Fibrely and Additional Charges - Broadband Plus Rental Charge

sharondocherty285

If you are looking to change your broadband provider, all I can say is be careful.

I recently moved from Sky to Fibrely - I did this through Quidco so was attracted by the price, cash-back, and gift card offer. However, Fibrely has delayed confirming my purchase, which has delayed me in receiving the cash-back I was counting on.

However, after a couple of months, I noticed I was being charged a small fee each month - only a couple of pounds - for something called the “Broadband Plus Rental Charge.”

At no point during sign-up was this extra charge explained or highlighted. I contacted Fibrely to question it yesterday and they pointed me to their Terms & Conditions, which apparently included this charge.

After a frustrating hour or so on the chat, I did manage to secure agreement for a refund - however I do not know if this will happen.  My concern was how many other customers have been unknowingly paying for services they didn’t agree to? 

Has anyone else had similar issues with hidden charges or cash-back delays? 

sharondocherty285

Update - 

I reported my concerns to OFCOM and received the following response from them:

• On 17 June 2022, Ofcom regulations were updated, and service providers must now ensure customers are given clear information to help them make informed choices about their communication services before they enter a contract. 

• Providers must supply a detailed set of contract information in a clear and comprehensible manner and on a durable medium addressed personally to the recipient. Customers can only give consent to enter a contract once they have received a contract summary and the contract information and contract summary should not be changed unless the parties to the contract expressly agree otherwise. 

• Ofcom regulations also state that service providers should have an accessible complaints code of practice and provide details of their Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme. For reference, the ADR schemes can only consider complaints from businesses who have 10 or less employees.
  

• As Fibrely does not appear to have a complaints procedure or be a member of one of the approved ADR schemes, I have raised these details to the relevant department within Ofcom who will investigate this as they deem appropriate.

I will keep you updated.

Lettuce6343

Same thing happened to me - since my second bill Fibrely have added a "broadband plus rental charge" of a few pounds per month, which was not listed on my order confirmation or in their T&Cs. It is mentioned on the prices section of their website but no information is given about what it actually is. I reached out to them by email and got this response:

"Broadband plus is a removable add on so if you would like to take it off we can do so. It provides benefits for customers if they ever have a fault as we absorb the engineer charges/hardware replacement etc. and also gives 2 months of out of contract price protection."

I then asked them to remove it which they have now done, but it shouldn't be down to the customer to ask them to remove an add-on that we're automatically enrolled onto without being told. It seems pretty shaky anyway because I can't find anywhere in the T&Cs where they define what 'faults' are covered by the add-on or how the price protection works, which you would expect to find if it was a legitimate service.

So if you are a new Fibrely customer make sure you request to remove the add-on before they send you your second bill.