topic Re: 1 days refund??? in Plusnet Feedback

1 days refund???

Grant17375 — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:00:52 GMT

Morning All
This is more a mild niggle than out and out rage, but it feels like a point of principle..
Towards the middle/ end of last week I noticed my service was slower than usual, with youtube, iplayer etc buffering constantly. So come Saturday I spent all day running speed tests (averaging 01.mb download!) cleaning my disk, plugging the ethernet cable in, moving the laptop closer to the router, basically anything I could think of.
After hours and hours of trying different things, I finally reported a broadband fault on Saturday. Aaaaaages later I received a message (on the forum) stating that I had exceeded my monthly allowance. I knew I was nowhere near my allowance so challenged this straight away. I was told an e mail was sent to me on 13/10, so I checked my plusnet squirrelmail and there it was. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't tend to use squirrelmail, as it seems a bit dated.
I called the call centre and the guy on the phone was very helpful and noticed that yes, I was on the wrong profile and had been since the 13/10 when someone, for some mysterious reason, thought I was over my 10gb allowance, when I was sitting happily on 8.5gb. He advised me that this would be rectified.
Anyway, on to the main gripe. I sent a question asking if I could get a alteration to my bill to recognise that, through no fault of my own, I had an unworkable service for 5 days. This morning I find the following message:
"The most we would be able to refund would be one days service at the most, this is because you only contacted us about the issue yesterday."
Are they having a laugh? It doesn't matter WHEN I reported it, it matters when the fault STARTED!! I know 5 days refund compared to one day isn't a lot financially speaking but it's the principle! Through NO fault of my own, iplayer, 4od etc have been unwatchable for almost a week, I have spent hours and hours trying everything I can think of to sort my laptop and the connection and must have run around 20 speed tests..
Like I said, it's not a huge point, and sorry for rambling a bit, but it seems a little too much when they say only one days refund can be applied as it's MY fault I only reported it the previous day (even though it was just after midnight the day before and therefore almost 2 days...)
Thanks for listening.. Plusnet, you're teetering around the bottom of my christmas card list..

Re: 1 days refund???

adamwalker — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:16:37 GMT

Hi Grant17375,
We certainly agree that even thought he amounts are minimal we should have originally agreed to discount the 5 days where you had a deteriorated service. We aren't always able to provide a good will gesture to the full extent of the lost service when faults occur but I get the feeling you wouldn't have complained on here if 5 days were given initially.
Apologies for the way this has been handled and please let me know if you have any further issues dealing with support.
Adam.

Re: 1 days refund???

Grant17375 — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:42:00 GMT

Hi Adam
Thanks for the response. You're totally on the money. If I had been offered 5 days, that would have been that and I would have put it down to one of those things, it was the implication that because I had only reported it the day before, that's all the leeway I was getting, particularly, and I can't stress this enough, the fault happened through no action I had taken. The money wasn't the point, the principle was.
I'm a little worried by you saying this though:
"We aren't always able to provide a good will gesture to the full extent of the lost service when faults occur"
Surely when it's an actual error at Plusnet's end, which was the case with me, as opposed to a service fault, then the customer should ALWAYS get a refund/ bill alteration for the full extent of affected service?
Surely?
Meantime, thanks again for the response...

Re: 1 days refund???

adamwalker — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:51:45 GMT

Hi again Grant17375,
I hear what your saying, that tends only to apply to more protracted faults than the one you experienced. I just wanted to mention that to help set an expectation that where as we don't have a policy of being able to provide direct compensation we do look to provide good will gestures to our customers which are appropriate to the inconvenience caused.