the costs we have caused you to incur because the cost of calling us on our advertised number is too expensive!! You should have known that sir!!

[#5]

I was about to change my phone to PN but now I'm with Javert,I'll stay with BT and chance it.

[#6]

What a shambles. I have been watching this unfold during the day and what a sorry tale it is.
Plusnet, it appears you need to take a good look at how you treat your customers and in particular your procedures for dealing with complaints.

[#7]

Won't look so good for prizes next time there is a "Best customer service" survey will it? Hope we are not slipping back to the bad times again! It does seem as soon as customer numbers start to pick up again customer service goes in the opposite direction.
One would think that there would be some sort of monitoring of calls and when there is an excessive amount of calls as in this case a quick call could be made to the subscriber or even a warning email to see if there is a problem. After all a child could easily dial a number by mistake and keep hitting the redial. BT allow free barring of premium rate calls why can't plusnet provide this?

[#8]

Quote from: glloyd

One would think that there would be some sort of monitoring of calls and when there is an excessive amount of calls as in this case a quick call could be made to the subscriber or even a warning email to see if there is a problem. After all a child could easily dial a number by mistake and keep hitting the redial. BT allow free barring of premium rate calls why can't plusnet provide this?

In fairness to PlusNet, the credit limit has broadly the same effect and I think that process is reasonable. It would be useful for a customer to be able to set their own limit - if you never spend more than £20 on calls a month then it would be safer to set the credit limit at that level. I agree that premium rate call barring should be free, especially as other providers offer it free.
What is not reasonable is to insist that a customer pay for large premium rate call charges that they did not incur, and try to bully a customer into paying them anyway by cutting them off. In this case there was clear evidence that the calls didn't originate from our household, but PN chose to ignore that and we were treated like dirt. It has taken hours of work and a month without phone or broadband to get someone to listen - even now I suspect it is only to get rid of us before an expensive ADR process which PlusNet must realise they would never win. And if I hadn't stumbled across this forum then I would still be in the position I was last week.
Of course, this case will still go to ADR if PlusNet do not refund our costs and expenses - they are currently refusing even to pay the costs I have incurred in calling them on my mobile to sort this out. What's more, they expected me to be grateful that they had released me from contract to go elsewhere (I am still without phone or broadband in the meantime) and expected me to sympathise with them over the fact that it has also cost them money to resolve this case!!

[#9]

Quote from: glloyd

One would think that there would be some sort of monitoring of calls and when there is an excessive amount of calls as in this case a quick call could be made to the subscriber or even a warning email to see if there is a problem. After all a child could easily dial a number by mistake and keep hitting the redial.

We once had somebody call a premium rate number from work at the weekend, they proceeded to hide the phone under a desk, and leave the extension off the hook.
BT were very good about it though, they disconnected the call once it reached £1100, so they saved us a from a potentially much larger bill.
Since then, we've blocked premium rate numbers at our PBX (and have been doing so for the last few years)

Quote from: glloyd

BT allow free barring of premium rate calls why can't plusnet provide this?

I think its because Plusnet are charged for the service, so they pass the cost on to the customer, whereas BT have decided to absorb the cost for the customers who choose to use the feature.
I guess the differing economic abilities of the respective companies when it comes to absorbing these charges is largely due to the customer balance.
BT have lots of customers who are very profitable - those who just have a line because its needed for ADSL (or simply because they don't use the line very often). PN on the other hand are likely to have customers who have recognised a saving in moving to PN, but who use their phones in such a way that the profit is minimal to Plusnet.

[#10]

This note just posted by PN to my account says it all:
Customer is disputing £75 of Premium Rate calls. Whilst we are confident that the calls were made from his telephone line, the evidence he has supplied suggests that he did not make these calls and the customer is highly adamant that neither his wife or 5 year old daughter made them. This has been escalated within BT in order to prove whether or not these calls were 100% definitely made from this location.
I have offered the customer to refund the £75 and release him from contract early as a goodwill gesture. However, he wishes to be compensated for his running costs and costs of mobile calls to our callcentre and other calls he needed to make whilst his phone service had outbound call barring present. As such I've escalated to MK.
Most of the evidence they refer to was actually supplied by their own staff (e.g. 3 second reconnection period, broadband fluctuations during the premium rate 'calls') and their own tech staff drew the conclusion it was a case of external intervention. That was until their supervisors decided they didn't like that conclusion and over-rode it and then stone walled me for a month, during which period we were without phone and broadband. The evidence I offered to supply re. proof of our whereabouts at the time of the calls was refused by PlusNet, they didn't want to see it. They seem happy with their conclusion that it was my wife that dialled 6 male sex lines one after the other in the presence of my 2y/o and 5y/o daughters and somehow managed to end one of them and reconnect a different premium rate service on the handset within 3 seconds. Work that one out!
If I were PlusNet I would be more interested in how this has actually occurred and making sure it cannot happen again, whilst making good with the customer. Instead they have done their best to insult, alienate and lose a customer, that customer's business contract and the contracts of his 4 referals. Not very clever in my opinion.

[#11]

Does seem a little daft that when they place a bar on your phone, you can't even use it to contact PN.
You'd have thought that if your phone was barred, it'd only be able to call PN and nobody else.
Just seems a little odd really.

[#12]

Quote from: brogden1

In fairness to PlusNet, the credit limit has broadly the same effect and I think that process is reasonable. It would be useful for a customer to be able to set their own limit - if you never spend more than £20 on calls a month then it would be safer to set the credit limit at that level. I agree that premium rate call barring should be free, especially as other providers offer it free.

The problem is that the credit limit is only checked against confirmed calls and it takes hours (when things are working as they should and days or weeks when not) for calls to be confirmed. It is therefore possible for bills to arise much higher than the credit limit. If one could set a credit limit and it could never be exceeded things would be much better than they are. I, and I suspect many others, thought when we joined that the credit limit was just that and that was prepared to take the risk of doing without Premium Rate Call Barring. I then learned otherwise and began paying PN for Premium Rate Call Barring because I feared the problems that brogden1 has experienced.

[#13]

ps. can someone from PlusNet please advise how long we will have to wait for our MAC code. Please bear in mind that although you have agreed to terminate our contract 'as a gesture of goodwill', we are still currently without a phone or broadband service until our new provider is able to set it all up for us. This forum is our only method of communication since we are branded 'non-payers' the support system will not allow us to post.

[#14]

Quote from: brogden1

This forum is our only method of communication since we are branded 'non-payers' the support system will not allow us to post.

I recently had a family member who was incorrectly placed into the 'non-payers' category, which led me to check out the Plusnet policy/procedure on failed billing.
In my case, the policy was not followed, and there wasn't a 14day notice period, nor was there a physical letter delivered prior to disconection.
Did they follow their own procedure before cutting you off?
You can read their policy here: > http://www.plus.net/support/service/policies/failedbilling.shtml

[#15]

@Broden1
Is your home phone cordless? Is it possible that someone had hacked into your base station from outside your house? If so then the problem was not PN's.
I believe that a MAC code is just for broadband.  There should be nothing to stop you approaching another phone service provider to set in motion the connection of a phone line. Provided PN do not block the move your service should then be transferred. Broadband could be added later. It took about 2 weeks to transfer my phone from BT and I think a week of that was for PN to set up a new Direct Debit. I guess you will be without a landline for at least 1-2 weeks.
As part of your agreement with PN you need to ensure that the disputed bill is not put down as a bad debt otherwise a new provider may not be willing to take you and your credit reference records could be affected.
@JamesG
The policy says that PN will wait 14 days before disconnecting you but it also says that outgoing call barring will happen immediately and that a fee will be incurred to have the barring removed.