How can we cancel our Plusnet broadband & home phone without high cost?

JB50MSE

We are pensioners. We've been Plusnet customers since Plusnet started. We don't use our home phone or broadband any more (just our mobile phones now), but for a couple of years we find ourselves in a never-ending cancellation cost trap with Plusnet. Our current broadband contract (£1 per month) ends on 30 June 2020, and our line rental contract (paid Line Rental Saver 12 months in advance £197.88) ends on 31 Dec 2020. Plusnet staff explain we have 3 options: OPTION A: Agree to a new 12 month broadband contract from 1/6/20 at £1 per month, give notice for cut off (end both contracts) on 31/12/20, and pay £8.87 x 6 months for no service at all (£53.22 total loss - it's their cancellation fee but described as compensation fee). OPTION B: Cancel our whole contract (cut off line rental and broadband) on 30/6/20, and lose £98.94 we've already paid for line rental in advance because we are not entitled to any refund, and also lose 6 months phone service. OPTION C: Agree to a new 12 month broadband contract at £1 per month now, and when our Line Rental Saver ends on 31/12/20, pay per month for the remaining 6 months of the broadband contract at say £10 per month (total loss about £100). So it seems to us that the minumum loss we can choose is £53.22 (Option A). We don't mind giving notice to end our service, but does this bite-the-bullet loss seem reasonable to you?

Browntoa

Why no option D , do nothing now about broadband , wait until end of December 2020 and then start migration to new supplier or give 39 days notice of cancellation of everything

JJ_Egan

Yes very reasonable  .

Your problem is you took out advanced line rental expiring 31/12/20 .

Personally if not using PN services phone and BB i would not renew BB and at the end of line rental cancel the service .You gain the £1 pm and have already lost the line rental .

chico

Plusnet purposely puts the broadband contract (18 month) out of sync with the line rental saver (12 month) to lock in the customer.

Towards the end of my recent 12 month line rental saver contract, I discussed this with the customer staff, and I did not accept their advice that renewal had to be on these terms.

I switched to another provider, selecting the switch date to be the very last day covered by the pre-paid line rental saver.

However, despite two customer service staff telling me on separate calls that there would be no further charge, two months after the switch completed, Plusnet made a further charge stated to be for the day AFTER the switch.

This little sting in the tail makes sure I will not consider Plusnet in future for mobile or broadband contracts.

wongataa

JB50MSE said:

OPTION B: Cancel our whole contract (cut off line rental and broadband) on 30/6/20, and lose £98.94 we've already paid for line rental in advance because we are not entitled to any refund, and also lose 6 months phone service.

As you no longer use the landline phone you have already effectively lost this money so would it be so bad just stopping everything at the end of June?  You lose 6 months of service that you would not use anyway.  Is it worth paying for broadband you don't use to keep a phone line alive that you don't use for another 6 months?

How much would the broadband be if you just let the deal expire and do nothing?  That is an option.  Just let it keep going and pay the fee for the months until the line rental save expires and cancel the lot then.

brewerdave

I don't believe that PlusNet will supply a phone line without b/band, so if you refuse to renew b/band (give 30 days notice to cancel on 31st May), the phone line will be terminated with no further charges as per option B. Since you don't use the home phone ,you can hardly count the 6 months ALR NOT repaid as a cost.

JB50MSE

Dear Forumites, thank you for your replies.

There's no Option D because Plusnet do not offer broadband only or line rental only; they only offer both services together, with the Catch 22 of different length contracts for each service, or higher overall costs if we pay monthly.

We don't want to move to another provider; we're looking at ceasing both the services completely, with as little cost as possible.

We would not mind paying monthly if the cost was low for our very low use, but we always do a calculation to compare total annual costs, and we couldn't find a reliable ongoing monthly service which was cheaper than the total annual cost of £209.88 (broadband £1x12 + line rental £197.88 for 12 months, equivalent to £17.49 per month).

We don't need extra TV/film channels. We don't need new mobile phone contracts. We can buy cheap add-ons for extra mobile data if/when required. 

We use so little broadband, the annual cost is just not worth it for us. We would consider broadband only (unbundled) but can't see any reliable home broadband-only service from any company which costs less than £17.49 per month, can you?

wongataa

The cheapest way for you is just to cancel everything at the end of June.  You have already paid the line rental saver so that money has already gone.  Cancelling everything at the same time will prevent you paying more for anything.

brewerdave

wongataa said:

The cheapest way for you is just to cancel everything at the end of June.  You have already paid the line rental saver so that money has already gone.  Cancelling everything at the same time will prevent you paying more for anything.

Just remember to give 30 days notice!

Bernie9927

Our Broadband and phone is with Vodaphone on an 18 month contract and I must say, I have no complaints about the service we get from them.  However, if we decide that we no longer need Broadband or a phone line next year, is it possible to simply let our contract expire and do nothing . For example, our contract last year expired on the 4th October which we had forgotten about but they did not contact us by phone until 10 days later to ask if we were going to renew.  If they did the same next year, would we be liable for the 10 days that broadband and the phone was available to us?

JJ_Egan

Contract does not end it moves to a rolling 30 day contract at standard rates .

You would need to cancel the service before the end or right at the end .