Whats a reasonable price increase mid contract?

seatbeltnoob

iniltous wrote: »

I believe it's an Ofcom requirement that if a phone/internet company increase their prices, that have to offer the customer the option of leaving penalty free, provided the customer advises their provider that they in effect refuse the increase within 30 days of being advised of the price increase,and intend to leave, so the amount of 'increase' doesn't matter at all, an increase of 0.01% or 25%, allows you to leave provided you advise them within the 30 days of the increase if you don't leave, you are deemed to have accepted the increase and the 'contract' continues albeit with the new price.
If Plusnet state wholesale prices have increased it depends on what wholesale price they are talking about, it's not wholesale line rental paid to Openreach, but they will have other wholesale suppliers, and it's not your problem if their costs increase, but ultimately it's up to you, accept the price increase , or find a new supplier

knowing plusnet, they'll just back down and remove the increases.

if they refuse to reduce the cost then it's a good way to capitalise on the new customer cashback incentives I guess. Switch providers capitalising on generous new customer cashback rewards.

mije1983

seatbeltnoob wrote: »

A bit of a BS one way deal to be honest. I'm surprised it's allowed. A contract is a contract. I promise to remain with you for 18 months, in return you promise to provide me with a service at a given price.

The thing is, they don't promise that though. They promise to provide you with a service, yes. But not at a given price.

As far as I know, only TT out of the main ISPs say they will not raise prices on some (all?) of their tariffs. The rest don't promise to provide you with a service for a fixed price for the length of your initial minimum term.

However, as said, it's not really a one way deal as you can leave penalty free within 30 days of being notified of any price increase. This can make a good new customer deal even cheaper if you combine with cashback every 6/12 months or so.

pmduk

mije1983 wrote: »

As far as I know, only TT out of the main ISPs say they will not raise prices on some (all?) of their tariffs.

Ironic, as they lost me as a customer, after raising prices on various parts of my package 4 times in the 9 months I was with them a few years back.

seatbeltnoob

pmduk wrote: »

Ironic, as they lost me as a customer, after raising prices on various parts of my package 4 times in the 9 months I was with them a few years back.

yes, they make the "no price rises" promise to new customers.

esuhl

JJ_Egan wrote: »

You agreed to possible price increases when taking out the contract .
I don't think increases are based upon RPI .

That would definitely be an "unfair" term in the contract. You can't be expected to just sign a blank cheque.

Some companies have a clause allowing them to periodically increase the charges in line with an independently determined RPI. This is legal because consumers have been made aware of the frequency and scale of price increases, and such price increases are not arbitrary and not determined by the network (which would create an unfair balance of power between consumer and network).

Any other price increases would constitute a breach of contract. If your contract is cancelled and an equivalent service would cost more with a competitor, your original network would be responsible for paying the additional costs for the originally contracted period.