Am I being ripped off...???

[#1]

So even more important for the OP to decide what features are needed from their B/B package and check they are still getting the best deal.
With a product that changes over time - one can't assume that what one started with is still the best to stick with.

[#2]

The problem with legacy products and the new offerings is deciding if the contents of the new package meet your requirements.  Often the new package will have excluded some features that your legacy package may provide and may be of value to you.  I have in mind things like web hosting which Plusnet now intend to charge for ( when they can make up their mind what to do).  That said, the difference between £39.99 and £14.99 is huge and if there is no real difference between the packages, I would say yes, you have been ripped off.

[#3]

Details for the legacy products here:
http://usergroup.plus.net/prod_home.php
was it the Top Premier product - as this is shown as 39.99

[#4]

I buy items daily for my company and on the purchase order is the price for the item as stored on our database.
If the actual price from the supplier has gone down some will tell me of the revised price others won't. That's the nature of business.
I therefore call all suppliers who don't inform me and get an updated price.
No disrespect to the OP but if I don't get a new price regularly most suppliers will be more than happy to let me pay the higher one.
No I don't think you were ripped off as Plusnet are happy for you to change your product unlike the ISP I referred to in reply 12.

[#5]

I too have been a customer of PlusNet for many years.
Regarding the comments of Adiewoo, PlusNet claims to be "honest" in its customer pricing, how is this honest to be overcharging by £24 per month and what price customer loyalty.
See also my comments on "deteriorating service"
Consumer power, is extremely influential and still one we do not know how to harness, maybe as was suggested in the recent Reith lectures we need to become more community orientated.
G

[#6]

The current lower priced products are not the same as what the OP has. PN has no knowledge that the OP have not seen the latest products on offer and has decided that they do not meet his requirements. What do you expect PN to do? The OP probably have opted out of receiving notification on new products.

[#7]

I am curious about all the comments on overcharging. To  my knowledge (excluding billing errors) people are being charged and paying for the product they signed up for. Yes products change over time and you may select to change your product, but in my opinion if you are paying the amount you agreed to pay for the product you signed up for then that is business. As customers of Plusnet we can choose to take up one of the new products, but it is our choice. Personally, although cheaper, I do not like the new products. One concession Plusnet as made is to allow existing customers to keep their additions such as webspace which is not available to new customers. If they want to be hard nosed then when you changed product, you would also loose access to all features that are not part of the new product.

[#8]

I asked if he had deselect emails from PN in my post #4 - and the OP has not replied.
As Itsme says "PN has no knowledge that the OP have not seen the latest products"  so how can they possibly know he is not satisfied if he doesn't read and respond to marketing emails.

[#9]

Quote from: joneshome

Regarding the comments of Adiewoo, PlusNet claims to be "honest" in its customer pricing, how is this honest to be overcharging by £24 per month and what price customer loyalty.

The customer is not been over charged, as has been said elsewhere he is paying what he signed up for.
I think the mobile phone analogy is best if you sign up for a contract at 35 a month and later on the phone company brings out a similar package for 25 a month would you expect the phone company to move you automatically?
I just can't see how a customer paying what they signed up for can complain if they don't check every now and again what the latest packages are?

[#10]

Hi - thank you for the feedback - I acknowledge that that is a big difference in price.
As many of you have said we don't move customers between products automatically, but we do give our new products and price points a lot of coverage across our websites (not just our sales pages), and all our new pricing is available to existing customers without penalty or break in service. Also, by inviting our existing customers to refer new customers, we make no secret of the best deals available. Its absolutely in our interest that all our customers feel they are getting what they want for a fair price.
Anthony

[#11]

Has anyone ever heard of a gas or electricity company that automatically moves people to newly introduced tariffs if they are cheaper? BB is a similar product and across the market most ISPs operate in a similar fashion.

[#12]

I remember Cellnet did that with their mobile phone packages, it decided each month which was the best package for your usage that month and charged you accordingly.
Don't think it lasted that long and no other company I know of has done it since.

[#13]

Anyone remember O2 Genie?
I got moved over to their "new" pricing, which happened to cost me an extra £30 a month without notification.

[#14]

But not everyone would want to be moved automatically to a new product that was cheaper and had less features or lower spec. and as I understand it the legacy product we think the OP was on is higher spec.

[#15]

I suppose that, if Plusnet had wanted to be really helpful towards their long-time customers, they cold have considered lowering the prices of the legacy products a little bit whenever BT reduce the wholesale prices, rather than only passing those savings on to customers on current products. (A little bit like utility companies do - if the price of gas goes up, the amount you pay goes up, and vice-versa.) Having said that, I expect Plusnet would say that the amount of development time necessary to do such a thing wouldn't be commercially viable... and, I expect, customers on older plans such as Premier probably subsidise newer customers on cheaper plans to some extent. It would be a nice gesture though - in the six years I've spent on PN's forums I've seen quite a lot of these I'm-on-an-old-package-and-paying-too much complaints.