Plusnet Price Increase Vent

SBrown86

Just had a lovely email from plusnet this morning, telling me their line rental prices are going up by £1 next month. I signed up for an 18th Month contract only 6 weeks ago! I chose Plusnet due to their low prices and feeling completely cheated now.

I know that I can cancel thanks to OffCom but if I were to do that, then I'd still be out of pocket by paying a connection charge to a new supplier.

I know it's only £1 a month but it just feels so wrong that they can just change the prices when they please. What's the point of a contract if they don't honour the agreement!? (and yes I know there's small print, but to advertise an 18 month contract at £27 a month and then immediately change the price, just plain daylight robbery in my eyes!)

Rant over.

macman

But it is not a fixed price contract: they can and will increase prices at least annually, which means that some people, like you, will get hit with an increase in the first few weeks of their minimum term.
But if you feel so strongly about it, then exercise your right to cancel without penalty within 30 days of the date of the email.There are many tariffs available without connection charges. However you will find that all the major ISP's will increase their line rental in turn over the year.

DoaM

Talktalk are the only provider currently offering fixed price deals for the contract term. And even that's only a fairly recent change in how they structure their contracts.

Not that I'm recommending TT to anyone ... if it all works OK then it's fine; if anything goes wrong then be prepared for frustration and hair loss. (It's not for nothing that they've won the ISP Awards "Customer Services Wooden Spoon" award several years on the trot).

teddysmum

The way round a line rental or call charge increase is to prepay line rental (not all providers allow this; Sky doesn't) and take a calls package, as its cost is less likely to increase than individual call prices ( Plusnet have only increased the international calls supplement).

SBrown86

macman wrote: »

But it is not a fixed price contract: they can and will increase prices at least annually, which means that some people, like you, will get hit with an increase in the first few weeks of their minimum term.
But if you feel so strongly about it, then exercise your right to cancel without penalty within 30 days of the date of the email.There are many tariffs available without connection charges. However you will find that all the major ISP's will increase their line rental in turn over the year.

Yeah I understand now that it's not fixed. However, it just seems deliberately misleading. You put x amount for month, 18 months. People are going to think that they will be paying x amount for the 18 month period.

I'm not prepared to go through the cost and the inconvenience of changing ISP's again for £1. So in that respect, they have won.

However, I certainly will be complaining to the hills as I don't feel it's right.

Their website now has a new deal for £25 a month (when I took out the contract was £26.90 per month). Which then has in small print that it will rise to £26 per month.

So while I don't have a problem with them offering better deals to new customers, I do find it disgusting that they are putting their line rental price up for existing ones, and at the same time creating a new deal for new customers which works out even cheaper than before the price increase.

That to me, is just a blatant rip off and a big middle finger to the customers who took the previous deal, thinking that they would at least wait until the contract was through before introducing price increases.

I'm sorry but, I know it's all in the small print but I still think it's wrong. It's deliberating misleading unsuspecting customers