Ads watchdog tells Plusnet: There's no way unlimited business broadband costs £4.50 Two Plusnet adverts selling business broadband have been ruled "misleading" by the UK Advertising Standards Agency. The ads, which were seen on Facebook in March, had headlines claiming unlimited business broadband from £4.50 a month. But the small print said an extra £10.50 a month would be required in line rental. Plusnet …
@ Doctor Syntax: "You think BT should provide you with a free line to connect your modem to?"
I rent my electricity and the cable in included in the price, the same should go for 'broadband'. The pricing scheme is deliberately designed to confuse people. Basic, unlimited, super-fast, limited period, annual contract, modem delivery fee, engineer call-out fee etc ...
"why shouldn't the electricity grid charge people for the luxury of using their cables?"
They already do. The grid, like everything else, is ultimately paid for by Joe Public. But Gridco doesn't charge Joe Public directly, Gridco's costs are passed on via a maze of twisty intermediaries, all alike and yet all different.
How those intermediaries and middlemen and generators and retailers and what have you actually choose to pass on those costs to the end users is a matter for discussion. But Gridco already charges people for tuxury of using their cables, in one way or another.
"Plusnet said it did not have to since a router was not a compulsory purchase."
Admittedly this is from a domestic rather than business point of view, but all of the '£7.99 router delivery charge" fees that I have ever seen didn't give an option to say "No thank you, I'd rather use my own".
Correct, Plusnet don't make you use their router - they are quite happy for you to use your own. Unlike some other providers who insist on you using their crippled and probably bug ridden carp, with remote config and updates hardcoded to on so they can change your settings whenever they like.
And in business, there are very often good technical reasons for not using the ISPs router - mainly to do with full access to firewalls, VPN support, etc, etc. At my last job, I'd say that more of our business customers used a router we provided than used an ISP provided one.
"Plusnet defended the ad, claiming that because the adverts were aimed at business users, who they described as having a "higher level of competence and knowledge than a typical consumer", the exclusion of line rental from the headline price was acceptable."
That's a nice assertion from Plusnet that their "consumers" (I dislike that word, why are we never "customers" any more!) are less intelligent and more easily misled.
"consumers" (I dislike that word, why are we never "customers" any more!)
Looking at the context it seems they're dividing customers into two classes, consumers, by which they appear to mean domestic, and business which is fair enough. But actually TFA says "users" rather than "customers" so you may have a point. However my experience is that "customer" is actually an over-used word, especially when the likes of HMRC start using it.
That's a nice assertion from Plusnet that their "consumers" (I dislike that word, why are we never "customers" any more!) are less intelligent and more easily misled.
But isn't it the ASA saying "consumers" are more stupid, telling PlusNet and others that they have to explain it to "consumers" but hadn't, until now, insisted they must do the same for "business" customers?
If the ASA had done the right thing in the first place, insisted all advertised pricing must be clear and obvious to anyone, there likely wouldn't have been a problem, PlusNet would likely not have tried to scam businesses in the way it was no longer allowed to scam customers.
My misses was a business customer of theirs and I'd say that when it comes to technology, she's thick as mince.
Fortunately I'm less so (debatable..) and told her how much it'd really cost her, including a router that was suitable for her needs.
N.b. she's much cleverer than me at the majority of things in life.
You have to remember that a "business user" doesn't just mean companies with thousands of employees and a dedicated IT team, but small companies with just one or two employees. Those employees probably know an awful lot about their field of work, but no more than the average consumer about IT.
"Those [companies] probably know an awful lot about their field of work, but no more than the average consumer about IT."
Perhaps these companies should seek professional advice/support from someone demonstrably competent in the IT/network field then? Same as they should for plumbing, lectricking, doctoring, what have you?
NB they're not necessarily small companies either. BA and Equifax and TalkTalk aren't small companies, are they, to name but three.
UK ISP Metronet was a small company. But they were a very interesting ISP, until Plusnet took them over.
described as having a "higher level of competence and knowledge than a typical consumer"
That is such an cheesy and arrogant defence, using fancy words to state they thought their general non business customer was stupid so it was ok to flagrantly mislead rather than only slightly mislead.
Why not spell out their adverts so the 'children' or pet animals can't understand.
Strange.
I commented on those exact same ads and had a PlusNet person tell me that it was all fine.
My comments were basically the same concerns - not stating line rental was necessary, not stating VAT or not, "unlimited" without clarification, etc. etc.
They dismissed them but others were complaining too.
Sorry, Plusnet, but you've really gone downhill if you're resorting to those kinds of tactics, especially against businesses (which hopefully are collectively less stupid than the general populace).
At this point, I'd be happy getting an ISP who was just upfront about everything. Even A&A has a "line-only" broadband that's basically a con and works out to much more than just a normal line and includes... putting in a line that has a voice service that just isn't used.
I honestly don't get why honest business is so hard.
"I honestly don't get why honest business is so hard."
I don't think it's possible any more. At one end honesty doesn't sell and at the other it's impossible to comply with regulations (my favorites are all the things you have to do before employing anyone... who is supposed to do them if there are no employees?)
Reputation no longer counts for anything when it's trivial to fake a reputation with 100 positive Amazon or eBay reviews.
Typically because it simply isn't possible to provide a decent broadband service for the price they charge you...
...so they make up their loss with the price difference between the BT Wholesale line price and the line rental they charge you.
If they didn't charge you line rental, then their price would be completely unsustainable.
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Whereas the old provider might go along with the notion that there is nothing wrong with the infrastructure, the new provider might not subscribe to that view, and will kick ass accordingly. This is the experience I have observed at first hand from the ISP I recommend who are, incidentally, so confident about their service that their contract length is one month.
On the west side of the Pond, we could use someone to at least try to keep ads honest and which actually did something, unlike the fed here. You rarely see an ad over here without lots of fine print and additional little footnotes in 1 point font where even there they don't tell you the actual price of anything.
As evidence, I submit an ad I got from AT&T that told me I could have fiber broadband for only $50/month. But I noticed the fine print and footnotes that mentioned "introductory price" and added that some vague "other required services" were not included. So even in the fine print/footnotes you couldn't know the actual price of this service. I didn't feel like being "serviced" by AT&T, so I binned it, of course.
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