PlusNet - moving fee within 12mths

civicwalker

On 4th July 2005 I migrated to PlusNet without charge on condition that “If you cancel your service before the end of the 12-month minimum period, a moving fee of £14.99 (inc. VAT) will apply" and "This Agreement can be ended by you giving one month's notice to us."

As I want to migrate to TalkTalk, I suggested that if I submitted one month’s notice of ending my agreement on 19th June 2006, as the effective date of cancellation [19th July 2006] does not fall within the 12month minimum period [4th July 2006] the £14.99 moving fee should not therefore be due. I requested my MAC key to be issued on 4th July 2006 in order that I could arrange transfer to another ISP before my agreement with PlusNet expired on 19th July 2006.

However PlusNet reply "You are raising a cancellation request within the first year, so therefore you will be subject to a 14.99 fee should you wish your MAC to be generated. In order to avoid the £14.99 charge, you would need to give us your 30 days notice no earlier than the 05/07/06."

Is it me . . . . ? . . . . . but, PlusNet appear to be incorrectly attempting to enforce is a 13-month tie in (12 months + 1 month’s notice) rather then the 12-month tie in specified in the T&Cs.

Any advice what I can do or do I simpy put up and shut up, give 30 days notice with immediate effect and run?

computerwoman

:mad: I too want to leave force9 plusnet, and guess what they say, I have to pay the £47.00 cancellation fee I signed up on 30th june 2005 so if I go before then I pay £47.00 if I wait and go after this date (1 month contract) they will deduct £9.40 off this which makes it £37.60 to leave, plus the 28 days notice thing, I.m going to have to go soon as they are watching my 4pm-midnight usage, it sucks, I've never had any trouble with this before now, so it's a headache, I've only been watching big brother, so cant understand what's going on, I'm wondering if someone else is using my network, that I don't know about, spooky, let me know what happens as I'm off force9 they can keep it, T

JohalaReewi

civicwalker: There was a recent post about this here...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=202428

Basically, buried in the small print there is a clause which says if you migrate in and then migrate out within a 12 month period, you have to pay a cancellation fee of £14.99. However, you would appear to be giving them 30 days notice which will expire after the 12 months whereas plusnet claim you are raising the request within the 12 months. Bit of a grey area but Plusnet are very keen to get as much as they can from departing customers. I would wait until 5 July, then request a MAC code ASAP. See the other thread for more info.

computerwoman: Sounds like you signed up with the 'free' connection offer. Unfortunately, it isn't really free but is deferred (ie. you pay it when you leave). If you leave in the first year you have to pay it all (£47) but after a year, it starts to decrease so if you wait until your year is up then leave, it will reduce by 20%. It also sounds like you signed up to the Broadband plus product (£14.99 a month) which although 'unlimited', does have an acceptable use policy and if you read the T&Cs, you will find that the Plus account is not suitable for p2p, streaming video, large downloads etc. These tend to use lots of bandwidth so are throttled during peak periods which means the service sucks if this is what you want to do. Make sure you migrate out of Plusnet with a MAC code. You can usually use this to migrate into another ISP for free otherwise, you will probably get hit for another £47 connection fee from your new ISP.

civicwalker

Thanks JohalaReewi.

As it will cost me £14.99 migration + £14.99 in respect of the 30 days notice, I’ve decided to cancel immediately. Otherwise I would pay £14.99 for the period 4th June to 4th July and then £14.99 for the 30 days notice. I'm therefore depriving PlusNet of fees between today & 4th June. Big victory? . . . . . . .
If they hadn't been so awkward I would have considered rejoining them at some point in the future but now it's PlusWHO?

computerwoman

JohalaReewi, thanks for that, I'm actually on £21.99 per month they re-called it broadband premium option 1 , but thanks anyway as soon as I can I'm going. T

JohalaReewi

That is bad. For £21.99 you would expect things to work for video streaming because you are paying extra over the basic account. If they can't provide what you need then changing ISP is the only option. Might not be worth hanging on until July because you will spend £21.99 to save £9.