£189 early termination fee after both parents passed away.

[#1]

Hello

My mother and father passed away within a few weeks of each other, soon afterwards, I contacted Plusnet to inform them that I wanted to cancel their broadband and landline in a couple of months.  I was told the best way was to transfer the account to myself and then it would be cancelled in a couple of months.  The reason to leave it running a couple of months was I had to drive 16hrs from mainland Europe (no flights poss during covid), to sort of things with the house and I needed Wifi.   I specifically asked about the billing charges and was told there would be NO fee.  I was also advised to remove the small additional services that my parents had added to their package, which I thought was a nice gesture as it helped my save a little in the remaining month (all money saved is good when you have 2 funeral bills to pay!).

Anyway, 1 month now since the cancellation, I have the final bill in and was shocked to see this

Balance brought forward £31.44 Payment -£31.44 Early Termination Charge £189.73

Please send me some feedback on why the charge has been added, £189 is ridiculous!!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @iainwatson

I'm firstly sorry for your loss, and we've charged you a termination fee.

Please leave this with me and I'll sort. There are one of two ways we can go about this though. I've raised a support ticket on your account you can view and reply to by going Here with more information.

[#3]

Original post deleted I have re-read it and realise it's not a bereavement issue but the totally incompetent billing system that's at fault.

[#4]

Hi all

I am in contact with them through the support ticket, hopefully with a positive outcome.  Thanks for your help so far.

Best Regards

[#5]

Hi @iainwatson

Thanks for the quick post back, I've just added a reply back onto your ticket 216683151 and I'll follow up next week. Feel free to reply to the ticket if you've got any further queries in the meantime, and I'll be happy to get back to you as soon as I can.

Sorry again for your loss and we've not made this easy during an already difficult time.

@Baldrick1 wrote:

Original post deleted I have re-read it and realise it's not a bereavement issue but the totally incompetent billing system that's at fault.

The billing system would generally do what its told. In this case, it wasn't told to waive termination fees, because the adviser submitted the cancellation as a chargeable one rather than ticking the right box for the system to "not hold to term" when the termination completed. I'll make sure feedback's passed on to the adviser.

[#6]

@Gandalf 

OK so it was agent finger trouble, which I accept can and will happen.

To be honest after re-reading the original post I was reassured that the agent knew how to handle the bereavement procedure and responded as I would have hoped. Just a pity it was then screwed up but at least this demonstrates that the procedure is in place so should work.