Plusnet locking me into a deal i dont want

pmramsay

Hi All

Can anyone advise if this is correct.

I took out an annual line rental back in may 2012, which is now up for renewal, I have just phoned up to cancel that as I get free phone/bb through work.

I was told they could cancel my phone but they would also have to fully cancel my broadband which would be £130 (they had included a house move and a new router in my cancellation fee).

My end date for broadband is the start of Sep 2013. Now my options are pay for full price phone and broadband for 4 months which I am not using for £25.50 a month or pay £130 to get rid now.

Granted the payment option is cheaper however I am having to pay for a phone line i do not want. In my head all i should be paying is the broadband fee until the end of the contract (£11 a month) feel as if they are taking me for a ride here.

Any thoughts?

bod1467

AFAIK they cannot lock you into the phone line rental ... they offer broadband-only packages that can provided over lines where the rental is with other companies. But it may depend on what your contract says ... is it a BB and rental contract? (The fact you paid line rental in advance for one year does not necessarily mean that was the ONLY contract duration for rental; just that you gained a lower price for those 12 months by paying in advance).

Plusnet_company_representative

Hi there,

The bulk of the cost will be made up of the deferred house move fee (£65) and the router (£40) - you should have been warned about these at the time? Basically the deferred fees stay on the account for 12 months and then drop off, but are payable if you cancel the service before that time is up.

Hope that helps explain,

Regards,

Matt Taylor
Customer Support

pmramsay

Hi Matt

Appreciate all that, I would have been happy to pay out the rest of the broadband contract on a monthly basis, what gets me is to also have to pay for a phone line at about £16 for something I am not using.

The router was due to a fault and the home move didnt take an engineer but i understand you have fees associated to that however I was not asking for the broadband contract to be cut short.

All i wanted to do was stop the phone line and still pay for broadband. I realise the BB needs a phone line and that puts us both in a predicament. If i was to move the line to someone else I would be able to just pay out my contract with you but I cant do that without being in another contract which i dont want. Hence you have got me locked in here. So now my options for a service I have no use for are you will charge me either £130 to cancel it all or for me to pay £26 for the next 4-5 months to keep it active.

Never had a problem with plusnet service before but its certainly putting me off if I ever have to look again in the future.

cajef

pmramsay wrote: »

All i wanted to do was stop the phone line and still pay for broadband.

Never had a problem with plusnet service before but its certainly putting me off if I ever have to look again in the future.

No ISP can provide a you with a ADSL broadband service without an active phone line, you cannot just pay for broadband with no phone line if you cancel the phone line you have to cease the broadband.

pmramsay

the annoying thing is i don't even want the broadband but now i am paying for full price phone line and full price broadband which aren't being used as its cheaper to do so than paying to cancel.

I am out of contract on the phone line but i have no choice to pay it. Understand the reasons just don't think its right to hold a customer to ransom like that personally.

cajef

pmramsay wrote: »

I am out of contract on the phone line but i have no choice to pay it. Understand the reasons just don't think its right to hold a customer to ransom like that personally.

Not Plusnets fault they are only applying the rules that BT stipulate, they cannot be blamed they have no choice.

JenniWR

As Matt has pointed out, you must have moved home in the past twelve months (£65) and taken a new router (£40).

There is also always a fee to disconnect a line (rather than move it to a new supplier. I believe that the wholesale cost is around £28, but Plusnet only bill £25, totaling up to the £130.

If you move your existing line the the supply you company is providing, this will drop the £25 off.

Alternatively, why not move the line rental to the product your company is supplying now (saving the line rental to Plusnet) and then migrate the broadband once its contract expires?

The long and short of this is that YOU agreed to a twelve month contract when you moved home and took a new router. Plusnet are simply enforcing the terms of the contract YOU agreed to.

bod1467

pmramsay wrote: »

I am out of contract on the phone line.

I don't think you are ... you never answered my previous question. If the BB and LL were started at the same time, and the BB was an 18 month contract, then very likely the LL was also an 18 month contract - the fact you paid for 12 months up-front (to save money) does NOT change the contract duration.

JenniWR wrote: »

The long and short of this is that YOU agreed to a twelve month contract

See above - I suspect he/she agreed to an 18 month contract.

JenniWR

bod1467 wrote: »

See above - I suspect he/she agreed to an 18 month contract.

Not how Plusnet works. Their old products were sold contract-free, however, if taking on a router, you would pay £40 upfront, or 'defer' this for twelve months. If you stay longer than twelve months, great, if not, you pay the router cost. The same applied to activation fees.

The issue here is that OP moved home partway into the first deferred contract (and apparently took a new router). This costs £25 to cease the old line and £40 start the new line - £65 (+£40 for the new router - £105). However, again, this can be deferred over 12 months. It is this newer contract which is still running.

That's how I read it based on PN Rep (Matt)'s post my experience.