Need the bag to send your router back

[#1]

Hello,

I left Plusnet because you stopped price matching. Had been a happy customer for quite a long time but since you want to charge more now for keeping the bits flowing, I have jumped ship. When I tried to leave your agent tried to convince me I'd made a mistake by telling me you were an award winning provider. Not sure why your customers would care you have won awards, most of us probably just want the Internet to work and not to be charged a fortune for it. Maybe I'd feel differently if you stood out from the crowd somehow but just like all the others you wanted to double the price as soon as our agreement ended, though you offered me a discount if I gave away my freedom to choose a supplier and made myself liable to you for another 18 months of payments. I'm not a new customer, there was no particular outlay you had to recuperate here I'm aware of, so I'm going to assume your award probably wasn't for ethical business practices on that basis and if it was, that would speak volumes about the quality of that award scheme.

Feedback from another lost asset caused by your pricing choices. If you only focus on the benefits to yourselves of your pricing strategies and ignore what it costs you, you will not be making informed decisions. An honest provider such as yourselves could be expected to provide fair contract terms that don't exploit customers and punish them for their loyalty by massively increasing the cost of the service once they've been with you a while. Don't even think about saying something like, "but you can renew your contract and still benefit from the reduced... yada yada". So what? By that point you've presumably recovered your costs in signing the customer up or you would have a longer period of duration where the customer is unable to leave. You're acting like predators, just because other companies are doing it doesn't make it right, you're the award winning, honest, provider remember?

Okay, I'll stop complaining now. I don't complain much in my normal life, but for some reason that's the language commercial operations understand best in my experience. I'm not even trying to get anything from you with this, it's actually for your benefit. 

There is something I wouldn't mind before we go our separate ways though. A free bag to return your router in. I don't have any appropriate packaging so if you'd like it back, please arrange for me to be sent the return packaging. Many thanks.

[#2]

Moderator's note(s):

Thread moved from Everything Else to Plusnet Feedback.

[#3]

@pricematchloss 

Skimming through your long complaint I gather that your gripe is that Plusnet would not give you the in contract price when you are out of contract. So you have taken a new contract with another ISP, presumably for about the same price and length as a similar contract to what Plusnet were offering?

I imagine that when the contract runs out with your new ISP that you will be testing them a similar lesson by moving on.

See here for returns https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/returns/

[#4]

Thanks for your reply seasoned hero who presumably is a loyal and happy customer as opposed to a representative of Plusnet?

As per my post, I want the packaging to return it in and I note there are multiple other posts here asking for, and receiving a bag to return the router with. I don't want to go and buy packaging and perhaps also have to pay for the return label too to save Plusnet a bit of cash to cover the postage whilst benefitting them by providing them another router to send out to customers. Seems like they benefit far more from this arrangement than me, who could just take it to the local recycling centre on my next trip there, I would therefore like them to pay for both the label and packaging to send it back.

As for the cost of the new ISP, since you asked, the monthly charge is cheaper than Plusnet, and I got a substantial cashback kickback for switching as well. The contract lock-in is shorter too. They have kept the data flowing 100% of the time so far, and I will definitely see if they will price match at the end of the contract should the data keep flowing the vast majority of the time I am with them. They also put their price up at the end of the contract lock-in, I may raise it with them, I may not, I'm not here to be fair, or of service, to all broadband providers, I am not a seasoned hero on any broadband providers community forum, and I have no desire to be, I gave Plusnet quite a lot of money over the course of the time we were together, that's how I did my part, if I were a valued asset to them they could have retained me by price matching and then not had to compete for my money again in the future, if they want it back, as well as collected the maximum amount they could have from me, which is the amount available by matching the deal I got by leaving. In fact, truth be told, they could possibly have had slightly more, I haven't worked out the exact numbers as it wasn't an option, but I was quite content with the availability of service from Plusnet, if they had simply left the (price matched) deal I had with them alone, instead of increasing it massively, or renewed the deal when I spoke to them on the phone before leaving, I may well have stayed.

[#5]

PlusNet are not bothered keeping existing customers because with the vast advertising ( which must be costly ) there will be many new customers who will have the same problem as you are having at the end/during the contract

The CPI + 3.9 increase in March 2022 will soon upset people in a fixed 18month contract if they have not read the T&Cs

Its like car insurance a battle   

[#6]

Not quite like the car insurance battle - they are obliged to give existing customers the same rates as new ones.

There is hope - see the end of the 4th paragraph here - https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/fairer-prices-for-broadband-customers

[#7]

And a third of those who negotiate a new deal with their provider actually pay less than those on introductory deals.

That's fair enough 

So existing customers are getting the reward cards when they get a new deal ?

If they aren't they are not getting the same deal