[URGENT] Someone cancelled my contract!

[#1]

Hello!

This is really bad! I've noticed today PlusNet charge my debit card with unexpected large amount. I logged in to check my bill and it turns out it's an early termination fee. However I did NOT request a cancellation! And this time I did NOT receive any warning or notice (I checked my e-mail). Please help and DO NOT CANCEL my contract.

Earlier at beginning of December 2019 I received an e-mail about contract cancellation request (again not done by myself) and I called the support to explain that I did not want to cancel! This time I did not receive any notice. So third party is trying to cancel my contract again without my knowledge.

[#2]

Just to give a full story here... I renewed my contract (broadband + line rental) at the beginning of November 2019. Suddenly at the end of November 2019 I received an email about cancellation saying "sorry to hear you're moving your landline service". However I was not aware about that so I called the customer support to say that I am not moving and I don't even know how someone can say I'm moving without me doing this. Anyway I resolved this issue with the customer support and I received e-mail from Plusnet confirming that "cancellation" is stopped.

Now yesterday (08 January 2020) I've noticed my debit card is charged with surprisngly large amount. I logged in to check my bill and it turns out it's an early termination fee! However again I did NOT request a cancellation! And this time I did NOT receive any warning or notice. Please help and DO NOT CANCEL my contract and please refund the money you are taking without my authorization.

[#3]

Hi @dawidn I'm sorry to see what has happened. I've looked into this for you and I can see we received two attempts from another provider to takeover your phone line. The first attempt we notified you of and cancelled, the second attempt we unfortunately didn't notify you of and it went through causing early termination fees to be triggered.

I've got in touch with a colleague from our billing team and we've arranged to send you a cheque for the amount we've taken in error which you should get by cheque within the next 14 days at the latest.

Moving forward, I can see we've placed an order to transfer your phone line back to us and this is due to complete on the 23rd January. Both your broadband and account have remained intact, because your line has never left the BT network.

I'm taking personal ownership of this and will check back when we expect your line to belong to us again.

I do sincerely apologise again for the inconvenience caused.

[#4]

Thank you @Gandalf for taking care of it. I hope the other provider will not cause any problems in transfering back the line to Plusnet. I hope you can also fix the issue with communication/notification system so it won't happen again because if the other provider tried 2 times, it's quite likely they will keep trying to take the line again.

[#5]

Thanks for getting back to me @dawidn 

No problem I'm going to keep a close eye on this for you to try to make sure nothing else bad happens.

Let me know if you notice any developments or there's anything else you'd need help with.

[#6]

Hi @Gandalf 

I just received e-mail from Plusnet that the new provider refused to transfer my line back to Plusnet. This is exactly what my concern was. Because now we can receive bills from the new provider for unknown amounts and according to their website their partner/resellers can decide whatever prices they want. This is serious and I never agreed to that. It's very stressful situation for me. And all this because Plusnet has a notification system issue that failed to notify me about the transfer (knowing that I stopped previous attempt to the transfer)

[#7]

Hi @dawidn I do sincerely apologise again for the continued issues, I've escalated this with Openreach to see what can be done. With regards to the new provider billing you this shouldn't be possible unless you've got an account with them.

[#8]

I don't have an account with them. So who pays for my landline then?

[#9]

Thanks for getting back to me @dawidn 

If you don't have an account with them then they shouldn't be able to bill you and we'll only charge you for your home phone service for as long as we're providing it, meaning we won't charge you for it again until we've transferred it back.

I can't answer your question regarding who's paying the bill at the other end I'm afraid

[#10]

Thank you for clarifying however I am still worried about this because although I never created an account with them, somehow they still got my landline and when I called them about it indeed my number appears on one of their systems. Yet they could not help me because they don't operate with individuals but only with companies, partners and resellers. So I guess that some partner/reseller got some commission for getting my landline into their system.

[#11]

Let me see what I can find out and do when Openreach come back to me next week

[#12]

---

@dawidn wrote: and please refund the money you are taking without my authorization.

---

While @Gandalf says they have / will send you a cheque, I would have expected the amount to have been refunded in the way that it was taken.

If I was in your shoes, I would certainly be in contact with the bank that holds the account. Refunding money by cheque is fine, as long as you have the time to cash it and have not gone overdrawn, lost interest etc.

If the money was taken by direct debit, read the direct debit mandate - i.e especially the part regarding refunding money taken in error. Contact your bank and they will refund the money direct and then it is up to your bank to get the money back off PN. Not for you to do the running around.

In the meantime...good luck. Sounds like a shambles.

[#13]

Appreciate what you've said but as we've already sent the cheque and assuming they've received it and cashed it being so long ago a indemnity claim wouldn't really be valid.

This also doesn't seem to be the main issue, it's getting the line and number back that is

[#14]

Yes, I can confirm I received the cheque couple of days ago, thank you.

[#15]

Morning @dawidn Unfortunately it doesn't look like Openreach can do anything about this so I've discussed this with a colleague and we've placed the order again to transfer your service back to us. It may be worth calling the provider again to make them aware they've got the wrong number on their systems. Apologies for the hassle this causes.