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I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

JonoH
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Our suppliers have contacted us the information we've requested. It's with the right people now so hope to have something to report soonish.

 

Regarding what PN will do or have done it's difficult at the moment to say anything, we should know more once soon. 

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
Alex
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Good that PlusNet are looking into it, I was a bit shocked reading this thread that it could happen. 

Questions such as (a) Has it affected other providers? (b) If unlike the OP the amount was less significant, how many people would have even noticed? (say a few pounds).

I say that because I am with EE and I noticed on occasions my bill fluctuates by a pound or two, even though I haven't made anything (what I would consider) chargeable calls. I didn't say anything because it was a small amount.

I shall keep a closer eye on my bill in future.

Jonpe
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

If large companies overcharge every customer by £1/month, they will make an awful lot of extra money!

Ann-on-a-Moose
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Thankyou for keeping on this, as atm I am still unable to call this mobile and was thinking yesterday that I should give it a nudge Thumbs_Up I also think it is important for anyone who reads this thread to be checking their bill and furthermore, I think it's Plusnets responsibility to make customers aware of the current situation so that people can prevent additional costs to their accounts and ultimately Plusnet, if indeed they are being charged Undecided

Alex
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Yes - I am sure companies PlusNet and EE are reputable enough not to such a thing intentionally. Tongue

But it wouldn't surprise me if less trustworthy companies would do such a thing - not even a pound. Say 10p x No Of Invoices you send. If there is enough number it could equal a lot. Most people are not going to even notice, or bother complaining if they did for that amount.

JonoH
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!


@Ann-on-a-Moose wrote:

I think it's Plusnets responsibility to make customers aware of the current situation so that people can prevent additional costs to their accounts and ultimately Plusnet, if indeed they are being charged Undecided

Hi, It's difficult for us to make customers aware as we essentially have nothing to tell them yet, we're yet to confirm 

  1. If it should be payable?
  2. if it should be, why should it?
  3. How can the customer recognise if a number is chargeable?

 


 

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
Alex
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Is it possible on the PlusNet platform (I don't know as we don't have phone), to set up billing caps?
At least that way you'd know when something is up, before it gets worse.

Ann-on-a-Moose
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

JonoH wrote:

Ann-on-a-Moose wrote:

I think it's Plusnets responsibility to make customers aware of the current situation so that people can prevent additional costs to their accounts and ultimately Plusnet, if indeed they are being charged Undecided

Hi, It's difficult for us to make customers aware as we essentially have nothing to tell them yet, we're yet to confirm 

  1. If it should be payable?
  2. if it should be, why should it?
  3. How can the customer recognise if a number is chargeable?

 What you don't know is irrelevant, be honest (it's your slogan), tell customers what you do know; That you have been made aware of a situation where a mobile has been charged irregularly and that although you aren't sure why this situation has occurred you are working on a fix with your suppliers and until you can rectify the problem you would like customers to be vigilant and contact Plusnet if and as soon as they notice discrepancies in their bill to avoid future charges and to give you a collection of mobile numbers responsible. This seems to be a fairly recent issue and it should be dealt with quickly, before claims of wrong charges, I fear, get out of control. If customers are aware then they can at least, like me, avoid calling these contacts until there is a fix. I don't see the issue, surely allowing this to continue will only make things worse over time? Deliberately avoiding an announcement sounds like evasion and only fuels previous customer thoughts Huh

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Quote fixed.

Ann-on-a-Moose
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

I would also like to point out it was 4 weeks ago that I originally posted about this, if you don't know what the issue is by now, when will we get a definitive answer? And whoever is chargeable, be it Plusnet or the customer (I don't think it is the customer), how long are you prepared to let it ride? When you could simply limit the damage by getting customers to help Shocked

Petard
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

So if we call a mobile phone, with an apparently normal mobile-phone number, it can count as a call to some other kind of number - this depending on a technicality of how that phone is connected to the network.

And the only way a caller can know this is by seeking out a long file on the Web, looking up the charging code, and then using that code to index into another long file of actual charges.

Hardly anyone could avoid this trap. It is a disgrace that it exists - a disgrace that charging for calls has become so impenetrably complicated.

I suppose this is just one of the ways in which the telecoms companies are doing themselves proud.

Townman
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Let's be absolutely clear here - this is a BT Openreach issue. They determine the charge band for the number called. The CPs determine the price for the band. Consequently there has to be two files. These mobile numbers appear to be in the wrong charge band.

As for the snipe at PN's strap line - it is PN who has taken the lead in the industry,challenging BTOR over the charge band allocation.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

billnotben
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Regardless of that this is a hidden charge that most people would be stunned to learn is not illegal. Or is it?

Until that is firmly changed all we have is the usual buck passing.

Townman
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

How is clearly identifying the source of the issue buck passing? A fix is required, but first the problem has to be precisely confirmed. Affirmation that the charge band is wrong has an easy single point solution, having a number of commercial considerations. Confirmation that it is correct opens up a whole host of other issues requiring diverse responses from every individual CP.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

JonoH
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!


billnotben wrote:

Until that is firmly changed all we have is the usual buck passing.


The charging data we receive shows the call as a Wifi call, we charge for Wifi calls the information is in the price guide. 

 

We're not passing the buck @billnotben. we've flagged to our supplier that these calls may be being incorrectly classified, we've asked our supplier to go away do some digging and let us know, they haven't quite given us all we're after yet and so the service bills as usual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
MisterW
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Re: I called my Husbands mobile and it cost me £45!

Let's be absolutely clear here - this is a BT Openreach issue. They determine the charge band for the number called. The CPs determine the price for the band.

Whilst I totally agree with that, I really don't understand why it's taking PN so long to sort it! According to their pricelist  BT Retail have long since realised that these calls classed as fw<nn> instead of fm<nn> are, with one or 2 exceptions, really mobile and not wifi calls. Consequently they have similar charges for these fw calls and classify them as 'uk mobile' for the purposes of inclusion in any package.

I don't see why PN can't just do the same, 'they are calls to a UK mobile' , they should be included in any plan which includes calls to UK mobiles , simples!

 

NB I've just checked and SKY also apply the same mobile rate to calls classed fw<nn>. http://www.sky.com/shop/__PDF/SkyTalkTariffGuide.pdf

Likewise TalkTalk http://help2.talktalk.co.uk/how-much-do-uk-calls-cost

 

 

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.