I recently complained to Plusnet that after I had to leave another ADSL2+ supplier (www.vivaciti.net) that I had a disagreement with at short notice and moving on to a 1 month contract with Plusnet and planning at the time to try and get on to the Plusnet FTTP trial (which never happened as my mother became serious unwell shortly afterwards and died at the end of the following year) I had instead been over paying at a very expensive £33 per month for broadband plus phone line compared to £22 a month routinely offered to new customers on a 12 or 18 month contract or more recently £18 per month.
Plusnet rejected my suggestion that if they compensated me with the circa £520 they had overcharged me over the last 4 years for an ADSL2_+ broadband service with no phone calls included that I had also scarcely used (due to being based at my mother's house the vast majority of the time) I would then be prepared to sign an 18 month contract with them at £18 per month. Instead they offered me a £50 token gesture of goodwill. I suggested this was inadequate and that at least £100 was in order, which their complaints investigator managed to get authorisation for from his supervisor. But I was told the £100 could only be paid to me by cheque even though I indicated repeatedly that I preferred BACS transfer or a credit card refund.
I now have this cheque that still hasn't been paid in to my bank account (not least because my nearest bank is a 14 mile return trip away and NatWest branches were until recently closing at 1pm) but I have since discovered that under Regulation 34 (7) of The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 "The trader must make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as the consumer used for the initial transaction, unless the consumer has expressly agreed otherwise." See https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5673664/do-i-have-to-accept-a-refund-by-cheque-if-i-... for more information on this point.
Since I paid Plusnet throughout my time with them as a customer by first direct debit and more recently by Mastercard credit card can Plusnet please explain to me why they insist on breaching Regulation 34(7) of the The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 " by issuing a cheque and will not either pay the £100 in to my bank account or pay it back as a credit on to the credit card that I have been paying my Plusnet bills wth?
I am firmly of the opinion that large cynical corporates issue refunds and goodwill gestures only as cheques because despite the fact that cheques are a more expensive actual payment mechanism (than an electronic money transfer) they know that most private individuals are no longer used to dealing with cheques or paying them in and as a result many of them get lost or moulder in the back of people's wallets until they time out at 6 months old and Plusnet or their owners BT Group then trouser the refund or goodwill gesture that should have reached the customer.
In view of the above can Plusnet please tell me why they cannot comply with the current law by cancelling this unwanted cheque for £100 and instead crediting the £100 involved to my bank account or putting it back as a refund payment on to my credit card.
By the way this refund cheque is linked to the user account [Removed] rather than this one ([Removed]l).
Note also that this same issue was being discussed on the Which website back in 2013 at https://conversation.which.co.uk/home-energy/why-am-i-refunded-by-cheque/ but despite that large corporates like BT Group (who also have some of the most frightening and penal terms for terminating contracts early on the broadband products of BT Retail) are still at it trying to only pay money back to customers by cheque.................
Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Personal information removed from a public forum (to an area that staff can see).
