This is a con!

[#1]

Has anyone heard of this one.
I am a new customer and I paid for my line rental a year in advance. Because of PN process the broadband was supplied first and then the phone was transferred, I did ask for both to be done together but was advised that was the PN process. I have now received my first bill and I am being charged for line rental which I have queried and been advised there was an error in setting up my account as the prepaid line rental was not setup properly. Actually I have needed to make phone calls about everything - the broadband, the phone switch etc. as these were not set up properly either - do you notice a pattern.
Anyway what PN are saying is that as THEY want to synchronise the phone and broadband dates I am NOT entitled a refund of the prepaid line rental as I prepaid it then it is not refundable.
I know who I am going to consult if this does not get sorted but I would be interested to know if PN have tried this con with anyone else.

[#2]

Synchronising broadband and phone billing dates is normal. As far as I'm aware when broadband and phone start on different dates the phone date is usually used for billing with a pro-rata payment being made for broadband up to that billing date.
In your case, based on your comments it looks like the broadband date has been used for billing, in which case a pro-rata line rental charge would be due up to the next billing date. Taking this from your already-paid line rental saver (LRS) payment would mean you do not get full value for the first month. To avoid this I would expect your LRS payment to be applied for 12 months from next billing date with an additional pro-rata line rental charge for the rest of the current billing month.
Does that fit with what you see on your account?

[#3]

Hi Gazzer,
I'm sorry if you feel that we've either not been straight up with you or that we've not done as asked.
spraxyt's done a good job of explaining why a few of these things have happened but we're sorry all the same if this wasn't communicated to you properly.
Just to add, simultaneous orders are what we want to do but the reality is that they're not always possible and aren't guaranteed I'm afraid, that's the only reason this seems to have led t your orders being handled in the way they have been.
By the way we're just going to add details of a good will gesture to your account to show that there's no hard feelings.

[#4]

Hi Adam
Thank you for goodwill gesture. I have just updated my ticket and as you will see I have copied part of an email from PN dated 3rd June (when the phone went live) advising there would be a refund of the phone charges to align the billing dates so I was expecting that to happen. When I contacted the billing team you will see from their response that I was basically told I would not get a refund as I had paid line rental in advance. Hence the issue.
So far my experience with PN has not been a positive one. It has been necessary for me to phone you to activate my broadband because the system did not automatically update and it didn't automatically update either in placing the order to transfer the line or when the line went live so I had to make further calls to find out what was going on instead of everything being automated. It seems the automatic part of my account was not working either as the system had not updated to show I had paid for 12 months line rental in advance and therefore on my first bill you have charged me for something I have already paid for so in sorting that out we then got into this issue of refunding me for unused phone rental to align the billing dates etc. Add to that a line fault (which I know is outside of your control) about 10 days ago which meant I could not make or receive calls for a few days and I am sure you can understand why I maybe thinking I have made a mistake in moving to PN.
Lets hope the next 11 months are uneventful and we do not need to contact each other because all I want is a hassle free reliable phone and broadband.