Plus.Net Payment Probs

aceades

I have been with Plus for some time and there company has gone through a lot of changes but currently they have locked onto a fad of retaining my payment details and automating my payments without my permission.

This has happened before and i have asked it to be stopped , it has gone away for a bit but now its back and they say its policy.

I dont use dierct debit for fear of bank charges, so i choose to control my own payments and pay my bills by my chosen card at my chosen time - this is the best way for me to control my finances.

so after getting paid this month i went onto plus.net and spent 10 minutes looking for the payemnt section that i can normal see, it shows the amount outstanding and i can then pay by card, after thinking i had gone a bit mad i opened a helpdesk ticket to say i wanted to pay but coudn't find the page, the response was we have already taken the payemnt from the detaisl we have on file , i worte back explaining this rep[eated problema nd how they can check my history and see how many times i had complained about this before, they wrote back and said it was policy and that i had to phone every time and have my details taken off after paying.

It really annoys me as i might as well have left the direct debit on there if tehy are going to just hold my crad details and charge it without permission, it can cause issues as i dont always use the same card i have differenet cards and sometimes its not even paid for on my card , i used a familiy members once and plus net debit from them again the following month , this was a really bad thing to happen and really cause problems but they didn;t seem bothered at all...

as you can read im quite anygered by this, it just seems immoral for them to think its ok to just capture my payment details every time, its like a shopkeeper putting his hand in your pocket and taking payment without you deciding if you want to pay and what with , i wouldnt take that so i dont think i should take this

do people agree this is out of order ?

any advise to try and get round this, the only thing i have said is that i will be keeping my eye out for other ISP deals and will consider sending any future payments by cheque just to avoid this automatic payment regime i cant see to get away from .

Thanks for listening to my rant :T

normanmark

In all honesty you're better off paying by Direct Debit, you have more payment protection with this method. If Plusnet are going to take out more money than whats on the latest bill they have to notify you 10 days before they take the money out. If they do take more money out, all you need to do is pop into your bank with the latest bill & your bank will refund you on the spot, the difference.

As for retaining the card details, its not a bizarre practice, nor do i think it's out of order. Consider that they are looking at that you have to make say at a minimum 12 payments (12 month contract) with whatever payment method you choose, they just retain those for quick payment i'm presuming.

Quentin

They also do this to madasafish customers (their sister company), see the maaf thread for similar complaints.

Until you can cancel and move on to a better (and more efficient) ISP, why not reinstate the direct debit. Then when they make "mistakes" as norman says you can get your bank involved to sort it out.

And solve the card number problem, lose all the ones you have given them the number for.

You will be issued new ones , and the numbers they have stored will be useless to them.

aceades

Hi, thanks for the response

i have to say i am totally against direct debit , computer controlled payments that can mess up and take things on the wrong day, these problems can take for ever to be resolved and the knock on issues can be endless.

I would rather just pay, when i want from where i want, direct debit has potentional to save you 5 minutes but also to drop you in the the financial poo.


And as for banks refuding you on the spot , who do you bank with ????? Banks are a nightmare to talk to, they can never help with anything usefell, never know whats going on, i fidn that pretty rediculous really that you can say that, they are only open (outside the working week) for a couple of hours first thing ( and that isnt even my local bank i have to travel 15 miles to egt teher before 12 on a saturday) so i littelry have no chance of getting in teher to be disaponted face to face and the phone lines arnt worth calling unless you wish to be more annoyed than when you first called and have an extra couple of points to put into the subsequesnt letter to head office

1 thing worth noting though , i only had the bill on the same day , i handn't actually seen it as it had been sent to my home address and i was at work, but as you said i should get a bit more notice.

i am only on a month by month contract so there are no contracted payments ( i would understand if that was the case )
What ever reason they are retaining the details its wrong, without letting me know and even after i have requested them to desist from the practice.

My point was , i dont want automatic payment and that they should not be entitled to take money form my without my permission, its not about taking more money out its about taking payment from an account that i haddn't decided i wanted to be used for payment, for all they know there may not have been andy money in it and the bank would charge me £35 (which i would love to see you just pop into the bank and get back) this would then offset my bank balance to mess up all susequent payments incurring more charges , it can be a total nightmare hence why i prefer to keep track of my money , it works fine except when comanies like this take liberties - hope this explains the problem a bit better

aceades

I think maybne the only way is to send them acheque every month, they can fight with banks then ,m if tehy want to try and retain it and use it to take money off me every month.

I think its terrible that they can act like this , i am the customer they should not be doing the opposite to whgat i want especially regarding payment.

If i was being paid for a service i would not consider swiping the money from my customers pocket and if i did i would expect them to be pretty disgusted.

Quentin

aceades wrote: »

And as for banks refuding you on the spot , who do you bank with ?????

When you take out a direct debit you are covered by the d.d. guarantee. The banks do refund your account quickly, though maybe not with cash "on the spot"! But in my experience they do it very quickly, saying that if there are any arguments from the merchant as a result, then they will come back to me later.

But if they will accept monthly cheques, then your problem is solved - though do make sure the card numbers they are retaining of yours are made useless to them.

aceades

yeah it seems like its the only way i can keep control of payments, the next problem will be when my bank withdraws my cheque book as many are at the moment.

Quentin

Yes - there was a problem when they stopped having the man walking in front of cars with a flag as well.

normanmark

aceades wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the response

i have to say i am totally against direct debit , computer controlled payments that can mess up and take things on the wrong day, these problems can take for ever to be resolved and the knock on issues can be endless.

I would rather just pay, when i want from where i want, direct debit has potentional to save you 5 minutes but also to drop you in the the financial poo.


And as for banks refuding you on the spot , who do you bank with ????? Banks are a nightmare to talk to, they can never help with anything usefell, never know whats going on, i fidn that pretty rediculous really that you can say that, they are only open (outside the working week) for a couple of hours first thing ( and that isnt even my local bank i have to travel 15 miles to egt teher before 12 on a saturday) so i littelry have no chance of getting in teher to be disaponted face to face and the phone lines arnt worth calling unless you wish to be more annoyed than when you first called and have an extra couple of points to put into the subsequesnt letter to head office

1 thing worth noting though , i only had the bill on the same day , i handn't actually seen it as it had been sent to my home address and i was at work, but as you said i should get a bit more notice.

i am only on a month by month contract so there are no contracted payments ( i would understand if that was the case )
What ever reason they are retaining the details its wrong, without letting me know and even after i have requested them to desist from the practice.

My point was , i dont want automatic payment and that they should not be entitled to take money form my without my permission, its not about taking more money out its about taking payment from an account that i haddn't decided i wanted to be used for payment, for all they know there may not have been andy money in it and the bank would charge me £35 (which i would love to see you just pop into the bank and get back) this would then offset my bank balance to mess up all susequent payments incurring more charges , it can be a total nightmare hence why i prefer to keep track of my money , it works fine except when comanies like this take liberties - hope this explains the problem a bit better

I think you just need to learn how to manage your finances a little better.

aceades

Old post but what do you mean ? cant see your point im talking about their methods which are totally unfounded, and the ignorance of my repeated complaints. they seem to go on the assumption everyone is !!!!!! and cant maange payments themselves so they have to 'help'; a bit like mirrosoft windows when it really annoys you by doing something automatically that takes about 2 days to correct.

I have a firm control on my finances as i dont let computers decide who and when i pay, and if you just mean have some more money in my account so i dont have to worry, then I'm open to donations.

I know what goes in and out of my account to the penny, that is until some company like this decides to mess things up without my authority.

Anyway i have left them now, and they did it again at the end, i paid my final bill to close my account, the day after there was another charge on my card, i phoned and they realised their mistake, confirmed the payment would be credited back and my details taken off the system AGAIN, i really dont know why they think they can get away with it, maybe its the people that are not in control of their finances they should try this on as maybe they wouldn't notice and not claim it back:D. Go check your bank NormanMark, if companies like this are being allowed to manage your payments i would be worried.