Price not as stated

[Evocoz]

Received an email saying if I do nothing my bill will be &23.50 yet month after it's £43. Called customer service and what a surprise they won't refund me, currently in process of reporting to ofcom and financial ombudsman 

[PDM]

@redchiz1 

I would be grateful if either of you could let me know how to either post the email or a copy of the message in my NOW account. I'm using Gmail and being in my mid 70s I'm not very computer literate.

I can assure you that I did not miss anything out of my original post apart from speeds. I will be happy to forward a copy of the email to prove I'm telling the truth and allay your scepticism

Do nothing and continue with your existing membership for £23.50 a month is all it says before the or.

[RoyB]

@PDM 

Personally, I'm happy with the typed version, as it appears in the 

https://community.nowtv.com/t5/Account-and-Billing-Broadband/Beware-of-misleading-emails/td-p/619599...

thread.

But for anyone who isn’t, should that arise, you would need to print out the email, redact any personal information by going over it with a black marker pen, and then scan it, or perhaps more easily take a photo of it on an iPad or a mobile phone, and then from that device, post it here by starting a reply, clicking the camera icon above, and including the photo via the dialogue you get with the camera icon.

But let’s see if anyone is that demanding of you first 😛

[redchiz1]

@PDM 

Hi, as I said in your own thread my only query was what does this bit mean and to what exactly does it refer? "Your first discount will expire on 18/02/24."

I don't get it to be honest and you will do best to ask NOW directly. 

[Jayach]

---

@redchiz1 wrote:

@PDM 

Hi, as I said in your own thread my only query was what does this bit mean and to what exactly does it refer? "Your first discount will expire on 18/02/24."

I don't get it to be honest and you will do best to ask NOW directly. 

---

To me that is obvious. It means your first (i.e. current) discount ends 18/02/24. The query is how would you like to continue? And the obvious answer would be, do nothing and continue on the same price.

[RoyB]

@Jayach @PDM @Evocoz @redchiz1 

Just when I thought we’d got it straight 😢

What it means is that if you do nothing, Now will shortly afterwards increase your monthly payment by whatever that discount amount (unspecified) is, leaving a further discount amount, the amount of which can then be deduced, still operating, but for an unspecified period.

What it means is clear enough; what is in dispute is its applicability, as any sensible reading of the email carries the clear interpretation that if you elect to do nothing, you can ignore anything after the OR, and Now should be honouring that for you.

[RoyB]

@redchiz1 

Agreed, though the offending sentence was the first in the email. But I thought Now had remedied the issue since, with the exemplary clarity of the email you quoted; so I am surprised that we have not just one, but two recent complaints about the wording.

Maybe the master template for the form letters slipped back a release 😛

But whatever, we need to see the actual email people are complaining about.

[redchiz1]

@RoyB 

Yep. And until and unless they post again we will remain none the wiser. 

[PDM]

@RoyB 

@redchiz1 

I will keep you informed. I raised a complaint and I am waiting a reply. I hope that I don't have to take it further.

[PDM]

@RoyB 

@redchiz1 

To keep you informed below is the relevant part of the reply I received from Now dismissing my complaint. I have asked for a deadlock letter so I can take it to CISAS, I note no mention of why the word or is in the offer,

Investigating your account I can see the price increase was due to your offer contract expiring and you then spoke with an agent about this and got a new offer applied. 

Regarding the emails that were sent to make you aware your contract was coming to an end, I can completely understand if the information seems confusing but if you read further down the email, it does explain exactly what offers would be ending and when.

[RoyB]

@PDM 

Yes, the whole thing turns on the scope of the OR. Written English is not as precise as computer code, but I think the man on the Clapham omnibus would be entirely justified in thinking it covered the whole of the rest of the email, and that the OR had been put in capitals precisely to make this scope clear.

There are further difficulties for Now if they want to argue that that last line is outside the scope of the OR, since by not specifying the amount of the discount that would be coming to an end, they have broken the requirement to inform the customer of precisely what the new payment going forward would be.

You might also usefully note here that you don’t actually need a deadlock letter, as long as eight weeks have elapsed since you raised your complaint. So Now can’t stall an application to CISAS by simply not sending you, or delaying sending you, a dedlock letter beyond this point.