Beware of misleading emails.

[PDM]

On December 27th l had an email saying my contract was coming to an end and I was offered 3 choices. Either do nothing and continue paying £23-50 or choose from two options which were written underneath. I did nothing and expected to be charged £23-50. This is what happened last year. Today I noticed that they had taken £46-50 from my bank account. On contacting the call centre I was told my discounts had come to an end. There was no mention of this in the email and I expected to continue on £23-50 as quoted. The agent would not honour the offer and I suspect just kept reading from a script. I feel that it is a very underhanded way to almost double your payment without warning. The best he would offer was £32 pm. I've lodged a complaint.

[PDM]

My reading is that discount expires refers to the last option not the first. They are two different options. There is no mention of discounts expiring in the first option only continue at £23-50

It does say continue etc or pick from the packages (plural) below which makes me think the last offer is a different offer to the first one. If it is not why does it say or choose from the two below? If it is a rehash of the first offer then the wording should be changed and the first offer removed and say choose from the two below.

[RoyB]

@PDM 

Agreed. And the scope of that upper-case OR can be taken to include everything that follows it, right to the end of the email.

So there are three options described, one before the OR, and two after it.

If this were computer code, then ‘lazy evaluation’, a well-respected efficiency technique, would allow that the contents of the OR did not need to be considered. Even if they contradicted the statement(s) in the branch already taken.

But this isn’t computer code, so the scope of the OR isn’t explicit. But where might it end, if it doesn’t cover the whole of the remainder of the email?

Well, it might end at that second ‘Anytime calls’. But then what does the rest of it mean? You never get another month, as promised, for £23.50, because before one further month has passed, a discount is removed, increasing the price and breaking the apparent promise.

And we will draw a veil over the fact that the amount of discount that will expire is never stated; we know only that it is one of two discounts totalling £23. And we are also never informed of exactly when the second discount will expire.

But as above, we may interpret the scope of the OR as the whole of the rest of the email, the only explanation that makes any sense.

But the continuing mystery is why @redchiz1 got a perfectly crafted and coherent email, but Now seem to have gone back subsequently to this deeply flawed version 😢

[BFW]

I have an email from mid Dec 2023 saying out of contract, do nothing continue at £21.50 however they are now debiting over £30 for no reason.  My email clearly has the do nothing option and continue at £21.50 first , no mention of price going higher.  It  then has an OR with 3 options.  The wording is clear eveything after the Or is in its own box and part of those options , nothing to do with the bit before the OR . 

The only possible interpretation is that I should be on £21.50 and the billing is wrong .

At least part of the issue is they have reapplied a discounted calls package fee that we paid for  2 years ago but which was not used though.

I have raised a complaint using the suggested link.

[Bubblegumdrops1]

@PDM 

I too had been with Now Broadband for many years and last year had the exact same email I have every year when my contract ends.  Do nothing and stay on your current £23.00 a month or then they provided 1 or 2 more expensive options.  Like others on here I left it as it was a £23.00 per month but then found that they had charged me £42 the following month.  At the time the broadband customer service was in Ireland and the people I spoke to there were adamant that they were perfectly entitled to do as they had because on the back of the second page, in very little writing, it said something about some discounts being ended and hence the new amount being charged.  I spent months back and forth telling them that they were breaking advertising rules as any new payments should be up front, for the customer to see EXACTLY what they expect the customer to pay.   I was all ready to take them to their Ombudsman but unfortunately fell ill, (not Covid!) and as months passed I then realised you needed to report such misdemeanours within so many months of raising a complaint to the company.  I regret to this day not taking the matter further but whilst ill, my thoughts were on other things and I ended up paying double the cost of what I needed to pay.  This way of advertising new prices needs bringing to the attention of the Ombudsman and maybe the OP could do this now? 

[redchiz1]

@Bubblegumdrops1 

Much as I sympathise with anyone who has found lack of clarity with their renewal details, I doubt that the third-party ADR service which NOW subscribe to, which is Cisas rather than the ombudsman, would be able to help given that you are out of contract and thus free to move to another provider without penalty at any time. 

[Bubblegumdrops1]

@redchiz1 

Sorry your answer is incorrect.  I had already spoken to CISAS to get further information but was advised I had to wait until six weeks was up, the time  allowed for NOW Broadband to reply and correct their errors. Then I could lodge my complaint with CISAS. That however, was the time I fell ill and if I remember correctly you then only had so many months to lodge your complaint, with CISAS, after that time. 

However, your point about not being in contract makes no sense either because at the time of receiving the (false) notifications of renewals the person is actually still in contract. The reason one would go to such arbitration services is because the customer would have probably moved to another provider, had they known UPFRONT the actual cost they were expected to pay on renewal.  This was definitely NOT clear at the  time of the renewal notice and breaks also an advertising code, that states the final amount a person is supposed to pay should be shown, upfront and precisely stated, not one amount on the front page and then add a further amount surreptitiously on a later page.  Also the wording of said letter was totally wrong saying if the customer did nothing they would pay the same as they currently were, suggesting it was best that customer’s left things alone,  which then enabled NOW to unethically get more money from them. 

I have written this reply from memory although I do have all the correct terms and documentation filed away, if it should be needed at a later time. 

[Bubblegumdrops1]

*(false) notifications should read (misleading)

[Bubblegumdrops1]

@redchiz1 

@redchiz1 

Do you work for NOW?  I suspect you may do but your analysis of the wording is wrong because the “Your first discount will expire on 18/02/24” (if like my renewal notice) was surreptitiously put at the bottom of the reverse page, in small writing, totally against advertising standards which states, the TOTAL payment the customer is supposed to pay, in future, is to be shown CLEARLY and up front.  This was not done in NOW Broadband’s case. 

[redchiz1]

@Bubblegumdrops1 

No I don't work for NOW and neither do I understand why you would "suspect" that? And how can I be "incorrect" in simply expressing a doubt? Your views themselves are subjective, specifically about the contract question where, whatever the perceived failings or otherwise of certain wording in the emails, the fact that they were clearly referring to a contract ending is not in any doubt.