Rip-off £100 per GB charges for out of bundle charges!

[#1]

My main point about the Smarty website was that a GB of out-of-bundle data costs about £1.25/GB which is lot cheaper than £100/GB!

But there are a couple of extra things:-

• Their add-ons don't expire at the end of the month unlike a Plus Net Bolt-on
• As you say, you need need to purchase data add-ons at the time but you could keep a small pre-paid balance, not unlike a SmartCap?, so that you can get that add-on very quickly.
• When your data runs out and you haven't got/don't want an add-on, your data access ceases but that is entirely under your control - you won't be able to accidentally carry on using data but at punitive rates like with Plusnet.

I just got the bill for my wife's mobile today. She ran out of data 4 days before renewal (special circumstances) but got no notification other than the 80% used text. Her data ceased at that time. Eventually she bought a bolt-on but didn't realise that the phone needed rebooting. The bill shows 2 days with an Excess Data Usage charge of £1.25/day (not sure why her data ceased at one point if the process should be to continue with an Excess Data Usage charge per day but still)

She used 606MB of out-of-bundle data in total so we paid £2.50+VAT extra on this occasion and her £10 smartcap is intact (which she needs to call family in the US) - we're fine with this even though it is relatively expensive for <1GB data.
Under the new system, that 606MB would have cost £60+ but she wouldn't have got it anyway - her £10 smartcap would have been used within 1 day and she would have had no data and no international calls until the next renewal data.

This won't happen in future as I have changed her plan from 4.5GB to 9GB for £1.29/month extra and the two other plans in the family now have a £1 smart cap.

But my point remains that the new charges for out-of-bundle charges are punitive and you can fall into that trap very easily and accidentally. 

[#2]

---

@Dumbledore wrote:

Hello @aesmith the data price changes are due to occur on 29th October.

We will be communicating across the changes to all our mobile customers soon.

Please note some customers have already been notified via email.

I can confirm that I didn't receive any notification of the price change

[#3]

Hello @aesmith,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

I'm sorry to hear you've not received a notification of these changes, can you double check your spam/junk folders for the email you registered with us. If you still cannot find it please send a PM my way with the following info:

- Your full name & confirmation you are the account holder

- Your full address with postcode

- Your Plusnet mobile number

Once you have sent across that info please drop us a post here and we'll pick it up.

Thanks.

[#4]

@Mads  just to add credence to @aesmith s post. I have checked my emails and have also not received any notification. Not that i'm not aware of the changes, I am, but it would appear that some ( at least!) emails are not being sent...

[#5]

TBH PNs pricing confuddles me. 

I've just changed my monthly contract from 

5GB Unlimited text & minutes  £10.50pm

to

5GB Unlimited text & minutes  £7.00pm

or I could have had 12GB at £10.00pm but I don't use the 5GB as it is.

[#6]

Thanks for letting us know @MisterW,

I'm just gathering examples so I can pass this information onto our operations team & raise any concerns with them regarding this.

Thanks.

[#7]

---

@Mads wrote:

Hello @aesmith,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

I'm sorry to hear you've not received a notification of these changes, can you double check your spam/junk folders for the email you registered with us. If you still cannot find it please send a PM my way with the following info:

PM sent, and I confirm that nothing went into spam.  In any case Plusnet's normal emails don't get spammed so it would be a bit silly to send out an important T&C update in some way that made it appear suspicious.

[#8]

---

@Mayfly wrote:

TBH PNs pricing confuddles me. 

I've just changed my monthly contract from 

to

5GB Unlimited text & minutes  £7.00pm

---

Confuses me as well,  I might have actually gone for that deal as it would make the phone viable as a backup from home.  However the 5GB plan I see offered is £16/month.  There used to be upgrade offers available, but those seem to have disappeared as well.

By the way how can two different offerings both be "Our best deal ever"?

[#9]

@aesmith  this https://www.plus.net/mobile/sim-only-30-day/existing-customer-offer shows the 5GB @ £7 deal to me but only for the next 8 hours !!

and Here's the sign up link https://www.plus.net/mobile/deals/7/3gb/unl/unl/Nov19 , just click the Yes , im a pN broadband customer 

or presumably call 500 if youre an existing mobile custoomer

[#10]

Cheers, I don't use Plusnet broadband so I guess that explains it.

[#11]

Aah!

[#12]

Actually looking around there are better deals if I just wanted extra data "up my sleeve" for emergency use.  For example for £7.00/month you can get 3gig of data which is already 50p less than Plusnet but they roll unused data over for the next month.  So on that plan I'd pretty much always have 5gig in the pot ready for use.  And if I went over, it's £3 for a gig rather than £100.

For higher use still there are plans where unused data is credited, so you sign up for a high data plan but end up only paying for what you use.  And they're only £1.25 per gig for out of plan data.