High bill received same day as renewing contract

[#1]

Hi there

Renewed my contract yesterday (03/04/20) after accepting the offer available on the member centre dashboard for £26.99/month and received an email confirmation at 14:22. 

Then received a 'Your bill is ready to view' email at 18:27 stating that £40.98 would be taken shortly.

Surely this is incorrect? Can it be updated please?

Many Thanks

[#2]

@pulham 

New contracts start on the next billing date so the key questions have to be how long have you had the offer and whether you renewed before the billing date?

It's always best to start sorting your next contract a few weeks to a month before the expiry of the old one.

[#3]

Hi, 

Thanks for the reply. My contract expired 02/03/20 and I renewed on the 03/03/20. The renewal email states I'll be charged 26.99 from 04/03/20 so I'd like the bill for 40.98 explained/justified?

[#4]

Hi pulham. I also have a *Special Offer* on my account to renew my contract which ends next month and have asked a staff member from PN to confirm (in my own post) whether it`s a case of clicking on the offer and know that I have renewed at the lower price for my BB & line rental without this same thing happening to me. Nobody has replied to my request as yet but I`m glad I seen your post because a few other members have had concerns with being overcharged as well when they have renewed this way. I`ve been reluctant to go ahead and accept the offer in my account due to worrying this overpayment will occur due to the system having any `glitches` that may take x amount of time to rectify. 

Hope this isn`t a wider problem and that a staff member can reassure us. 

[#5]

@pulham 

I renewed my contract a few weeks ago taking up an offer I received by email from Plusnet. I renewed using the link supplied in the email having established that the email was genuine. I then received an email to say that the new contract would start the next day but it did not. I queried this and CS then said it would start on my next billing date (which was what I had expected as that was what had happened on previous contract renewals). I wait to see if that actually happens in a few days time. CS are monitoring this to see that things go to plan via an open ticket on my account that is also monitoring another billing issue.

Thus, it seems that Plusnet are routinely sending out email to existing customers who have renewed their contract with erroneous information regarding the start date of the new contract. This may explain your billing issue.

[#6]

@pulham 

The bill is easily explained, you went onto a monthy contract at midnight on 2/3/20. Hence the Bill.

The confusing bit is your new contract starting 4/3/20. Only a Plusnet staffer can explain if this means that the new contract starts on the next billing date after 4/3/20 or if they are giving you the out of contract service on 3/3/20 for free/pro rata and the statement is literally correct.

The other thing to note is that the DD will have been set up a while ago so I would expect that you will be charged the full whack this month and at best will get a credit off next month.

As I said earlier, it saves hassle to renew early.

[#7]

Thanks for the reply again and of course, with hindsight I realise it would have been better to renew earlier but that didn't happen so I wanted to know about the situation as it stands, if any Plusnet staff could assist that would be great (and maybe reassure plusmouse also).

[#8]

Baldrick wrote: New contracts start on the next billing date so the key questions have to be how long have you had the offer and whether you renewed before the billing date?
It's always best to start sorting your next contract a few weeks to a month before the expiry of the old one.

Baldrick, my `billing date` and current contract date are never the same? My current contract for both BB & Line rental ends on 3rd April. My last (and final) current monthly payment will be taken around 10th March. I have a *special Offer* that I want to sign up to in my account, but my question is, should I WAIT until my final March bill is taken and then sign up? I can see why signing up to a new contract might overlap with a final payment and incur an advance charge for the new advanced payment that someone has just signed up for. This isn`t an issue as long as PlusNet acknowledge this and refund (or reduce) the next payment due in line with this overpayment? 

I don`t want to wait until the day before my contract ends but I also don`t know when IS the best time to hit the `re-contract` button!

[#9]

@plusmouse 

All I can tell you is what worked for me.

You pay for the service a month in advance so what I did was wait until the final payment was made. The next day, with a month on the old contract in hand, I negotiated a new contract. This then started on the next billing day.

Another thing to note is that if you want to add LRS you need to ring Plusnet. If you renew your contract on line you are locked out of making any other changes, such as adding, LRS for a month.

I'm not convinced that the day the payment is taken is the actual billing/contract date, it could well be a few days later.

[#10]

As far as I know the billing date is the day the bill is generated not the day the DD payment is taken which is anything upwards of three working/banking days later.

[#11]

I see, thanks for that. I don`t do LRS so will wait until my final (old contract) payment is taken for March and then either sign up online through my account offer, or call Plusnet and ask them to initiate the deal for me. That way my new contract should begin after my final payment (around 10th March) and my contract end date, which is April 3rd. 

Still a bit confuzzled though when to actually start my new contract. Should I initiate immediately after my DD March payment is taken....or wait until the day before my current contract ends? Don`t want to leave things last minute really incase the offer vanishes and I have to negotiate over the phone with retentions. 😩

[#12]

@plusmouse 

Once your March bill has been paid you will have paid up until the beginning of April so if you renew as soon as that is paid I believe that it will automatically start when the old contract finishes in April. 

That's how it worked for me.

[#13]

That`s great Baldrick1, thanks for that. It does make sense to finalise the old contract before applying the new contract so as not to overplay the payments. I`ve read that when we sign up for another contract the start date will be the day immediately after the old contract finishes. So in my case, old one ends 3rd April, so new contract should kick in 4th April? Even if I sign up to it a few weeks before the old contract is due to expire but have already paid my last instalment?

[#14]

@plusmouse 

Yes to both.

[#15]

Hope Pulham and jgb are going to receive answers on their dilemmas soon from a PN staff member. I`m still waiting, which is why I (apologies) hijacked this thread when I read Pulham had issues after signing up to a new contract offer and being overcharged. Baldrick1 has since given some useful feedback about paying the final installment for the current/old contract first before clicking the New Deal button agreeing a new contract. So I will be following that advice and hope it works okay but at this point in time, I can`t know if there are any gremlins in the accounts/payments system that will duly allow a PN existing customer to signup to a new online contract without anything going awol!