Quite annoyed to say the least......

[#1]

Thank you Plusnet, due to your error I am now going to have to pay £35 to my bank.
First a bit of background. I am on benefits and have £50 a week to live on. My benefit gets paid every 2nd monday. Now it happens that this time around my billing cycle falls on the Friday before I get my benefits so money is a little tight. I checked my bill on Monday and found that it would come to  £18.44. Thats alright I thought, I've got £20 in there, I'm not going to make that many chargeable calls in the next two days (My billing date was wednesday)
Then, yesterday I evening I got my "We're taking a Direct Debit" email, £26.44 was the total it said you were taking. I phoned the CSC this morning, and they basically said that my broadband discount had been incorrectly applied, hence the extra £8. and they would apply it to my next bill so I would get my money back. Thats fair enough, the only problem is, I dont have an extra £6 to put in there, the other £30 was spent on a fortnight's worth of food shopping!
So i phoned up CSC again and explained this, and was basically told that there was nothing that could be done. Now thanks to your cockup I'm going to have to pay £35 to my bank when the DD fails on Friday, and I suspect that you will disconnect my service for non payment too!
I'm sorry I don't like doing this. Normally I don't have a bad word to say about you guys and recommend you to everyone I know, but this is bang out of order.
I have fufilled my side of the agreement, I made sure I had enough funds in my bank to cover the correct amount. So to say that I'm annoyed is an understatement....

[#2]

severedsolo,
I'm really sorry to read about this problem. We do need to hold our hands up here and admit that someone did not apply your last discount correctly, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and upset this has obviously caused you.
I have dealt with you in the past and know that you are normally very positive about us and you are a good referrer so it's even more of a shame that you were impacted like this, we'll do a post-mortem of your account shortly to get the fine details on exactly why this has happened so that it can be avoided.
Its clear that we need to get the £35 back to you, the quickest way we can get this done is by refunding you by direct debit. I've actioned refunds against 3 invoices, this may seem convoluted but its the quickest way we can do it.  To break this down you'll get a refund of £15.72 (the full invoice ammount) against invoice 20304537, £16.25 (again this is the full invoice ammount)  against 20742355, then £3.03 against 20728291, that totals £35 and these will reach your account within the next 7 to 10 days.
With regards to your discounts I've stretched this to a 100% discount for the next 2 months to as a good will gesture.

[#3]

Adam thank you very much. To be honest I wasn't expecting you to refund that £35 so I am very grateful for that. The extra 2 months worth of discount is greatly appreciated too.
As I said, I absolutely love you guys, you are by far the best ISP that I have been with. I do appreciate everything that you do for your customers, your Customer Service is 2nd to none.
Could I perhaps make a suggestion? Maybe send customers an email a week before the DD is applied for, so that we have a bit of warning? My problem here was that by the time I knew about it it was too late to do anything about it.
Sorry adam can you clarify that last bit please? When you say a 100% discount is that for the broadband? or broadband and phone?

[#4]

Hi there,
I'm trying to get the DD stopped in the first instance, I'll let you know if I can.

[#5]

hi Mand, yes ideally stopping the direct debit would be the ideal solution.
The woman i spoke to in CSC (the sheffield one if it helps) said that once it had been applied for it was too late though.
Incidentally, when/If the DD fails (depending on whether Mand can get it cancelled) will I be disconnected?

[#6]

FYI, it looks like Mand didn't realise I was dealing with this and I didn't realise we had a process to stop direct debits in flight.
With regards to the discounts its 100% of the broadband subscription. Before I intervened it was an £8 broadband discount.
And no, you won't be disconnected.

[#7]

thank you for clearing that up adam
well either way, I just want it sorted. the money is in the account for the correct amount so it just needs to be applied for again.
If you could keep me updated whether you can get it stopped "In flight" then I would appreciate that.
Thank you again for all your help

[#8]

Hi there,
I've got the DD cancelled for you now, I'll need to get in touch with you next Wednesday and organise payment of the correct invoice amount though (we have to wait for the system to process it anyway).

[#9]

Mand you are a star  
Yeah contacting me wednesday is fine. I will be at home all day, so either contact on here or by phone will be fine
Thank you so much I honestly thought there was nothing that could be done. I was just having a moan
seriously consider emailing customers BEFORE the DD is applied for though.... At least that way we can tell you if you have made a mistake without all this rigmarole

[#10]

Generally we can't stop a DD once it's been processed on your account, but on this occasion we hadn't actually submitted the batch to the bank yet, so I was able to persuade a friendly finance person to fix it for me.
I'll be in touch next week.

[#11]

Hey Mand, what happened to the phone call?

[#12]

She got another Job in PN
Hopefully some other staff member will do it

[#13]

No doubt Mand is totally fed up with all the crap she constantly  has to sort out via this website because PN support is so rubbish.
Good luck Mand, wherever you moved to, enjoy the rest, if anyone deserves it, you do.
I'm happy to say that I'm leaving too, the 30th won't come quick enough.
Pierre Pierre, why don't you apply for her old post, you have the qualifications, always on the forum and seem to have an opinion (usually published) on everyone's problems.
Power to the Public Sector Workers  ;). Not getting a pay rise, just like the rest of us, except of course we are light years ahead of you.
Severedsolo, we have all been there.............took me weeks to get my money back, which should never have been charged.  Maybe that's how PN really make their money, interest on illicit monies.

[#14]

I never realised the word Cr@p would be censored, hope I've not offended anyone

[#15]

Censored = Excrement (sl.)