Well...

[#1]

Can I ask what the problem is?

Scrap that, I just read your post here: Be carefull if you pay line rental in advance and take a new contract

Oh dear, you have had a rough time. Don't you just hate it when that happens?!

I've only ever experienced this kind of thing once with a Direct Debit and I got onto my bank right away and they paid me the money back instantly. Did you try that? It's up to the bank to chase the company for a refund.

I'm not taking sides as clearly I don't know the full story but it does look like the forum gaffers took charge of your situation an offered a remedy. Understandably this didn't go to plan as promised but at least you got a reply which is more than some companies would offer.

Hopefully things will sort themselves out eventually, these things very often do.

[#2]

I was told by a senior manager that the refunds promised, because they had not put my phone contract refunds or my prepaid line rental into the DD, had not been refunded at all. But they had. Before that I had claimed the DD back through my bank. The refunds had been made and so I was left re-instating my DD to pay what they were owed. But that just takes up more time firstly claiming the rejection of the DD (absolutely NO problems with this with my bank) and re-instating the DD, Then one has to deal with Pnet telling you they will curtail your access. Even got one of those yesterday. All because in December and January Pnet made a mess and made it worse with the incidents related above. And I did absolutely nothing wrong. But have had to spend hours trying to get Pnet to put it right.

Is it sorted? Well I don't know, will tell you better when I see another round of billing.

Just trying to warn people that when Pnet make a mess you can look forward to lies, managers not reading what is happening before shooting from the hip and hours of listening to loud repetitive music on the phones waiting to get through.

It is interesting that Pnet staff will agree for someone to ring you back. When they do I get put through security, I have no idea who they are could be scammers, but willing to risk it because the alternative is to have to ring them and wait on the phone with that music.

When staff are to ring one back, why don't they give us a password that the staff will use to identify themselves.

I doubt it because it would mean they have to be organised and more importantly care about their customers (and see the thread running now about who called me). Pnet no longer care one tiny jot about their customers the concern is only for ££££ and how to achieve as much as possible with minimum effort and only do things for customers under great duress and where there is a real threat the customer can walk away. They have been in those dark places before and I left, they got into good places and I came back, but I can't see they will ever want (better be allowed by BT) to do anything other than operate in this way. Roll on the end of my contract day, but meanwhile I will try and fill people in to be aware of the Mickey Mouse organisation that is called Pnet.

But your family have seen some of this too.

[#3]

Crikey! Rather you than me fella!

Direct Debits work well for the majority of the time but as you've discovered they can also be a complete nightmare when they go wrong. No doubt time will be the telling factor and whether they've got it right when you see your next bill, I would certainly hope so! If not then I would think you have a case for early exit from your contract under the specified government legislation. It's a complicated read but this might help:

Guidance on the unfair terms provisions in the Consumer Rights Act 2015

I haven't read the above document in full so this may/may not be helpful. I mentioned it solely because I heard this mentioned a while back on TV and the act was designed to also protect consumers from unfair contracts and exit penalties when things go wrong. It's possible you might need to take further guidance, i.e. from Citizens Advice

Hopefully it won't get to this stage but it's always worth preparing yourself in advance.

Best of lucky anyway! 

[#4]

Well they have not managed to take the DD for this month yet, so at present I have £20 of Pnet money until they take that. One of the issues is that they can only issue refunds against paid invoices and because my old invoices were small (Advanced Line Rental already paid) there was not enough in one to refund, so that had to refund over the last 3 months of payment, which as I have said did not arrive when the wrong DD did, and I was told by a manager they had not been done, but they had.

What they will manage to do next month, I don't think they know yet, but they probably won't know even when they have done it. You could not make stuff up like this, one wonders why they are still in business. But as scammers know it is easy to find marks and take money from them.

Thanks for the link, and I have a hot line to Citizens Advice my wife works for them as an advisor!