Plusnet charged for two mobile accounts instead of one

Paul10012

I switched mobile provider to Vodaphone in December and paid the outstanding balance with Plusnet. A month later received a bill from my previous provider PlusNet. After inquiries it transpires a second account was opened with my details back in 2016, and I have been charged at £6 a month by DD for it ever since. I have been completely unaware of the second mobile account as there was only ever one direct debit (DD) set up for Plusnet, and both payments were taken from it, which I believe contravenes the DD guarantee scheme,  there was never any mention of this second number when I logged into my Plusnet account on the website either, and no customer service rep ever mentioned it. So I have been completely unaware of it for four years. Altogether, £271 was withdrawn from the direct debit for the second account. Plusnet admitted that second number had never been used. Plusnet suggested it's all my fault, I must have opened two accounts, and offered me an arbitrary £31. Plusnet later offered £100, and the latest offer was £150.  I signed up for life mobile, later bought by Plusnet,  on 26/02/2016 and cancelled almost immediately after. As my bank statement below shows, the initial payment to Lifemobile of £6.00 was refunded a week later, but, a DD was setup for the account and the account was not cancelled. A month later on 31/03/2016 I signed up for a lifemobile account again at £5.95, made an initial payment of £5.95 and a DD was set up.  Plusnet have suggested I now go through the ombudsman, or should I go through the DD guarantee scheme as Plusnet are contesting it is a contractual issue, when I think it is an administration error on their part. Should I claim back through the Direct Debit Guarantee Scheme as two accounts used one direct debit mandate, or complain to the Ombudsman? 

 Bank statement

2016  * is the ghost account

26/02/2016                 CARD PAYMENT TO LIFEMOBILE.CO.UK,6.00 GBP, RATE 1.00/GBP ON 24-02-2016                                       £6.00*   Inital contract setup payment
02/03/2016                 CREDIT FROM LIFEMOBILE.CO.UK ON 2016-02-29                                                                                               £6.00*    Inital contract setup payment  refunded

 

31/03/2016                 CARD PAYMENT TO LIFEMOBILE.CO.UK,5.95 GBP, RATE 1.00/GBP ON 29-03-2016                                       £5.95 - New contract initial payment 

08/04/2016                 DD PAYMENT TO LIFE MOBILE REF KIN731007, MANDATE NO 0013                                           £6.00 * - DirectDebit setup for cancelled contract
 

11/05/2016                 DIRECT DEBIT PAYMENT TO LIFE MOBILE REF KIN731007, MANDATE NO 0013                                           £6.00 *

16/05/2016                 DIRECT DEBIT PAYMENT TO LIFE MOBILE REF KIN731007, MANDATE NO 0013                                           £5.95

 

15/07/2016                 DIRECT DEBIT PAYMENT TO LIFE MOBILE REF KIN731007, MANDATE NO 0013                                           £10.22

11/07/2016                 DIRECT DEBIT PAYMENT TO LIFE MOBILE REF KIN731007, MANDATE NO 0013                                           £6.00 *

 

16/06/2016                 DIRECT DEBIT PAYMENT TO LIFE MOBILE REF KIN731007, MANDATE NO 0013                                           £6.25
10/06/2016                 DIRECT DEBIT PAYMENT TO LIFE MOBILE REF KIN731007, MANDATE NO 0013                                           £6.00 *

 

 Response to complaint from Plusnet/Life Mobile:

 Thank you for your time on the phone earlier on today, apologies for catching you at an inconvenient time. I will now keep the method of contact to email as requested. Having investigate further into the above accounts I can confirm that: 

Kin731007 was set upon the 26/02/2016 via Life Mobile and a welcome email and pack was emailed to the given email address of @hotmail.co.uk.

On the welcome email it explained that the SIM only package was £6.00 per month and it was advised that we would be taking this payment on or after the 8th of every month. The bank details given were from a Santander UK account. There has been no usage on this account.

 Kin7310071 was set up on the 05/04/2016 via Life Mobile and a welcome email and pack was sent to the given email address of @hotmail.co.uk. On the welcome email it explained that the SIM only package was £5.95 per month and it was advised that we would be taking this payment on or after the 14th of every month. The bank details given were from the same Santander UK account that was given when kin731007 was set up.

When you terminated the account kin7310071 via the PAC switching service in December 2019 you then on the 27/01/2020  received an email request for a payment of £12.60. Upon calling the mobile contact centre it transpired that this bill was a request for payment for account kin731007. You advised that this was not an account you were familiar with as it has a different telephone number to the one you had been using. It was at this point it was established that you had been receiving two separate bills each month but it was your belief that these bills were just a duplicate even though the amounts were different each month. It was requested that our frau d team investigate in to this further and at this point you asked for the full refund of the monies paid for the account kin731007.

Our credit and risk team reviewed the account and concluded that as it was opened prior to the account you were using (kin7310071), and given that all the payment details and email correspondence address matched they were satisfied that the account had not been opened fraudulently from our side.

 As there now was a late payment marker for this account (kin731007), it has been agreed that we will now note the account as settled from the 09/12/2019 (last payment date) due to no activity, however we are unable to remove the account from your creditfile in relation to frau d.

 You have been offered a  goodwill gestureof £100 by a  customer services Manager at the mobile contact centre however this was declined. You have asked for a settlement of £271.80 which is the total amount you have paid for the monthly billing of account kin731007. We would be unable to refund that amount due to the account being maintained each month, the fact that a separate direct debit was on the account and that you have received monthly notifications for this account since it was established. I do appreciate however that you have spent some considerable time sorting this issue and understand the inconvenience caused. I would at this stage be happy to offer our final position as a monetary goodwill gesture of £150.00. Should you not wish to accept this we would potentially be in a position of deadlock. This means that both us and you cannot come to an amicable resolution to your complaint and this would provide you with the means to escalate your case to our recommended independent adjudicator, ombudsman Service, as outlined in our Complaints Code of Practice.

 Please let us know how you would like to progress with your case and we can look to take the appropriate action. Feel free to reply via email or if you would prefer to speak with me I can be reached on 0800 587 2677 .  I am in the office until 7pm this evening and back in on Monday.

 Kind Regards

Customer Advocates Advisor

 

stragglebod

Is there any doubt that the original account was correctly cancelled?

It looks like they have just focused on the question of whether the transactions were fraudulent and ignored (or were never asked) the question of whether they were correctly taken. I'd go back to them and point out that they took the payments in error. If they still don't agree a full refund I'd then go to the bank under the DD guarantee - I think the two accounts issue would just be a distraction, stick to the simple 'they took the wrong amount' basis.

Paul10012

I never contended there was fraudulent activity. They went away and investigated for fraud, and came back and said there was none, and therefore there was no problem. It was strawman.