VAT Increase & Price Changes - January 2011

[#1]

To make it very clear
Moving from the Old Phone Anytime to the new Phone Anytime is not an increase of £3.50 it is replacing the old £5.00 for the Anytime package with £3.50 for the new one so a reduction of £1.50 for which you lose the free international calls

[#2]

If your currently on talk anytime then you can stay with the current version which will be costing you 11.99 line rental and 5.00 for the talk anytime element giving you a line rental total of 16.99 a month.
If you switch to the new plan you would be paying less with your line rental being 11.99 and the talk anytime element being 3.50 giving you a total line rental of £15.49, but you would lose your 300 inclusive international minutes you would get on the current plan at £5.00

[#3]

Quote from: Bob

Quote from: cjcrichton I looked at the email again - and it says that the £5 talk anytime will be continuing.  I have raised a ticket because I'm embarrassed and don't know what I have "clicked" to agree to.  I'm now troubled in case my current talk anytime package is stopped pending this other arrangement being "processed."  I'm afraid it's a bit confusing and beyond me. Sorry for the confusion, I'll take a look at your account now and make sure you stay on your current product.

In fact ignore that! Have since spoken to Jim who sent you a PM. I'm told you're happy to be switching to the new Anytime variant now as it'll save you some pennies?

[#4]

Quote from: Oldjim

To make it very clear Moving from the Old Phone Anytime to the new Phone Anytime is not an increase of £3.50 it is replacing the old £5.00 for the Anytime package with £3.50 for the new one so a reduction of £1.50 for which you lose the free international calls

  Many thanks.  Not sure how to use forums yet but got your message anyway which is what counts...

[#5]

The answer to all these rip off prices is to go VOIP where calls are a fraction of the price and no set up fees. For instance Australia on SipGate are 2.5ppm. Even Skpe pay calll are a lot cheaper.

[#6]

The old Anytime package is looking like a better deal than the new one (and better than the new evenings & weekends package) for anyone who uses even a small fraction (under 20%) of the included international minutes, especially as the old Anytime also has reduced prices for calls to UK mobiles.
I'm currently on Evenings & Weekends, and I've worked out that the new E&W package amounts to an increase of about 35% for my usage pattern. That's a hefty increase! With the same usage pattern I can get the increase down to just under 20% if I switch to the old Anytime, but if I go onto the new Anytime the increase is only reduced to 30% after the first three months.
The question is whether it's worth the hassle of finding and then moving to a new provider. It may not be. But on the other hand, Plusnet are probably counting on such inertia.
Graham

[#7]

I was considering moving to anytime from BT but having read some comments it may not be a good idea.
BT give 40% off best friend IIRC which is a mobile for me. I can also phone Ireland too (classed as UK for me) and Caller ID is free. I also get BT Privacy to stop nuissance calls.
What can PN say about these points?

[#8]

Quote

A charge of £1.50 is a total rip off and nothing more than profiteering.  Mastercard and Visa used to charge us 1.6% on transactions.  I can't remember what we were charged on debit cards but it was in the region of 50p per £100 handled IIRC. Let's look at it another way then. The failure rate of card payers *far* exceeds that of our Direct Debit payers. The transaction failure rate for Direct Debit averages about 1.5%. The failure rate of card transactions is about 12%. I needed tell you that repeat transactions cost us more money.

So what you are saying is that the companies that accepts payment by credit or debit cards without penalising the card holder are happily loosing money and can be bothered to do anything about it? Is that what Plusnet  did all those years before the BT takeover?
When BT implemented that charge many years ago, it was already considered as a disgusting money making rip off, I remember a long winding thread commenting on it on the MoneySavingExpert forum.
The big boss (BT) has told Plusnet to introduce that charge, and the Plusnet customers, like the BT customers, will be penalised by an unfair charge.
It is just a money making scheme. No more, no less.

[#9]

Well I've moved to the current Anytime package to buy me some time, but I am not happy about the email I received that did not mention the move to the current Anytime service would let me keep the 300 international minutes, and because of this I will plan to move providers once my router is paid off!
It's the sort of attitude you expect from Virgin!!

[#10]

Quote from: grahamt

The old Anytime package is looking like a better deal than the new one (and better than the new evenings & weekends package) for anyone who uses even a small fraction (under 20%) of the included international minutes, especially as the old Anytime also has reduced prices for calls to UK mobiles.

My bold. That's not correct - the old Anytime reduced prices for calls to mobiles will be withdrawn on 4th January 2011.
[quote=email]
From January our charge for line rental will change to £11.99 a month. We'll no longer offer a 25% discount on our call rates to mobiles and off-peak hours are changing to 7pm - 7am.

[#11]

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,91213.0/topicseen.html
carrying on from the question i asked, so from 4th of jan my mums anytime package will lose the 300 free mins to international numbers, also oldjim you say the new tariff  will include a 25% discount, i can not see on the new tariff where it says usa international calls are included in the discount, all i see is Top EU destinations

[#12]

https://www.plus.net/specialoffer/wlr2010Anytime/?WT.mc_id=ec_int_201011_VAT1&link=offer

Quote

25% off our call rates to the EU, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand^^

[#13]

Quote

We're making some changes to our Home Phone service in January too. Our charge for line rental will be £11.99 a month. We'll no longer offer 300 inclusive international minutes on our Talk Evenings & Weekends call tariff and off peak hours are changing to 7pm - 7am. Call prices are changing too so please take a look at our updated call tariff for this important information. If you pay your bill by credit or debit card, we're introducing a £1.50 processing fee from 1st February. This is to cover the extra cost of processing card payments. But there's no fee if you pay by Direct Debit. And your payments will be safe and secure, backed up by the direct Debit guarantee. To check your payment method, just visit the Member Centre. It's really easy to set up a Direct Debit if you need one, you can do it all online

it's  BT's  style of doing business

Quote

£1.50 fee for paying by card from Feb 2011 - I DONT THINK SO.

just received BT's plusnet email
I think not also
and  phone price hikes all around  even after Europe giving BT £5 billion of  taxes to provide people BB for the UK
and now Plusnet want their customers to pay an extra £1.50 each month because they pay using their Debit card
well no way
I dont think your bank manager would pay the fee either
I left thieving BT after providing me with a phone for a number of years  a few years ago
I didnt realize plusnet was so tied into their ways when i joined up with them
I thought they were a separate company after they told me so
people  on no contractible deals  dont want to pay by Direct debits and who would blame them
if customers allow this
the whole of the uk business mafia will do the same
I'll have a chat with my bank manager next week
and ask about if  the extra payments are indeed a change in terms of any contract
and look about for a cheaper provider
shame on you plusnet
I'm linking onto this thread

[#14]

Quote from: maccallum

Well I've moved to the current Anytime package to buy me some time, but I am not happy about the email I received that did not mention the move to the current Anytime service would let me keep the 300 international minutes, and because of this I will plan to move providers once my router is paid off!

That information was in the FAQ linked from the email. I made sure of that!

Quote from: Asbo

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,91213.0/topicseen.html carrying on from the question i asked, so from 4th of jan my mums anytime package will lose the 300 free mins to international numbers, also oldjim you say the new tariff  will include a 25% discount, i can not see on the new tariff where it says usa international calls are included in the discount, all i see is Top EU destinations

The "Top EU destinations" wording is inaccurate, I've asked our content guys to correct it (ref: 64754). If you look at the top 20 international destinations on the 2011 call tariff, that's what the 25% discount is applied to.
Customers on Anytime at the moment will *not* lose their international calling allowance unless they pro-actively switch to the new Anytime package available from the 4th January.
It's clear there's some objection to the £1.50 fee, and I'd be lying if I said we didn't expect that to a certain degree. As I've mentioned before though, it's pretty painless to switch to DD and in most cases (Unlimited customers excepted) if we hadn't frozen the price of your broadband then the VAT hike would probably have amounted to a similar amount of money anyway. At least that's the way I've been looking at it.

[#15]

Assuming one always has sufficient funds in ones account then I fail to see the problem in paying by DD.
Were I to want to I could cancel my DD to any provider in seconds - try doing that with a Continuous Authority on a credit or debit card where the payee, not the payer, is in control.
My Gas & Electric providers give me a better deal for paying by DD so why not Plusnet.