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when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

angusthebull77
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Registered: ‎13-07-2021

when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

i entered into a 2 year fixed contract for line rental and broadband in June 2020, email received from Plusnet clearly states the following:

Your new fixed price contract

Great news, you're on a fixed price contract! That means the cost of your broadband and line rental won't go up while you're in contract. We'll send you an end of contract reminder, and offer an account review too, to make sure you're still on the right package for you.

 

This will take effect from 12/6/2020.

 

Paid £197.88 upfront at the time for 1st year of line rental, now have to pay £239.88 for year 2 (£19.99 x 12) because Plusnet no longer offer line rental saver , i have tried to argue the case with the complaints department ref:215869111 but they wont listen, why should i be penalised because LRS saver has been withdrawn , that's not my fault is it ?, so after a couple of days of email exchanges Plusnet are now forcing me into deadlock because they wont keep their side of the contract , can anyone help ?

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Gandalf
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Thanks for your post @angusthebull77 and welcome to our Community Forums.

I'm sorry to see you're having issues with your fixed price contract. Line rental is staying at £19.99 for the duration and not going up to the current price of £21.22 until the term comes to an end.

I appreciate you had paid line rental saver previously though, but that would've been a decision you've made to pay your line rental up front to us to save a bit of money. 

Having said that, while I can't guarantee this will change the answer we've given, let me discuss this with your case handler once they're in the office and we'll come back to you. 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
keithm
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

I have exactly the same problem having signed up for a 2 yr deal in August 2020. I paid my £197.88 LRS and now I have to pay monthly £19.99. The reason I had a 2yr contract was because my previous contract was 18 months for BB and the LRS is a 12 month contract. After 12 months I asked Plusnet to extend my BB contract by 6 months so that it was in line with the  LRS payment and they refused so I decided to leave and they gave me a cancellation fee of £17.51 for the remaining 6 months of the contract. I could easily recoup this with another ISP offering a cheaper deal. However, Plusnet called me and offered to cancel the 18 month contract and start a new one over 2yrs so that the LRS payment was synced. Now after 12 months I am faced with a 21% line rental increase. My contract was split so that I had a fixed price for BB and fixed price for line rental at £19.99. Also included in the contract was the option to pay for line rental 12 months in advance. This has now been removed so in my opinion this is not the contract I signed up for. I have asked what will be the cancellation costs for the remaining 12 months and they quoted £127.38. How can that be when the last time I threatened to leave they were going to charge me £17.51 for the remaining 6 months. I think these guys just make it up as they go along. Why is it always the provider who moves the goal posts on 'FIXED'  contracts? Can't wait to leave, shame really as the BB has been good.

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BD
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Thanks a lot for reaching out @keithm and I'm sorry to hear you're looking to leave the service you have with us.
I can confirm that the line rental saver option that we stopped offering earlier this year wasn't part of your contract and instead was a separate offer that customers could choose to take whether in or out of contract with us. I'm sorry to hear this offer coming to an end has resulting in your line rental charge appearing on the monthly invoices and I'm afraid there's no other options for paying the line rental saver other than the current inclusion of this on your monthly bill.

Please note that the fixed price contract you're in has excluded you from the recent price increase we had earlier this month and freezing your prices at the same amount they were at the time the contract was taken. (This being £19.99 for line rental as since then the standard pricing for this has gone up twice.)
I beleive the reason your current early termination fee's are as high as they are is due to the last time you questioned these there were from the sounds of it 6 or less months left on the contract with your line rental having been paid upfront until after the end of the contract.

The £127.38 early termination fee's you've been advised will be for double the contract length of the previous time you asked but also include line rental charges that are calculated in the early termination fee's given there's no line rental available.

I hope this helps in explaining the reason for the higher than previously early termination fee's you've been advised of.



 

keithm
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Thanks for the reply. My first contract was 18 months and I paid LRS for 12 months. When I had 6 months left on my contract I asked for the BB contract to be extended by 6 months and this was refused so I did not pay a 2nd LRS and having obtained the cancellation costs of £17.51 for the remaining 6 months I decided to leave until your guy convinced me to stay on a new 2 yr contract therefore paying LRS for those 2 years which I now cannot do. I still don't understand the high cancellation costs compared with the previous potential cancellation unless it was because of only 6 months remaining whereby I have 12 months remaining on this one so me thinks twice the period twice the cost ie 2 x £17.51 = £35.02. The monthly BB costs were the same on both contracts. Anyway Plusnet should honour existing customers who are tied in contract but instead they remove benefits which swayed us sign up in the first place. I think the last guy summed it up quite well with his title 'When is a ..........'  

angusthebull77
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

hi keithm, yes you hit the same problem as me, i don't have a problem with PlusNet removing the option of LSR, however some customers like me and you who thought they were in a fixed term contract should of had the option in the final year of say a 18month / 2 year fix to renew again at the agreed price, any new contracts taken out by NEW customers when LSR was no longer an option would obviously move on to monthly line rental, in the hurry to remove the perk of LSR loyal customers were never considered.

to be fair to PlusNet the staff member who picked up on my post (not the one who answered yours) went back to the staff who were investigating my complaint and we agreed on the way forward whereby i moved from broadband to fibre and took out a brand new 18month contract

 

hope that info helps you

angusthebull77
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Gandalf is the guy who needs to pick this up on your behalf, cant fault the resolution when he got involved

keithm
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Thanks for your support. I have given up now and will wait for the opportunity to leave Plusnet when it is at a sensible cost. I don't have a problem with their BB, just the way they manage their customers. I had problems around 5 years ago with them and vowed to never join them again, and here we are back with relationship problems again. This definitely will never happen again and that is final. Their last response from their 'support team' was that 'they have the right to withdraw products and services from sale'. What is the point of a contract if they have the right to change whatever they deem necessary. What right does the customer have to withdraw something he agreed to at the start of the contract?

Gandalf
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Thanks for getting back to us @keithm

I'm sorry to see you're having problems with this too. I've said this above, but paying line rental saver would've been your decision to pay your line rental up front to save a bit of money. The actual cost of line rental hasn't changed for the duration of your fixed price contract, although I appreciate you hadn't paid the monthly cost yet. 

Having said that, I'd discussed this with a colleague from our complaints team previously, so I've added a reply onto your support ticket Here with a potential resolution, which I hope helps.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
keithm
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Just to let all know that I have reached an amicable agreement with Plusnet thanks to Anoush and will see out my contract. Congrats to Plusnet for their concern and effort.

angusthebull77
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Hi Keithm, that's good to hear, same for me i will see out my new 18 month contract that i agreed on and after that will probably move elsewhere

ask66
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

I'm in a similar position - wanted to keep Line Rental and BB in sync while still getting good value, and was advised that the best way of achieving this was to take a 2 year BB contract rather than 18 months.  LRS runs out on 26/8/21 and I would normally be thinking of renewing it now, but obviously it's no longer available.  BB has approximately another year to run.

I had an email suggesting I phone to discuss this, but thought I would try messaging @Gandalf first as he seems to be able to make things happen!  Anyway I had replies from @adam945 and @Gandalf which both basically said there's nothing we can do about it, you'll have to pay the full line rental of £19.99/mth for the remaining year.

So today I phoned, expecting to have to argue the point, but was instantly offered a reduced line rental of £17.49/mth (the same as the old LRS rate) until the end of the contract.  While that is great and I am happy, it's very irritating that you get a different result depending on who you happen to speak to, and the channel of communication used.  It's a complete waste of time for customers and staff.  It also discriminates against customers who are good at communicating in writing but not comfortable speaking on the phone.

It's still irritating to see new customers offered better terms than loyal customers (as a new customer I'd have got the same rate plus £55 cashback), but this applies across all phone/BB suppliers and many other sectors.  I wonder if many people actually switch their BB supplier every year or two to keep getting these incentives?

 

keithm
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Re: when is a 2 year fixed contract not honoured by Plusnet ?

Exactly what they offered to me. I think they got themselves into a fix because a lot of customers based their BB costs on the benefits LRS offered and when that is taken away mid-contract you feel cheated. Anyway Plusnet redeemed themselves thankfully.