Where's my refund?

[#1]

I am sorry for the delay in you receiving your refund @briandow50, we are doing what we can to get this back to you.

@buster666, I am glad to hear your cheque arrived.

[#2]

I still have not received my refund of £206.88 advance payment for line rental paid on 13/8/18. Given that I cancelled the contract on 17/8/18 within the cooling off period I find it very disturbing that every time I ring PN or use online chat to ask where my refund is I am fobbed off with promises that a cheque will be in the post. What a disgraceful abuse of customers money. Given the claims PN make about customer service it is very odd that the only thing the online chat and telephone advisors are allowed to do is offer me another month of waiting. I have lost count of the hours of my own time that have gone into this. I am heartily sick of being left in the queue holding the phone for up to an hour with no response. The online chat is also an ineffective route to resolving the problem. Today I was told yet again by the online chat advisor that they would put in a further request to billing - I am losing hope of ever getting my money back. I don’t blame the individual advisors - I can only conclude that the company policy is to hold onto customer refunds for as long as possible. But is this legal? I thought the whole point of the cooling off period was to allow the customer to cancel the contract with no penalty - but I have been penalised by losing £208.88. 

[#3]

Signed up for plusnet 8/10/2018, cancelled subscription 09/10/2018. Email from plusnet 09/10/2018 confirmed cancellation of order and refund of initial payment £81.98. So far no refund received. Contact via 'phone (20 mins or more typical) and online discussion with various advisors elicited indication of 10, 15, 20, or 'maybe more' days delays in actioning refunds and their inability to influence the refund process. Suggested I look for other avenues to activate refund.

[#4]

There seem to be quite a few of us experiencing the same delaying tactics. I have never known of another company to hold on to a customers money after a service has been cancelled within the cooling off period. I’ve reported this to Ofcom - they do not deal with individual cases but you can go online and place on record what has happened in your case. I hope we will both receive our refunds soon.

[#5]

Hi everyone,

I'm really sorry that you are having trouble with your refunds. I can assure you that we are doing our best to process these as quickly and efficiently as possible.

@Fonebone72 Could you provide us with the username for the account so that we can chase this for you?

@Helen94 I can confirm that the request for your refund has been resubmitted and we should hopefully have a resolution soon.

Once again, please accept my apologies for the continued delay and any inconvenience caused. We will continue to monitor this for you and we thank you for your patience.

[#6]

Thank you for responding. I made the original payment over the phone in a matter of seconds - yet four months later PN is still making vague promises about putting a cheque in the post. If Plusnet are serious about refunding me soon there is a very simple and speedy solution - electronic transfer. All the evidence indicates that this delay is not due to incompetence in the accounts dept.

[#7]

It seems that there was an issue in closing the account which was preventing the refund being issued. The account has now been closed (as of yesterday) and a final invoice will be generated within the next 20 days, once created, your refund will be issued

The 20 days are up and no sign of a new invoice being generated which will trigger my refund which was originally promised in 22 August 2018 (I am writing the year here as it looks like it will be 2019 before I ever get it)

Is anyone able to give me an update?

Helen94, if you paid by credit card your credit card company will be able to reverse the payment under the section 75 regs, if you dont think you will ever get your money.

[#8]

Thanks Briandow50. I have now contacted my credit card company and they are sending me the forms to make a claim. It’s just so wrong that PN puts us in this situation as it means more work for me producing the evidence by printing out all the emails and screen chats with PN. I have been too optimistic all along believing PN every time they promised a cheque will be in the post. Wish I had gone straight to my CC provider. I don’t know whether PN provides good internet and telephone services but from my experience they do not prioritise customer services and I would definitely never advise anyone to pay in advance for their services. 

[#9]

Hello @Helen94,

I am very sorry you have had to resort to getting your credit card company involved, please do let us know if you are going ahead with this so we can cancel any cheque processing to allow this to go ahead.

[#10]

Hello Maddy, that’s a bit like adding insult to injury; asking me not to inconvenience PN to process a cheque unnecessarily. When the only circumstance in which it would be unnecessary would be PN total failure to issue it in the first place (and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place too). I haven’t even received a form to complete from my CC company yet - so PN still has an opportunity to win the race to return my money. So do encourage the processor of cheques to process my cheque. Thank you.

[#11]

I have now been waiting 4 MONTHS for my refund, yes  4 MONTHS!

Instead of apologies and 'thank you for your patience' how about just sending me a cheque, or a postal order, or notes and coins taped to the back of a  Xmas card, or a gift voucher, or stamps to the value of...., or wait for it...  a bank transfer or a credit back to my credit card! Anything so I can forget about the abysmal customer service Plusnet seem to deliver, and get on with life dealing with companies who know what customer service means.(See Below)

I know you have a cheque book somewhere, do I need to send you a pen? I had to sign 200 cheques in a single afternoon when our systems went down but we needed to meet our financial obligations to our customers (customer service - the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service.)

And yes I did try to phone today but gave up after 3 attempts and online help was unavailable all 3 times. Mind you that would probably just been passed to the Billing Team and the usual ticket updated again with no progress made. 

[#12]

briandow50 so sorry to hear your's and Helen94's tales of woe concerning getting a refund from PN.  I too am waiting for a refund for £197.88 but still no joy despite promises, lies, miscommunication and much more.  The latest conversation on the phone today was, "You've got to send us copies of your bank statements to prove that we haven't sent you a refund already"!  Can you believe it??!!  They've already stolen my money and this seems to be systematic fraud judging by the number of people on here waiting forever for refunds that never come.

I have found out that OFCOM fined PN £800,000 back in 2015 for issuing duplicate invoices and not refunding those customers affected. At that time they blamed it on their new billing system.  They told OFCOM they only managed to trace half the customers affected and the other half had their refunds given to charity by PN because, apparently the couldn't be traced!!  What Codswallop!!  A communications company that clearly have no idea about customer service, correct and lawful  accounting procedures and, indeed, communications.

I think it's high time we told OFCOM (and any other official/legal organisation who may be interested)  that PN are still up to their old tricks and still blaming it on the new billing system.  I wish you good luck and I hope it turns out well for you but I know what I'm going to do if my money  is not in my possession in the next 5 working days.

[#13]

@briandow50 Sorry to hear this. I've sent a chaser e-mail off to the relevant team and we'll get you a update as soon as possible

@av54bnjj Similar to the above I've e-mailed the relevant team. Apologies for any inconvenience caused

[#14]

I  am sorry to hear you are in the same boat av54bnjj. I reported my case to Ofcom already. I think all the signs are that Plusnet isn’t remotely bothered that they are stealing customers money - think of how much interest they will be making on it. I am now waiting for my credit card company to deal with this. The sums of money involved are not insignificant and could leave some customers in dire straits unable to pay their rent or bills. So I’m not going to let this go.

[#15]

Update - It’s 2019 and I am still waiting for my money to be refunded.