Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ejs]

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/plusnet-fined

Plusnet, a BT owned company, has today been fined £880,000 by Ofcom for continuing to bill more than a thousand ex-customers.

1,025 customers who had cancelled either their landline or broadband service continued to be billed, meaning they were overcharged by more than £500,000 in total.

[Weaver]

Ouch.

Cheeky beggars. Was it just a cock-up, or naughtiness?

[Chrysalis]

Plusnet has a lot of backend issues, which I personally believe to be due to having noone employed to maintain it, its probably never been deemed important enough to spend money to fix.

Now we will see if a 880k fine is big enough to change their priorities. Given that 500k is what is supposedly the amount gained from the problem, and I think a fine should be 10x the amount, my initial feeling is 880k is way too small of a fine and it should have been nearer 5 million.

[ejs]

An average of £500 per customer, but the article said Plusnet only managed to refund less than half of the affected customers. Does that mean there are quite a lot of people who didn't notice that they were still being billed, or didn't think it was incorrect?

[Ronski]

Plusnet has a lot of backend issues,.

I think their backend system is very antiquated, and they've never had the nerve to update it, I  think it's caused a lot of problems over the years and is not flexible at all.

[BigJ]

I'm increasingly thinking I should leave Plusnet. Saying that, it appears I'll still be paying them even if I do!

[sevenlayermuddle]

I'm not sure I agree with the idea of fining companies like this.  Seems to me than Plusnet will now have an £880k hole in its accounts.   It will need to try and find a way of filling that hole, which will ultimately most likely be filled from its customers pockets, have they any other income source?

Or put another way, to make up for  Plusnet's  bad behavior, Plusnet's customers will have to pay an additional £880k pounds, which will be given to HM treasury.

What am I missing?

[Chrysalis]

true but that shouldnt be a reason to not fine companies in theory this highly competitive market should limit their abilities to fill it with higher margins, we will see.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Let me emphasise, what follows is not aimed at Plusnet.  I know nothing about them, or their disuputes with Ofcom.

But in the general case, one mischievous thought arises... When a company is deemed to need 'punishment', and there is no single executive to carry the can at a criminal level, why not spread the pain among all employees, rather than just a fine which is effectively passed onto their customers?     And worse, by driving up prices to recover the fine, competitive forces allow rivals also to raise prices, so customers of other companies suffer too.

We could for example have a sanction such that Ofcom are empowered to alter the personal tax thresholds and rates of a company's wokforce, affecting all employees.   Whilst still not being entirely fair on all employees, some of whom are innocent, it would be less unfair than a fine  that penalises customers, all of whom are innocent.

My plan would also provide a powerful incentive in the workforce to whistleblow on bad practices, as opposed to keeping quiet in the hope that financial gains are passed on as pay rises or bonuses.

[Weaver]

Well, surely more like personally fine all managers. Those employees who have no control over decision-making can not be fined with justification.

But the point is well-made, that the fine as it is makes no sense. I hope that PlusNet first gave all the five hundred grand back, and so this is 880k on top of five hundred grand, or else 380k of actual fine.

Perhaps another approach would be to confiscate shares in the company. And give them to - well there are a number of very good options, too many probably.

[jelv]

@7LM

In the case of Thames Water(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39352755) one of the reports on a news item about it on the TV quoted the notebooks of multiple employees who commented on the issues with "Managers aware" or similar.

Yes, pass the fines on to the staff unless they could prove that they had actively passed the issue up the chain and done all they could.

[Weaver]

In the Thames water case, surely they should have jailed the guy who turned on the tap. Saying they told me to isn't ok since Nürnberg.

[Chrysalis]

ideally the fine would have conditions attached such as preventing price rises after to compensate or taken from shares but we not going to see that in a capitalist economy.

there is no certianty it be paid out of price rises i have seen financial reports where the company simply takes the hit of a fine as a one off loss

[niemand]

All the more disappointing given they won't connect you on the day of your migration to them unless you hassle them, and ensure you are cut off from connectivity within seconds of your contract expiring.

Never had an ISP so obsessed with such things. To think they told me that the reason they were so late in enabling customer accounts was to ensure you didn't pay for access you may not have. 

[renluop]

ideally the fine would have conditions attached such as preventing price rises after to compensate or taken from shares but we not going to see that in a capitalist economy.

there is no certianty it be paid out of price rises i have seen financial reports where the company simply takes the hit of a fine as a one off loss

About 2% of 15/16 net profit, so not particularly significant.