Being Charged *before* I signed up!

[#1]

Hi, I've been a Plusnet BB user for around 18 months moving from adsl2+ to fibre which I've been on for a year. I signed up for the mates rates deal for mobile on Sunday 2nd April. As requested during that process I paid a month up front by credit card, assuming that my direct debit would kick in a month later.

I just checked my bank account and see that my current a/c has been charged for the period when I received the SIM (4th April) to 3rd May. When I then check my mobile account I see that the payment requested at sign up, covers 4th March - 3rd April. I had no SIM from you until 4th April so how could I incur charges before that period?

Please refund this initial charge for non-service within the next 7 working days. Any Plusnet staff picking this up I will provide personal details through a PM.

Regards

Harry Broom

[#2]

Good afternoon Harry!

You are billed a month in advance for your monthly line rental (your monthly tariff), but any extra charges (for instance, from excess usage) will be billed in arrears. So, to keep your future bills consistent, they will always be issued for the period you could have been charged in (effectively the previous month) while at the same time accounting for the advance of the next line rental.

What this means is your first bill shows the initial order payment which is your advance for the service for April, and your next bill will continue this same pattern, being dated for April for any charges in April, but also accounting for the advance for monthly service in May.

If the payment date isn't changed (which you can do by getting in touch with us), then a newly ordered account is usually billed as:-

-initial order payment
-first invoice as as soon as the account is in service
-second invoice one month later
-second payment around two weeks later

Your billing cycle will continue this way.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch if would like me to clarify this any further for you!  

[#3]

It's ridiculously confusing.

Does this match what you've got?

https://community.plus.net/t5/Mobile/Misleading-contract-start-date-in-account-details/m-p/1408217

[#4]

Understandable brightonbelle!

To put it more simply: your bill is an invoice for any out-of-bundle or excess usage you were charged for in the month before that bill. But, it also includes the tariff price for the -next- month's service. So your very first bill won't have any extra charges, and is just to show the -advance- payment for your first month of service.

If you -never- have any out-of-bundle charges, then your bills will always appear to be a month behind, because you -advance- us for your tariff bundle.

Hope that helps!

[#5 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the explanation. As was stated in the example that brightonbelle linked to, I understand the logic although I don't like the application of it & it needs to be explained properly on the sign up page, which it is not.
I might add that considering I'm an existing Plusnet customer & that it is checked in the signup process going through information you already have is not exactly slick. I realise that this may well be that this is an administrative hurdle, but having spent most of my working life in IT as a systems manager I find these disjointed systems a tad annoying - they needn't be, even if EE is providing the service & is a separate commercial entity.
Still one good thing though I'm using the SIM in my OnePlus 3T & it works a treat. 4G for the first time in 4 years in the town where I live & the OTA performance of internet connection whilst on the move is good. The 2 SIM capability on the phone works great.
Once again thanks for the explanation.