Charged for calls (under an hour) to another Plusnet Broadband User. Plusnet won't refund???
FIXED
Backstory:
My mother-in-law was on a Plusnet Broadband and Telephone service, in fact I recommended her to Plusnet so we could get free to calls to her as my wife calls her frequently. All was fine with this until October when she moved house. Now apparently unbeknownst to us until today (because I've only just checked our bills) we've be charged for calls made to her new number.. altogether this is a charge in the region of £120 or something since October (I haven't bother to add it all up yet).
Apparently what's happened, when she moved house, is that she's stayed with Plusnet broadband but her Telephone has been changed for some reason (to BT believe). Now neither my mother-in-law or us were aware of this change. After calling Plusnet Customer Services they are refusing to refund our calls made to her an the basis that her phone-line is not with Plusnet. I have a few major issues with this though:
1) Under my call perks (a screenshot of which can be seen attached at the bottom of this post) it clearly states "Enjoy free calls to other Plusnet broadband customers". Nowhere does it state that they need to have a phone-line too. If this is not the case then this is misleading and false advertising.
2) Regardless of point 1, this is a clear and obvious mistake and we should not be punished for it. For starters it relied on the actions and competence of someone else other than ourselves (namely our mother-in-law) which seems unfair on our behalf. In our statements it can clearly be seen that we have been making many free calls to a number before October and then suddenly in October we are frequently being charged. It is obviously the case that we were completely unaware that the situation had supposedly been changed.
3) This is more some suggestions and recommendations for Plusnet going forward but I feel a refund is warranted on the basis that these things should be implemented but aren't.
A) I highly suggest Plusnet use an algorithm to check for frequent 'Call Friends' who are Plusnet users. Then if one of your 'Call Friends' moves away from Plusnet a friendly alert should be issued to you so you do not fall down this trap.
B) If you're racking up a large phone-bill to a singular home land-line number; don't you think Plusnet should perhaps warn you about this? I should have received a friendly alert that there was a large phone-bill to a singular land-line number. This would help protect from incidents such as these where someone thinks they are making free-calls but they are not, and other incidents also for example if someone's kids are calling someone frequently and creating a huge phone-bill without the parents realizing. You could even suggest in the message "We notice you've been making a lot of call to this number, why don't you consider asking them to join Plusnet so you can call them for free!" - oh hey look a business opportunity out of it even..
Those are what I consider very valid points as to why we should receive a refund in full for the calls made to my mother-in-law since October. I am very disappointed that the customer service agent refused a refund, I also asked if it could be disputed in any way and she flat-out said no.
I will give Plusnet some benefit of the doubt here; I believe the customer service agent I rang was rather new and not properly trained. She didn't even know that there's a policy to receive free phone-calls to other Plusnet users until she asked someone, she was strangely laughing through-out the phone-conversation for no reason and at random periods, she kept calling me by the wrong name (actually 2 completely different wrong names, the 2nd one not even close to my real name), she didn't seem to care at all when I made it clear to her that Plusnet would likely be losing a costumer over this incident and just said there was nothing she could do.
So I will give Plusnet another chance to correct their position and offer me a refund, would anyone here on the forum please be able to recommend my best way forward in contacting Plusnet in order to properly resolve this issue? That would be most helpful thanks.
If Plusnet do not change their stance on the refund do you think I would have a case bringing this up with the Ombudsman?
I would be very disappointed if it had to come to that though. I have been a Plusnet user for a long time. I recommended my mother-in-law, my parents and my grand-parents-in-law to Plusnet also. If this issue is not properly dealt with I will definitely be leaving Plusnet myself out of principle; however I will then lose my free calls to those family members so the rest of my family would have to find a new network too so we could continue receiving free-calls to each other. So Plusnet would stand to lose 4 long-term customers because they refuse to make a fair refund to us, I don't know how much Plusnet would lose from this but I can only imagine it would significantly outweigh the comparatively small justifiable refund of just over £100: so I'm hoping they will see sense on the matter.
