Does an online contract upgrade mean anything?
Discussion
I clicked through an upgrade to my Broadband plan on Wednesday, and the prices were great - 200MB for £12 per month, but if I upgrade to 900MB, it was £2 per month.
I clicked to accept the 900MB upgrade and received a confirmation email saying that I had upgraded my plan and that it was going to be billed at £2 per month just as the website said.
In this email was a pdf with the title "pre contract" confirming the plan details, in it was this section describing two discounts as:
Discounts
£29.00 Save £29. Monthly price including discount: £31.00
£29.00 Your in contract discount (£29 per month) expires after 24 months.. Monthly price including discount: £2.00
And then in the big red box
Total Monthly price (excluding any insurance products) £2.00
Great - just as I agreed.
My upgrade went ahead as planned this morning and I now have 900MB to my desk. But now they have sent me another email saying that the plan cost is actually £31 per month with another pdf attached saying £31 pm.
I guess my question is, how can I make them stick to the price that I clicked on and accepted, and was described in the pre-contract they sent me...
It sounds like something might have gone wrong at their end but that's not my problem (is it), I agreed a contract for 900MB BB for 24 Months at £2 per month and I would quite like to have it......
I clicked to accept the 900MB upgrade and received a confirmation email saying that I had upgraded my plan and that it was going to be billed at £2 per month just as the website said.
In this email was a pdf with the title "pre contract" confirming the plan details, in it was this section describing two discounts as:
Discounts
£29.00 Save £29. Monthly price including discount: £31.00
£29.00 Your in contract discount (£29 per month) expires after 24 months.. Monthly price including discount: £2.00
And then in the big red box
Total Monthly price (excluding any insurance products) £2.00
Great - just as I agreed.
My upgrade went ahead as planned this morning and I now have 900MB to my desk. But now they have sent me another email saying that the plan cost is actually £31 per month with another pdf attached saying £31 pm.
I guess my question is, how can I make them stick to the price that I clicked on and accepted, and was described in the pre-contract they sent me...
It sounds like something might have gone wrong at their end but that's not my problem (is it), I agreed a contract for 900MB BB for 24 Months at £2 per month and I would quite like to have it......
Sebring440 said:
So clearly, the £2 was "£2 extra". That must have been explained at some point?
nope - I thought that must be it at first but that's not it - I think what happened is that their system on Wednesday was configured so as to count the £29 discount twice when it should have only counted it once. How was I to know that this was an error at their end, for all I know, they are trying to incentivise people to get onto the 900MB package for other reasons?But that's not really my problem, and the documentation I received on Weds clearly shows the "total price to pay" was £2 as it did when I clicked accept to the T's and C's online and the pre contract pdf they immediately sent me confirms this.
TimmyMallett said:
I don't think you have any right to enforce a seller to sell you something at a certain price, they can just refund you and withdraw it.
That is what I thought I recalled as well - I want to say there was some Tesco pricing glitch a number of years ago and they just told everone it was a mistake and cancelled the orders..... But still I'd quite like to have the service I upgraded to at the price that they promised me I could have it at..
E-bmw said:
Don't forget that ultimately there is always the option to invoke the "cooling off period" and pull out.
If you haven't sorted it out 100% by then you need to pull out before then or you have no way out.
I phoned them this morning and spoke to a call center person and tried to explain that they should honour the contract they formed with me......They didn't really have any clue and suggested I go to a store to show them the email I received with the contract in it promising me that the person in store will 100% be able to fix it for me If you haven't sorted it out 100% by then you need to pull out before then or you have no way out.
However - completely separately, I've just received a phonecall from the UK customer relations team who it turns out are phoning everyone who clicked upgrade on Wednesday to tell them that there had been an error at their end (No S Shirlock), and that as a gesture of goodwill, they would extend the cooling off period to 30 days instead of the normal 14.........
I told them that wasn't what I wanted - I wanted them to honour the contract that I clicked / accepted / formed with them and I'd quite like my super fast BB for £2 per month........They have escalated it to a complaints team who are going to get back to me
Ham_and_Jam said:
Hopefully the OP will let us know what the outcome is.
Nothing much to report so far - The chap I spoke to the other day opened a complaint case on my behalf and the complaints team are due to contact me within 7 days. He advised that it would likely be next week that I hear from them. I've gone and re-looked at the document they sent me initially. The contract they emailed me says nothing itself about errors, although there is a link to a T's and C's web page in it - (I won't post the actual wording on the terms web page so as not to fall foul of the naming and shaming).
Online, it does say something about them being able to refuse to accept an order if a pricing error is made - Although here, I would say they haven't refused the order as they have gone on and delivered the service to me with no further input required? (so I am going to say this bit can't therefore apply)
It then goes on to say that they are not legally obliged to supply services before the contract is completed and that the contract is completed only when the products are dispatched.
Being as this was broadband using my existing equipment and it went live on Friday morning, and nothing new was needed to be dispatched to achieve this, I'm not sure what that means in terms of when the contract was formed. An argument could be made that it might be formed when the service goes live?
On Friday morning, they sent me an email at 6.55am with the new price in the body of the email, and they sent the different contract (pdf) with the more expensive pricing at 9am on the 26th - i.e. the day the BB was upgraded.
BUT the 900MB package had already been enabled before either of the emails landed in my inbox - I was up early that day and knowing that it was due to go live, I ran a speed test at 5.52AM and got 932.57/932.51.down/up .....My internet history / cache on my work machine proves this.... See attached screenshot (Thankyou Chrome on Apple) :
I am obviously not a lawyer, and only really in this for the enjoyment value, but on my reading of the paperwork, and the order of things happening, I think they might have messed up....
At least that is what I am going to try and say if I speak to the complaints team and they look to play hardball....
fat80b said:
Ham_and_Jam said:
Hopefully the OP will let us know what the outcome is.
At least that is what I am going to try and say...They confirmed that it had been an error on their part and not mine, and that they would do the right thing and honour the deal.
i.e. I now have 900MB Fibre broadband for £2 per month for the next 24 months.
Which works out as a saving of £1392 to me off the standard price, or £696 less than what they should have charged me without their pricing error
The £2 will go up by CPI so at some point, but I can probably live with that!
So I guess the outcome is that the online contract did mean something in this case, and it was worth me saying no the first offer of an extended cooling off period in order to hold them to their word. Beyond that, I didn't have to argue at all.
Lots of companies could learn a thing or two in terms of customer service - The way they have handled it has been pretty damn good to be honest. I always spoke to the same person - they called me back exactly when they said they would, and they did what I wanted. A good experience all round.
Tebbers said:
BlueMR2 said:
It wasn't Virgin Media from the information given.
Yep, the customer service was far too good. (I’m interpreting the name and shame to mean I shouldn’t really identify the company even though they’ve been quite good in this case otherwise I’d just say who they are)
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