Referral Payments Messed Up

[#1]

Hi Plusnet
I’m feeling let down here:  It seems that apart from sending Plusnet  a letter, posting on the forum is the only way I am able to contact someone that might be able and willing to help me. I have spent 45min in a queue only to be told that I cannot speak to anyone who deals with sorting out referral payments, and I have had tickets deleted that contain an excel spreadsheet showing clearly how much I should be paid.  
My referral payments have been totally messed up and I am being under paid by a significant amount. I have also had tokens manually destroyed by Plusnet that should not have been that will result in yet another month of under payment.   I have asked for someone that can help me to ring me so I can explain and show you why Plusnets calculations are so far out -  yet  no one has responded - so I am posting here in the hope that someone from Plusnet with a sense of fairness and responsibility will read this and do the right thing, look at this with  (due care and attention) and sort this out.
I am due to be paid on the 13th  of each  month (the date I get billed ),  for some reason just after I negotiated a new 18 month free broadband contract,  my credits rolled over and carried on for three weeks or so after  until they hit £113.50 (see attached pic) someone at plusnet must of manually added up the values as they would have been on the 13th and issued me £73.00  - this was about the correct value for that month.  This month I have only been paid £36.75 for 54 tokens (see pic),  yet I should have been paid for 134 active tokens totalling £77.75 (see spreadsheet pic), and next  month it will be £79.50 due to three more new tokens becoming active (see spreadsheet pic). I pay my line rental up front and you have taken payment for call charges  from my bank account via direct debit  not tokens, so there is nothing for you to spend my tokens on.  
I refer new people most months and so the value I get rises most months so your £36.75 calculation  is not even in the correct  ball park.  I have spent a great deal of time and energy promoting Plusnet, and I am only asking for fair treatment here. I am thinking of putting my recommendations of Plusnet on hold as I am getting worried that the standard of care and support that customer have had in the past is slipping and I cannot promote a business that does not stick out from the pack by offering good levels of support and fairness to its customers.  
Thanks for your anticipated help in sorting this out
Dx7

[#2]

Hi John,
Reporting of referral values is not as clear as it outght to be.  There was a massive clean up on the system about a year ago, some token types were not being paid properly, but was supposed to all gave been sorted.
What can be confusing is that only referral credits up to the cost of your broadband service is clearly totalled, anything over that value is held 'hidden' until the accumulated excess is over £5 at which point it is credited to your payment method.
That might not though explain entirely your issue!
Kevin

[#3]

Hi Kevin
The problem you refer to has long since been sorted but  yes the system is not as clear as it could be i.e. the "N/A" problem for the "Last Token"  field, it was raised as a fault nearly two years ago and given a job number but its been left in the long grass, but the system mainly works OK.    All I ask from Plusnet is that they look at any problem like this with due care and diligence.
And my problem should be very easy to solve.
1  I have paid for my line rental upfront
2  I have free BB
3  Cost from calls is taken from me via direct debit not tokens
4  I have no calls package

So add the total column up of my active referrals and bam - you get the figure I should be paid for that month. I don't even mind if they are 2 or 3 quid off the correct  value that I should be paid, just as long as they quickly  get things back in order - adding up the correct values each day and totalling up on the day my bill is due.  At the moment it's a total mess, they have destroyed  tokens that have not been paid,  and I have spent a long time trying to get it sorted and unable to get anyone dealing with it to talk to me - not good. 
John

[#4]

The wall of silence continues. I'm beginning to feel like a leper here. Aside from a moral responsibility, does anyone reading this know if  Plusnet has a legal responsibility to work out and pay people the correct amount of money earned through the Plusnet referral system?    Will  CISAS deal with this type of complaint?  If so can someone from Plusnet please give me a deadlock code so I can get on with sorting this mater out? 
Thanks 
John

[#5]

Quote from: Dx7

I am due to be paid on the 13th  of each  month (the date I get billed ),  for some reason just after I negotiated a new 18 month free broadband contract,  my credits rolled over and carried on for three weeks or so after  until they hit £113.50 (see attached pic) someone at plusnet must of manually added up the values as they would have been on the 13th and issued me £73.00  - this was about the correct value for that month.  This month I have only been paid £36.75 for 54 tokens (see pic),  yet I should have been paid for 134 active tokens totalling £77.75 (see spreadsheet pic), and next  month it will be £79.50 due to three more new tokens becoming active (see spreadsheet pic). I pay my line rental up front and you have taken payment for call charges  from my bank account via direct debit  not tokens, so there is nothing for you to spend my tokens on.   I refer new people most months and so the value I get rises most months so your £36.75 calculation  is not even in the correct  ball park.

Hi John,
I might be missing something here, but from what I can ascertain your bank account has been credited with £73.65, £74.15, £75.19 and £76.90 for the last four months respectively?
With so many referrals, it's unlikely that the credited amount will be to the penny each month due to variances in the paying arrangements/frequency of the referred accounts and the circumstances concerning them.
You'll not be able to get a deadlock code without a formal complaint raised.

[#6]

Hi Bob
Thank you for replying 
Your looking the wrong account, I have two (told you I work hard and refer a LOT of people). The account your looking at is 100% OK.  I have raised a complaint  sent via a ticket but not one is responding to that ether. Ticket #109908386 - I think you should be able to get my user name for the account in question from the ticket number? 
The amount I received for my messed up account  last month was £36.75 today Plusnet paid me £70.25 into my bank account, although there is no invoice for that, and its still a bit short by my reckoning, but I am not bothered if its only a small amount out.  If you look at the amount of tokens I will receive this month by the 13th, you will find that a lot of tokens are missing, that's because I think they have been manually deleted, so next month I will be quite a bit short again.  My hope is that by the 14th the clock will be not roll over but begin again adding up the correct amount of tokens.
All I have asked for is to speak to someone that can sort out referrals payments and I am being old that that is not possible. Beginning to feel like I am being a pain and Plusnet doesn't like me referring so many people, but doesn't it  make good business sense to t look after someone that has sent you many thousands of pounds worth of business?

Thanks
John 

[#7]

OK, I'll try and find some time tomorrow to take a detailed look at it.

[#8]

Thanks Bob.

[#9]

Right, I've spent a bit of time looking at this one now. I like to think my numeracy is pretty good, but bloody hell is it confusing!
First off, and more for my own sanity, this is how I see things. Please shout up if I've got any of this wrong. It would also be good to have some clarity around the £29.75 August credit:

• You have approaching £80 worth of referral credit each month


• You changed account type/recontracted before your July billing date


• In July you received manual payment of ~£73 (seems OK)


• In August you received a manual payment of £36.75 (seems way short)


• There's an additional automated credit note for £29.75 in August (did you receive this money?)

Quote from: Dx7

... my credits rolled over and carried on for three weeks or so after  until they hit £113.50 (see attached pic) someone at plusnet must of manually added up the values as they would have been on the 13th and issued me £73.00...

So, by my reckoning there's a deficit there of £113.50-£73.00 = £40.50.

Quote from: Dx7

This month I have only been paid £36.75 for 54 tokens (see pic)...

Paying you the £40.50 deficit mentioned above would compensate for this.

Quote from: Dx7

... next  month it will be £79.50 due to three more new tokens becoming active (see spreadsheet pic). I pay my line rental up front and you have taken payment for call charges  from my bank account via direct debit  not tokens, so there is nothing for you to spend my tokens on.

Now here's where I might have over-analysed things. I'll use approximations because I'm unsure how things work if referrals are billed the same day as you etc. but things should be within a few quid of each other.
Good news is, I can see ~£79 worth of active referral credits on the account each month so I don't think any actual referrals have been deleted.
A rough scan of the credits suggest that there's ~£27 of unspent tokens so far this month. So far so good.
If this is the case though, I would expect to see ~£40 of tokens that are yet to be generated by customers billed between now and your billing date on the 13th. This doesn't seem to be the case though, rather there seems to be ~£24.
So where's the rest? Well, I can see an extra ~£27 worth of tokens from customers billed between your last billing date and now which I would expect to show as unspent (it doesn't). A manual examination of these accounts doesn't suggest there's anything that would have prevented them from generating a token. Plenty of them have active discounts, but not all of them.
So, what do I suggest?
Well, this depends on whether or not you received any money for that automated credit in August, but if you didn't, what I would propose is that we wait for you to be billed this month and see what happens with your referral credit. If it ends up being ~£50 which it suspiciously looks like it might to me. Then we manually credit you the £40.50 deficit mentioned previously and the £29.75 related to the automated credit note that was applied to your account last month. Does that sound sensible?
Hopefully after that, things generate as they should in September/October.
Can't help but think this is something to do with your account re-contracting but I'm damned if I can work out what's happened

[#10]

Bob
Top man! 
I big thank you to you for sorting this out,  and aso to Kevin AKA Townsman for the behind the scenes work. My confidence in Plusnet is restored. The referral system is somewhat  flaky, I even have referrals on my other account that sometime disappear for a month or two, and then come back – I’m not asking you to look at that problem by the way,  but thank god there is someone like you working at Plusnet that understands the referral system  it and cares enough to help out when something clearly goes wrong.
I can confirm that I  only had one payment of £36.75 in August (I can supply a bank statement if required) so yes paying  me £40.50 for the short fall sounds about right.
I can also confirm that no referrals have been deleted. 
I agree with and I am happy to go along with all your suggestions.
What happens if you ever leave Plusnet Bob?  I hope that someday soon the referral system gets a bit of an upgrade so it becomes easier to understand for both staff and customers and also made a bit more robust \ reliable. 
Again many thanks for your help – I owe you and Kevin  a pint or two.
John

[#11]

Hi John,
Just had a thought. I'm on leave for a fortnight as of tomorrow, so I'll not be around on the 13th to revisit your account. Would you like me to pass the issue to a colleague to oversee or are you OK with me reviewing the situation when I return?

[#12]

Hi Bob,

To be honest and if you don't mind I would rather you have you look it over when you return.
Have a good holiday

[#13]

Not a problem, and thanks

[#14]

Bob
This being the 13th \ my billing date  I thought I would log this for when you return from your hols :  Referral credit = £53.50 and  should be £79.50, so it's £26 short this month.

[#15]

Bob
The problem still exists -  Checked today 14th and Its rolled over again so no payment issued