Plusnet theiving Bandits

chrissy21_2

Apologies up front for the title but I just needed to grab everyone's attention.

I connected my Mother connected to the internet recently having for the past few month used a bluetooth dongle and at the grand age of 73 bought her a laptop. More recently through these pages people recommended plusnet it seemed like a great low cost option for someone who uses it for emails only once or twice a day.

She is 74 year old, partially sighted and tragically (sunddenly) lost my father to cancer in December 2010. We figured it would be a good way to keep her connected to her family as they are separated by distance ie canada/south africa/london. Would give someone housebound a little bit of communication to the outside world.

Dont even get me started on disability benefit etc etc to get her out the house as because she can feed and dress herself and get around her own house she isn't entitled to any benefits to help her get out and about or even take her to the local supermarket.

Anyhow back to Plusnet. They signed us up for £6,49 per month for 12 months. I paid by my debit card as my Mum doesnt have much money coming in and only has a savings account and no bank account.

Less than one month into the deal they emailed me saying I could get a £1.50 discount by paying by direct debit! Yippe happy days even cheaper! So I signed up - quick pronto.

They set up my direct debit and the first payment has gone though. Guess what at £6.49. Having written to Plusnet I have yet to receive any sort of explanation. I have emailed twice and will email them again tonight or tomorrow.

So plusnet you are a good for nothing set of bandits. At least !!!!!! Turpin wore a mask I'm not sure he didn't come from Yorkshire either. Thats what you get for sigining up with Heaven 17.

Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks that £6.49 is a good deal its not - shortly after joining they will put up your price by £1.50 if you don't elect to pay by DD.

Shame on you plusnet.

cajef

It is £6.49 if you pay by direct debit, from the first of next month if you pay be credit card or debit card it is £7.99 there is a £1.50 fee for paying by card.

chrissy21_2

They didnt say that in their original brief to me I cant find it anywhere in their paperwork?

They took two payment of £6.49 from my debit card the email of the increase/discount landing a day or so before the second payment was due.

The email I received said 'pay by DD and save £1.50'.

They did not say originally if you pay by debit card you will pay £1.50 more -otherwise why did they take £6.49 for two months?

None of this is made clear in the sign up details.

cajef

They claim to have emailed all existing customers about the changes that come in on 1st March, also there have been several threads about this in the Plusnet forums

http://community.plus.net/vat_faq/#4

spannerzone

I got an email advising of price changes... I can only wonder that your mother/yourself didn't get this email perhaps due to only signing up around the time of this change?

Personally I think you're being a bit harsh calling them Thieving bandits, do double check that email because mine certainly did mention the £1.50 increase if paying by debit or credit cards but this would not apply to diret debit payments.

My email said this:

.........................................
If you pay your bill by credit or debit card, we're introducing a £1.50 processing
fee from 1st February. This is to cover the extra cost of processing card payments.
But there's no fee if you pay by Direct Debit. And your payments will be safe and
secure, backed up by the Direct Debit guarantee. To check your payment method, just
visit the Member Centre: http://www.plus.net/go.html/check_payment
....................................

I never got an email from them saying I could save £1.50 however! maybe double check your email from them, interested to see if it was different to mine!?

G_M

I do slightly resent the new charge (on the principal that all new charges need resenting automatically!) but your mum is still getting a great deal. I wish I could get the £6.49 product but it depends where you live!

Does mum have a bank account? If so, pay by DD (a good idea in principal for most elderly people - I got my mum to switch all her payments to DD so she doesn't 'forget' bills). She'll still be getting a great broadband price.

macman

Emailing them will get you nowhere. If you don't want to wait in the call centre queue then raise a ticket via the online account. However the DD surcharge has been widely documented.

chrissy21_2

Thanks I raised a ticket online and got a standard response back. Which I've replied to again.

The thing that really irks me is that I only joined mid December, surely they knew they were going to do this before I joined and so should have warned me at the time?

Apologies if I upset anyone by calling them theiving or bandits but you know why can't these companies be up front and honest with you.

G_M

But you are getting the price they advertised and which you signed up to! £6.49.

As you said yourself,

..... one month into the deal they emailed me saying I could get a £1.50 discount

. Yes, it seems like you missed the announcement about the new credit card fee, which is unfortunate, but that does not affect the price you signed up to.

The 'discount' the email apparantly offerred, was, in your words,

Yippe happy days even cheaper!

. It was not increasing your costs.

Not a great start for a new customer's experience, I agree, but it should not be exaggerated. As I said, I wish I too could get your mum's low price.

cajef

chrissy21 wrote: »

Apologies if I upset anyone by calling them theiving or bandits but you know why can't these companies be up front and honest with you.

I thought that was quite funny and mild compared to what some people call various companies.:D

Even now on their website it is still advertising the cost as 'from £6.49' and I cannot find any reference to the fact that from 1st of next month that only applies if paid by direct debit, unless it is hidden away somewhere.

macman

The great majority of ISP's have always required payment by DD, there's an obvious processing cost if any other manual payment method is used, so why should other customers have to absorb that cost? That would be the only alternative.