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Author Topic: Very confused bill  (Read 4832 times)

adslmax

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Very confused bill
« on: May 07, 2021, 06:38:51 PM »

My parents got PN offer £22.50 a month from April 2021 on a new 24 months contract signed and got latest bill today May 2021 but both the offer deal doesn't match the latest bill as the bill come at £20.00 instead of £22.50?

Should my parents phoned up plusnet enquired of this bill error? The latest bill seem very confusion by PN. Not very clear!





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« Last Edit: May 07, 2021, 06:46:04 PM by adslmax »
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2021, 08:14:21 PM »

Personally I'd wait until the NEXT bill and see what that says.
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tiffy

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2021, 09:52:26 AM »

Confusing/incorrect billing from Plusnet?
Surely not, you must be mistaken!!  :-\
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kitz

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2021, 07:05:09 AM »

It appears to be correct to me - assuming that the previous cost was £25.00 minus £1.25 referrals (£23.75).
In May 2021 you should make a payment of £18.75, then it will revert to £22.50.    Its easy enough to figure out once you realise that it must have been too late or too far into your April payment for that to be processed at the new rate.  As such they owe you £2.50 for April's overpayment, which will be deducted from the May payment....  making May's bill £18.75.

Lets go through this step by step. 

 
 
It looks like when you rang up to negotiate the new price in April, that the old rates were already going through the system and you ended up paying the old amount for April rather than the new amount you had just agreed.   

Whilst it may appear complicated (and it is to look at face value - especially to those of us who may not realise how much you paid in April and not knowing how much you used to pay before Apr) IMO it's more lacking in detailed descriptions.  As far as the amounts go,  the PN billing system always works using the full (pre-discount)  individual amount for each element and then applying the discount separately. 

I believe they have to do it like this because broadband and telephone contracts may be on differing expiry dates and/or that the discounts they offered you only runs for a certain no of months.  eg its quite typical from days of old that phone contracts always ran for 12 months whilst broadband may be on a 12/18/24 month contract.   Because they work with the individual elements, the PN billing system cant cope with just a single discount total and apply them individually.  It was designed like this because years ago many people may have just used PN for broadband and had their phone was elsewhere.  It has to show the full (pre-discount) amounts because that is what you will pay once your discount period is up. 

Once you understand how and why they split up the elements like this, it's not as complicated as it looks... and even though I don't have the benefit of last months bill I can still re-construct these figures.

This looks like what you were previously paying before April

Code: [Select]
Element Full Price Discount New Cost

Line Rental 19.99 0.00 19.99
Call Plan 9.00 9.00 0.00
Fibre 15.99 10.98 5.01
========== ====== ===== =====
Total 44.98 19.98 25.00
Less Referrals -1.25
========= ===== ===== =====
Amount Due 23.75
.....  and this is the new payment plan that you agreed to.

Code: [Select]
Element Full Price Discount New Cost

Line Rental 20.29 0.00 20.29
Call Plan 9.00 9.00 0.00
Fibre 16.23 14.02 2.21
========== ======= ===== =====
Total 45.52 23.02 22.50
Less Referrals -1.25
========= ===== ===== =====
Amount Due 21.25



Now that I have all those figures, I can see exactly what they've done to compensate that you paid £23.75 on the 14th of April instead of £21.25 and thus had overpaid by £2.50.

The simplified bill for May 2021 should be

Code: [Select]
New Monthly Cost 22.50
Less referrals -1.25
=====
S/T 21.25
Minus Apr overpay -2.50
=====
Total due May 2021 18.75


....  which is what it says on your bill.  Next month's bill should be more straight forward without any adjustments.
 
I've added some notes to your bill that explains each step and re-uploaded it.   Whilst there is an error in one of their descriptors, the amounts are all correct.
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kitz

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2021, 07:37:34 AM »

Sheesh, I'd love to know how the heck you manage to drive them down so low.  The nearest I've gotten to that is about a quid or so for the dsl but still had to pay the full line rental & call plan amount. OR they will discount the call plan.  afaik they dont/wont heavily discount the dsl aspect AND give a free call plan.

Off the top of my head the WBC FTTC port cost is about £15 pm pre VAT and nor does that include bandwidth and MSIL costs.   
Surely that has got to be loss making for them, which is ironic in terms of your support requirements.

I know that most of the profit for the SP comes from Line Rental.... but even so WLR line rental inc VAT is just shy of a tenner, so what you're paying each month doesn't even cover WLR and the port cost in the cab, nvm your calls and bandwidth. 

Since its taken me a while to type all this out, please can you give me some tips on what you say to consistently be able to get such good deals....  either that or I need to get you phone up for me  :D   That reminds me I need to check my parents as Im sure thats due.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2021, 07:43:32 AM by kitz »
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parkdale

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2021, 11:35:41 AM »

Vodafone has streamlined my reductions :) currently £21.35pm for BB part, but last November down to £18.23 that's for 80/20 broadband +all calls including mobile from landline. Since then i've got the mobile part down to £10pm.
Reason for big reduction because they hadn't applied slow BB discount for 9 months.
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kitz

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2021, 01:10:57 PM »

>> £18.23

Nice.   I do wish though that we didn't have to do all this shopping around each year and trying to get discounts.   I'd rather discounts were not "new customers only".   I did think about going with Vodafone at one time because of the pricing, but in the end I decided not to because 1) the SHINE problem I have on this line, and they use the Standard profile.  2) Static IP - not as important these days but was handy when I ran a  server. 3) It was at the time when you had to use their modem.
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adslmax

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2021, 03:28:30 PM »

It appears to be correct to me - assuming that the previous cost was £25.00 minus £1.25 referrals (£23.75).
In May 2021 you should make a payment of £18.75, then it will revert to £22.50.    Its easy enough to figure out once you realise that it must have been too late or too far into your April payment for that to be processed at the new rate.  As such they owe you £2.50 for April's overpayment, which will be deducted from the May payment....  making May's bill £18.75.

Thanks already told my parents their bill go back to normal at £22.50 per month minus referral from me £1.25 = £21.25 per months for next 23 months but not sure if it will be fixed price or will go up 3.9% in June.
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adslmax

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2021, 03:40:40 PM »

My Plusnet contract finished next month June 2021.

My offer deal in the last 12 months are:

A breakdown of your monthly bill is as follows:

Unlimited fibre extra broadband service: £0.96 per month for 12 months then £20.99 per month
line rental saver: paid until 21-06-2021
call plan:N/A
Total: £0.96

Discount applied: (12 months) £20.03

Next week I will phone up plusnet to see what offer will they given to me don't think they will offer me £20.03 discount this time!

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parkdale

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2021, 06:14:23 PM »

I get my comeuppance later when I renew my current contract - Vodafone has split the BB into 3 sections now, and to get the same deal is now called  "New Vodafone Pro Xtra" £43.00 :o I doubt they will carry on with the current contract.
So more shopping around :( , still they can have their doorstep back ;D
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adslmax

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Re: Very confused bill
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2021, 04:53:55 PM »

Updated:

Plusnet agree to renewal my FTTC 80/20 with line rental (no call plan) 12 months contract from next month total £20 a month  ;D Happy overall.
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