I've been with Plusnet for years, I mean many many...

I've been with Plusnet for years, I mean many many years now, and until now I was a happy customer. Even when they cut off my neighbour by mistake in my previous property, which delayed my broadband connection even further, I still liked them!

I don't often post negative reviews unless a company really get's my back up. And whilst I've had many a happy year with Plusnet, they've recently managed to irritate me over a quibble of a cancellation fee. It's sad that I never reviewed them when I was happy with them, but needs must.

I honestly think Plusnet customer service is slowly getting worse. Years ago it was impeccable, but possibly since BT took over the reins things have started to take a turn for the worse. You see I cancelled my old broadband/phone package mid-July and we agreed it would end 2nd August. It was a piece of cake to cancel, and I didn't feel pressured to stay in the slightest - which is good - but at the time I got no mention of the dreaded cancellation fee. Now was that because I mentioned I was probably going to sign up again? I don't know, all I know was that If I wanted to transfer my service from one house to another, they weren't going to offer me any deals, yup absolutely NONE! So after weighing up the options I decided to cancel so I could sign up as a new customer and take advantage of their current deals, and at no time was their ANY mention of that cheeky cancellation fee. In fact, he made out that my standard monthly broadband/phone fee was the last I would be paying.



So I took a look at their website as I thought it was all very strange, I even discovered the cancellation fee section, but the figures on the site weren't matching the figure I was being quoted, so surely it can't be that?

So today (1st Sept 2016) I finally called them up. Their representative confirmed it was indeed a cancellation fee, but he couldn't tell me why it had been apparently discounted. Perhaps it's a loyalty discount he said, seriously, do they not keep track of what's going on (although I'm guessing from my need to rant that they don't).

So I tell them to listen back to the recording of my initial conversation when I cancelled - we all know they record them after all. I explained that there was no mention ever made. He then went off to speak to the powers that be, and came back and gave me the ultimatum that got my back up, "if it's not paid they will take action and cancel my new account." At no point had I said I wouldn't pay, I was just querying what it was, why it wasn't the standard cancellation rate, what on earth was the discount (even though secretly we all love a discount), and can he just confirm that it was ever spoken about.

Anyway, nothing like a subtle threat to get you weilding your credit card. We all know the world is our oyster when it comes to home broadband. It would appear the toss up I had between Vodafone and Plusnet ended up with me signing up to the wrong company. We all know it costs a company more to attract and sign up new customers than keep the old ones happy, but obviously Plusnet like to make things challenging for themselves. So, if you're signed up with Plusnet and want to cancel, make sure you record the conversation to protect yourself as if no mention is made of such a fee you'll have covered your back unlike me.

Oh and lastly, Plusnet if you read this, you need to change your recorded message, because it explicitly says you WON'T take payment over the phone, and yet your representative wasn't aware of that as he happily took my money over the phone! Oh dear oh dear