Is line rental included in offers listed on the Offers and Upgrades page?

[#1]

My contract (Unlimited ADSL around £10pm) is due to expire on 17th Jan 2021 so I went to check out the "Upgrades and Offers" page in my account.  The offer listed was £6.21pm for "Unlimited Fibre" + £5pm for Evenings and Weekends call package.  The Line Rental cost was listed as £0.  Total £11.21pm (plus 6.99 P&P for delivery of a new router since my existing router is ADSL).


I'm concerned now that I will have to pay extra for line rental on top of the £11.21 - £19.99 per month so over £31 per month total.  Is this the case?  The confirmation on the upgrades page did make it sound like the total was just £11.21 and line rental was zero (listed as £0.00 per month).

I read another thread here which seems to suggest this is the case, the upgrades and offers page is misleading with respect to line rental being excluded / no mention of line rental being made.

If someone can confirm that would be helpful.  Thanks.

[#2]

@munkfish If you read the 'legal bit' you will discover that Line Rental @£20.29 /month is extra,

[#3]

As far as I’m aware if you pay line rental saver then line rental won’t show on your bills or it’ll show as £0 so you won’t be paying line rental twice. 

The offers page looks to be not adding line rental to the monthly cost because of the active line rental saver, so if you don’t renew line rental saver next month then you’ll pay line rental on top of the £11.21

If you renew line rental saver then you’ll just pay £11.21 until the line rental saver runs out. 

[#4]

@munkfish Do you have a mobile? If so, most of the providers offer unlimited calls and texts - I'm with 'Smarty', the no-frills arm of Three and pay £5.00/month for unlimited calls and texts. At the moment, I also get free Evenings and Weekend calls with PN as I'm on a legacy contract, but when I change ISP early next year, the only calls which will be made on the fixed-line phone will be 0800 numbers.

[#5]

@munkfish 

£6.21 per month for unlimited fibre AND line rental?!

If an offer looks far far too good to be true then....

[#6]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

@munkfish 

£6.21 per month for unlimited fibre AND line rental?!

If an offer looks far far too good to be true then....

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@Baldrick1 @jab1 @Thrall ... yes yes yes I know I know...

I don't know why I went all the way through with the 'upgrade' screens and if I look back at the first page of the upgrade process it does mention that line rental is excluded but that is in very small writing compared to the huge pink and white text at the confirmation screen that says TOTAL MONTHLY COST (but failing to mention line rental is excluded) ... very misleading that final confirmation page to not mention line rental is extra, listing it as £0.00 per month.

I was just trying to work out now how much I've 'lost out' by taking this upgrade offer.  I think the cost would be £6.21 (Unlimited fibre) + 20.29 (line rental if what one of you said above is true), so £26.50 per month which isn't a huge amount over the current offer for new users of £23.99 per month (still peed off that it's actually more than the offer for new users though ).  Only other thing is we don't massively need fibre* but will go for it anyway I think, can't be bothered with the hassle of phoning up to try and cancel the upgrade now.  Hopefully if line rental saver is still an option then we might get a bit more off by going for that.

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@jab1 wrote:

@munkfish Do you have a mobile? If so, most of the providers offer unlimited calls and texts - I'm with 'Smarty', the no-frills arm of Three and pay £5.00/month for unlimited calls and texts. At the moment, I also get free Evenings and Weekend calls with PN as I'm on a legacy contract, but when I change ISP early next year, the only calls which will be made on the fixed-line phone will be 0800 numbers.

---

I only have a PAYG mobile phone so... meh.  The reason I was going for the Evenings and Weekends call plan was because the 'pre dialler' service that we've used for the last few years (with just 'calls only' / no call plan at PN) has suddenly stopped for some reason - 18185.  I'm wondering if some work has gone on at our local exchange which has caused the issue... whatever it is the 18185 pre dial code no long works and so we're now looking at quite expensive call rates via Plusnet unfortunately.

If it was just me then I'd not bother with evenings and weekends and use 18185's other options for using their service, but there are other people in our house that can't really be dealing with that kind of thing!

Anyway thanks all for the response, Plusnet sort it out and put some better information / warnings on that badly worded upgrades page, especially the final confirmation page which very much makes it sound like you're getting a good deal when you're not. 

* - which is another bug bear with the upgrades and offers page, there was no upgrade offer for ADSL, only fibre, the only option to stick with ADSL was £11.15 per month (vs £6.21 for fibre, which are you gonna go for faced with that offer?!).  Since we're paying less than that (£11.15) at the moment for line rental + broadband + call only, that kind of went towards giving me the impression that line rental was included in these prices they were displaying on the upgrades page.

EDIT:

Meh I see there are a number of posts on the forum about this issue and concerns raised regards mis-selling, this thread here is almost identical to mine:

https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Account-Billing/Worried-about-upgrade-price-misselling/m-p/1601425

and raises the same issues. 

I know it seems like an obvious error (to believe that line rental is included), but honestly the way the wording is on the upgrade page is very bad and stinks of mis-selling.  There are several little things that the 'upgrades and offers' page does in a way to lure you in to believing you're getting a good deal when you're not.

Another thing that ^ thread reminded me of was the fact that no mention is made in the confirmation emails either about line rental, only adding to the impression that line rental is not an issue, it is covered / included in the price.

[#7]

@munkfish 

I agree that it could be interpreted as sharp practice.

For the future you should note that 'Upgrade Offers' and other 'special' renewal offers are not the best way to get a good deal.

The best way that I have found is to go on to a price comparison site and note the best price available for my chosen service from a mainstream competitor such as Talk Talk or Vodaphone. Armed with this ring Plusnet customer services and select the 'I'm thinking of leaving' option. As you may guess, there is rarely a long wait on these lines. Quote the competitors price and with a bit of haggling you will more than likely get a better price. If you can't then it's time to make a decision which option to go for.

[#8]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

@munkfish 

I agree that it could be interpreted as sharp practice.

For the future you should note that 'Upgrade Offers' and other 'special' renewal offers are not the best way to get a good deal.

The best way that I have found is to go on to a price comparison site and note the best price available for my chosen service from a mainstream competitor such as Talk Talk or Vodaphone. Armed with this ring Plusnet customer services and select the 'I'm thinking of leaving' option. As you may guess, there is rarely a long wait on these lines. Quote the competitors price and with a bit of haggling you will more than likely get a better price. If you can't then it's time to make a decision which option to go for.

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You're right, but I don't like haggling on the phone.  What I've done for the last 2-3 times my contract at PN ended is actually move away from Plusnet to another ISP and then move back to Plusnet again if/when they do a good introductory deal (the last PN intro deal I took was under £11 per month for Unlimited ADSL / Calls Only for 1 year factoring in the cashback bonus cheque they offered).  It is a big headache though and partly why I've given in this time and just gone for the upgrade option (which sounded so good hehe!).

They don't seem to be doing that £11 pm deal any more though, cheapest it's been for a few months now is £16... which I might have ended up chasing but ... hey ho.

Thanks again for reply.

[#9]

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@munkfish wrote

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I don't know why I went all the way through with the 'upgrade' screens and if I look back at the first page of the upgrade process it does mention that line rental is excluded but that is in very small writing compared to the huge pink and white text at the confirmation screen that says TOTAL MONTHLY COST (but failing to mention line rental is excluded) ... very misleading that final confirmation page to not mention line rental is extra, listing it as £0.00 per month.

I was just trying to work out now how much I've 'lost out' by taking this upgrade offer.  I think the cost would be £6.21 (Unlimited fibre) + 20.29 (line rental if what one of you said above is true), so £26.50 per month which isn't a huge amount over the current offer for new users of £23.99 per month (still peed off that it's actually more than the offer for new users though ).  Only other thing is we don't massively need fibre* but will go for it anyway I think, can't be bothered with the hassle of phoning up to try and cancel the upgrade now.  Hopefully if line rental saver is still an option then we might get a bit more off by going for that.

---

@jab1 wrote:

@munkfish Do you have a mobile? If so, most of the providers offer unlimited calls and texts - I'm with 'Smarty', the no-frills arm of Three and pay £5.00/month for unlimited calls and texts. At the moment, I also get free Evenings and Weekend calls with PN as I'm on a legacy contract, but when I change ISP early next year, the only calls which will be made on the fixed-line phone will be 0800 numbers.

---

I only have a PAYG mobile phone so... meh.  The reason I was going for the Evenings and Weekends call plan was because the 'pre dialler' service that we've used for the last few years (with just 'calls only' / no call plan at PN) has suddenly stopped for some reason - 18185.  I'm wondering if some work has gone on at our local exchange which has caused the issue... whatever it is the 18185 pre dial code no long works and so we're now looking at quite expensive call rates via Plusnet unfortunately.

If it was just me then I'd not bother with evenings and weekends and use 18185's other options for using their service, but there are other people in our house that can't really be dealing with that kind of thing!

Anyway thanks all for the response, Plusnet sort it out and put some better information / warnings on that badly worded upgrades page, especially the final confirmation page which very much makes it sound like you're getting a good deal when you're not. 

* - which is another bug bear with the upgrades and offers page, there was no upgrade offer for ADSL, only fibre, the only option to stick with ADSL was £11.15 per month (vs £6.21 for fibre, which are you gonna go for faced with that offer?!).  Since we're paying less than that (£11.15) at the moment for line rental + broadband + call only, that kind of went towards giving me the impression that line rental was included in these prices they were displaying on the upgrades page.

EDIT:

Meh I see there are a number of posts on the forum about this issue and concerns raised regards mis-selling, this thread here is almost identical to mine:

https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Account-Billing/Worried-about-upgrade-price-misselling/m-p/1601425

and raises the same issues. 

I know it seems like an obvious error (to believe that line rental is included), but honestly the way the wording is on the upgrade page is very bad and stinks of mis-selling.  There are several little things that the 'upgrades and offers' page does in a way to lure you in to believing you're getting a good deal when you're not.

Another thing that ^ thread reminded me of was the fact that no mention is made in the confirmation emails either about line rental, only adding to the impression that line rental is not an issue, it is covered / included in the price.

---

Yep, those 'upgrade' pages are a little bit tricky. When I did my re-contract, they were still offering ADSL - which I'm on at the moment, and after being a 'loyal' customer for 8 years, the offer price was £3.00. As I had a referral (now lost), that took it to £1.75, and due to PN making a slight, easily rectified mistake over my LRS (renewed at the same time) and being lucky with staff (not agents) I spoke to while solving it, I got a really good 'goodwill gesture' which actually means I haven't paid a penny for BB and won't till the April bill. I'm not renewing LRS, and will be taking a 4/5 months early termination charge as I'm planning on switching suppliers April/May - for FTTC and line rental £29.00 all in.

I'm not staying here, because I hate the way BT have destroyed a great company and although I've had 12 months fault-free, I don't want to have the issues everyone else seems to have if they need PN assistance. Fortunately for me, that would probably only happen if I needed BTOR intervention, but I'm not taking the risk.

Mobile - I totally understand your position - I've only been with 'Smarty' for 12 months, prior to that I was on Voda PAYG, but got a cheap iPhone 5 off a friend who wanted a newer slightly bigger phone, and I now use that for all my calls, but still have E&W on the landline, although I think I've only used it a couple of times in the last year. No data - the iPad with a 24GB/24month life deals with that.

I used to use 18185 when I was at my previous address -30 years ago, and at this house until I joined PN, and even back then their billing was nearly as ramshackle as PN's can be if you don't keep your wits about you. Don't forget to add you £5.00 E&W/E calls charge to your calculations.

Hope it all goes to plan for you.