Supanet charging after move to new ISP

Jay23

Hi folks,

Hope you can help. In May I switched from Supanet to Plusnet for both my telephone and broadband service. As I've done with each prior ISP move, I obtained a MAC code from Supanet, gave it to Plusnet and they did the rest. However, this month I realised that Supanet are still taking payments from my bank account even though they no longer provide me with any service.

When I wrote to Supanet they informed me that not only would they not offer me a refund on these payments but that I would have to telephone to request a cancellation. From what I've heard, this will no doubt involve another payment.

I'm about to contact them again, but I would like some advice on where I stand?

As far as I can see I contracted Supanet to take payment in exchange for giving me internet and telephone services. Since they no longer provide these services, can they legally continue to take money from my bank account for them? Do I have any right to obtain my money back when they took it in exchange for nothing? Since they have already taken these payments, can they still demand more money from me to "cancel the account"?

I'm quite sure that if I stopped paying for broadband they would not honour their half of the contract- can they really take money from me when they are not fulfilling their part of the contact now that I've changed ISP?

wongataa

Phone supanet and tell them you have used the MAC they gave you and on what date the changeover occurred. They should not be billing you for service after that date because they aren't supplying you with internet. They should be refunding you any money they took for service after the date the change over occurred.

This happened to me when I swapped Internet providers last time but I phoned up my previous supplier and it was sorted out with no problems there and then.

macman

Did you not cancel the DD after the last payment was (you believed) taken?
Did you give the required notice (normally 30 days)?
Were you out of minimum term contract when you gave notice?

Jay23

macman wrote: »

Did you not cancel the DD after the last payment was (you believed) taken?
Did you give the required notice (normally 30 days)?
Were you out of minimum term contract when you gave notice?

Hi,

I didn't think to cancel the DD because I've never been charged by a company before for a service they were no longer providing. By the time I left Supanet I'd been with them for a few years so there's no issue about a minimum term contract. I did email them and the reply I received was basically that I would have to phone their cancellations department to "request a cancellation" and because I hadn't done so already that I wouldn't receive a refund. I switched to the new ISP about halfway through May (and once they got the MAC code it went pretty quick) so I expected to probably pay for June but not July, August and September too.

Do I have a legal leg to stand on to demand a refund? Can they charge me now for cancelling the account when they haven't been providing me phone and internet for 3+ months now?

Plusnet_company_representative

Hi there,

A MAC request *is* a request to cancel, so if they've sent you a MAC then they've accepted your cancellation request. You may need to discuss final fees if there's a notice period, but they are able to verify that a MAC has been generated and when it was used. I can also confirm that ISPs are not allowed to charge for a service when one isn't being provided (this is I believe an OFCOM regulation).

Hope that helps, if there's anything else we can do please let us know.

Regards,

Matt Taylor
Customer Support

macman

A MAC is not a cancellation request, it's an 'option to cancel'. It expires after 28 days if not used. It only becomes a cancellation request if passed to the incoming supplier and processed before the expiry date.

Plusnet_company_representative

Fair enough, but what I meant was that if a MAC has been requested and used the user shouldn't then have to notify the ISP of this - the cancellation should then be dated from when the MAC was requested in the first place. I thought that was true for all ISPs, it's certainly how we do things.

Regards,

Matt Taylor
Customer Support

macman

Totally correct Matt.

brewerdave

As usual it is probably down to BT ..............BT WHOLESALE (I believe?) are responsible for informing the losing ISP when the MAC is used. However, I had a similar issue with HORRANGE who claimed that they were not informed by BTW when I moved some years ago to Plusnet using a MAC - and searching thru the forums it is obvious that this happens quite frequently.
Fortunately I had phoned HORRANGE to formally cancel when my new ISP went live,and cancelled the DD, so I fought off their attempted charges and debt collection attempts - but it took nearly two months!!

Jay23

Thanks for the replies. Am going to contact Supanet again and will post back here when I get a response.