I received an email from PlusNet on the 27 August telling me officially that the terms and conditions were officially changing and that if I did not wish to accept the new terms to contact them. I did so and, as they had to let people migrate with no notice because of the change, I requested my MAC key. My ADSL was migrated to Freedom2surf last Friday (who I am very happy with), and to be on the safe side I cancelled my PlusNet direct debit.

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Today I received an email warning me that they wouldn't be able to take the next payment due on the 15 September (which was the idea), so I called them. The agent I spoke to told me that I had to give 30 days notice and as the 30 days notice fell after my payment date I would have to pay them for that month. Not a chance. I told him that if they insisted on enforcing 30 days notice I would pay them up until the end of the 30 days, but I certainly wasn't paying for any service after the 30 days were up. Then it got interesting.

Their 'Comms Team Leader' abruptly took over the call, the sort of title a company gives to someone they want to keep, but who isn't competent enough to be a manager. He told me, in a very rude manner, that if I didn't pay then my debt would be passed to debt recovery and I would end up with 'a black mark on your credit record.' When I said that I would dispute any charges made to my credit card, he told me that that is my prerogative and promptly put the phone down on me.

By coincidence someone had started a thread on the ADSL Guide forums asking for advice on leaving PlusNet. I posted asking for clarification on whether the 30 day notice period still applied if you rejected the terms and conditions, and Stewart replied that it did not.

The rest writes itself. I was back on the phone to customer services and within 3 minutes of the call being answered my account had been cancelled, with no more to pay. If PlusNet are leaving customer service to the likes of their 'Team Leader' it is no wonder people are leaving in droves. That, combined with the poor download speeds PlusNet customers are seeing (and my move to F2S only confirmed how poor PlusNet has become) should give anyone who's thinking of moving to PlusNet second thoughts.