Initial payment: £49.99? I only had my number activated today!

[#1]

I'm new to plusnet. Signed up fir phone and fibre optic at my new address.
When i signed up I was charged an initial payment of "first month" plus router delivery.
Today i had an email telling me my phone is live and giving me my new number.
The top of the email said "Initial payment: £49.99"
Please can someone explain what this is all about?
My line rental should e £11.99 a month and I haven't even used the line yet, why is this so high? I did not authorise a charge like this and the email does nothing to explain what this is for.

[#2]

I came on to ask exactly the same thing i too switched today and received the same email, i hope its an error and someone can clarify for us?

[#3]

£49.99 sounds like the installation fee for a new line.

[#4]

dunno about the op but i didnt get a new line switched from BT to plusnet, hopefully plusnet staff can clear it up

[#5]

Hi all,
Scotslass86 and Arcsbite - I've checked your billing and can confirm that you aren't being charged what's stated in the email, so it looks like the system is sending the wrong email somewhere there (that's a guess, I'll update when we've investigated and know more about what's happening). In the mean time, please be assured you won't be charged the £49.99 - as MisterW has advised that is the price for a new line, which isn't required in either of your cases here.
I'll get a problem raised and keep you posted, thanks very much for the heads up and sorry about the notification as well.

[#6]

thanks for swift reply, i thought it would be an error, very pleased to be all up and running 

[#7]

I wish it was as smooth sailing on my end!
I have just received an email saying
Dear Mr Alexander,
Username: arcsbite
Billing Notice for your Plusnet Extra Fibre with included 120GB bandwidth account.
Your account billing has been successful. We have taken 13.49, for the billing period starting on 2011-08-03.
Remember that you can confirm all your payment details by visiting our website
I assume this is incorrect as my Internet is not connected till the 15/08 and it is for 21.49 a month.
Why does the email say this?
Upon signing in online I'm told it's for the phone not the Internet and then I am presented this.
Qty Description Unit VAT Gross
1 Talk Evenings & Weekends Line Rent charge for the period 03-08-2011 to 02-09-2011 £9.99 £2.00 £11.99
1 Non Direct Debit Processing charge £1.25 £0.25 £1.50
Please advise why I am being charged a non direct debit charge when I HAVE set up a direct debit for this account. I was asked for am initial payment via card. But seeing as you requested the payment via card you cannot charge me for not having a direct debit!

On top of these 2 errors I was also emailed that I would be charged an initial payment of £49.99 which is incorrect.
I am very unhappy with the level of service I have recieved so far and I have not even got an active connection with your company yet!
This needs to remedied immediately. And I need a breakdown of what charges I am actually being charged for and which account they are coming from (initial payment on card/ DD)

[#8]

Hi Arcsbite,
Really sorry this is as awful an experience as it is. Hope I can clear a few things up here for you.

Quote from: Arcsbite

Your account billing has been successful. We have taken 13.49, for the billing period starting on 2011-08-03. Remember that you can confirm all your payment details by visiting our website I assume this is incorrect as my Internet is not connected till the 15/08 and it is for 21.49 a month. Why does the email say this?

This is correct, the charge is for the Home Phone service which has gone active. When the Broadband goes active in a week or so you'll get a pro-rata charge for the remainder of the month (starting from when the Home Phone went active) and then both payments will synchronise from your next billing date.

Quote from: Arcsbite

Upon signing in online I'm told it's for the phone not the Internet and then I am presented this. Qty Description Unit VAT Gross 1 Talk Evenings & Weekends Line Rent charge for the period 03-08-2011 to 02-09-2011 £9.99 £2.00 £11.99 1 Non Direct Debit Processing charge £1.25 £0.25 £1.50 Please advise why I am being charged a non direct debit charge when I HAVE set up a direct debit for this account. I was asked for am initial payment via card. But seeing as you requested the payment via card you cannot charge me for not having a direct debit!

That is indeed incorrect, I've refunded that to you (should be back with you in a couple of days) and raised a problem to get that sorted out. You shouldn't be charged that fee if you've a pending direct debit.

Quote from: Arcsbite

On top of these 2 errors I was also emailed that I would be charged an initial payment of £49.99 which is incorrect. I am very unhappy with the level of service I have recieved so far and I have not even got an active connection with your company yet! This needs to remedied immediately. And I need a breakdown of what charges I am actually being charged for and which account they are coming from (initial payment on card/ DD)

I hope I've already addressed the incorrect email and confirmed in my previous post that you wouldn't be getting charged the £49.99. The fix for the incorrect email is already under investigation (in fact the fix is currently awaiting testing) and should be rolled live soon - I'll post back when we have a date.

[#9]

Thank you for the prompt response, something I am not used to being with virgin 
This all makes much more sense now I think.
So when my Internet goes live on the 15th. I will be charged pro rata from the 15th until my next phone billing date (03/09) to bring the billing dates together, then normal monthly billing will resume for both on DD each month on the same day?
This was confusing as I had to authorise "£21.49" on my credit card as a first month charge when I signed up, when I'm guessing in reality that the charge will be half that for the pro rata dats of instal (15/08) to billing date (03/09)

[#10]

Quote from: Arcsbite

So when my Internet goes live on the 15th. I will be charged pro rata from the 15th until my next phone billing date (03/09) to bring the billing dates together, then normal monthly billing will resume for both on DD each month on the same day?

That's exactly it, yes

Quote from: Arcsbite

This was confusing as I had to authorise "£21.49" on my credit card as a first month charge when I signed up, when I'm guessing in reality that the charge will be half that for the pro rata dats of instal (15/08) to billing date (03/09)

That's correct - it's not always the phone that goes active first, which is why you had that request.

[#11]

Just an update and a question
everything went as planned, they took my first month phone bill as that went live at the begining of the month.
they installed the internet on the 15/08 as planned
HOWEVER.....
I now have been invoiced
Qty Description Unit VAT Gross
1 Initial Subscription £17.91 £3.58 £21.49
1 Postage and Packaging Cost £4.16 £0.83 £4.99
Net Amount £22.07
VAT Amount @ 20% £4.41
Invoice Total £26.48
surely this isn't right?
if it's pro rata then my bill should be from 15/08 (date internet was installed) to 02/09 (billing date)
this should be half this amount?

Quote from: Matt

Quote from: Arcsbite This was confusing as I had to authorise "£21.49" on my credit card as a first month charge when I signed up, when I'm guessing in reality that the charge will be half that for the pro rata dats of instal (15/08) to billing date (03/09) That's correct - it's not always the phone that goes active first, which is why you had that request.

[Moderator's note by Dick (Strat) Quote tags fixed.

[#12]

Hi there,
I'm afraid that's happened because your account was activated incorrectly by one of our agents. I'll refund that for you as soon as the transaction has gone through and will make sure education takes place too.
Really sorry about that.

[#13]

Matt
please could you take a look at the ticket you raised as there arer 2 comments on it by staff and I have no idea what's going on
this is the 3rd time I've been billed incorrectly and I've only been with plus net for 17days, this is getting absurd
I hear that talk talk just got fined for these kinds of mistakes

"Dear Mr Alexander,
I'm raising this ticket through to our finance team in order to get the incorrect charges removed.
[INTERNAL]
Please can you remove the current outstanding scheduled payment for 11.78 and also (if it's not already being taken) the currently pending invoice 28281509 as these charges are incorrect, many thanks.
Kind regards,
Matt Taylor[Notification sent to: <deleted>]
[mremoved] - A&BS - Accounting, HR & Legal
2:13pm, Thursday 18 Aug 2011
--internal--
Unfortunately we are unable to remove outstanding scheduled payments, the only people that can do this are LCST as far as I am aware (usually only in exceptional circumstances).
Please confirm why the charges are incorrect. The £23.48 is already being taken by DD so this will need to be refunded once the DD processes (if the DD goes through successfully) if a refund is needed. Regarding the scheduled charges, we can refund these once taken if incorrect.
Refunds should be able to be actioned in CS if the refund required is under £100 (by an experienced agent or TL if necessary).
Kind regards,
[mremoved]
[mremoved] - CSC Analyst
9:03pm, Thursday 18 Aug 2011
[internal]
Can you please confirm the reason for a refund? as requested by Sally. Thanks
Please then pass the ticket to the relevant department.
As mentioned Scheduled payments cannot be refunded as the invoice has not been generated yet. Thanks
Kind regards,
[mremoved]
jim:csa
jim:green personal email removed mod:end

[#14]

I have removed the various agents names and also your personal email address as this forum is regularly scanned by Google among others
This will need to wait until Monday when the Team will be back in but in the meantime what you are seeing are internal quibbles which Matt will sort out - hopefully with a big stick 

[#15]

Hi arcsbite,
Sorry about this. The original ticket was raised in the hope that the payment would be removed before being taken, but unfortunately this didn't happen, so I need to wait for the payment to go through before I can refund it to you. Aside from that I need to have a word with those that have actioned the ticket, I'll make sure both things happen very soon.