topic Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility in Plusnet Feedback

Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

ayuplad — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:45:19 GMT

It is now 9 days since BT sent contractors to my road to clear the trees around the phone lines running down there. Unfortunately, they weren't very careful and broke my line. The ends are dangling from the two poles at either side. The reason for the absence of broadband and phone on the line is therefore abundantly clear. I would have thought that the solution is also fairly clear.
As far as I can tell the contractors diligently ignored the dangling wires they left behind and didn't trouble themsleves with telling anyone at BT. I reported the fault to Plusnet within hours. Plusnet tested the line and acknowledged there was a fault outside my premises during my initial call. After sitting on their hands for the next 40 hours, Plusnet finally reported the fault to BT Wholesale.
Now, as the fault was caused by BT's contractors, I would have hoped that they would have reported the damage immediately to BT (perhaps a bit too optimistic of me). However, once BT were (finally) made aware, I would have expected them to promptly repair the damage but no, wrong again.
So with the damage done Wednesday afternoon, reported on Wednesday evening, and Plusnet getting round to mentioning it to BT on Friday, I finally got a note saying that the estimated repair time was 5pm on Tuesday which, apart from the unnecessary delay due to Plusnet, I could have lived with. However, on Tuesday, the repair estimate became 5pm on Wednesday. Whilst Plusnet reaffirmed the Wednesday repair time on Wednesday morning - nothing happened. Now it's Friday and the responses from Plusnet are getting more vague. Now rather then commit to anything useful, Plusnet are just going to pop their head in to BT every 24-48 hours to see if they have felt like getting on with the job.
Now I am fully aware that Plusnet don't have any chaps to go out fixing their irritating customers demands to have a working phone line and instead have to rely on BT Wholesale. However, as their customer they have an obligation to do what they can to provide the service they are charging me for. If I am not allowed access to BTW then I have to rely on Plusnet to chase BTW to get the job done. Unfortunately, that just seems like too much effort. It seems it is much easier to just keep fobbing me off with ever less committed responses than actually finding out why nothing is happening.
The irony is that each message reassures me that BT "engineers are currently working on your fault". The fault is a broken wire on the road by my house. To work on it they would need to be there with a ladder and a new bit of cable. Absolutely nothing has happened and no one has been sited near the broken wires. Quite how that equates to working on the fault I don't know - maybe they are just lying!
Plusnet, stopping fobbing people off with half-hearted, inaccurate, recycled reports and get on the phone to BT and explain to them that you are their customer, they broke the line and they should get on with fixing it.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

orbrey — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:22:40 GMT

Hi there,
I'm sorry that it's been off for so long and can completely understand your frustration. Unfortunately aside from the message issued earlier today (that an engineer has now been assigned) there isn't any further information available and until the engineer notes are added on completion of his investigation we won't be able to find out anything more even by calling, as we'll be told we need to wait for the engineer's notes.
I'll keep checking on the fault status for you and let you know as soon as we hear anything back - hopefully that should be later on today (once an engineer is assigned there's usually a fairly rapid resolution) but I'm afraid we can't make any guarantees.
I realise this isn't a good message and apologise for that. As I said we'll let you know as soon as we have any more information.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

jelv — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:44:31 GMT

Adam,
You've failed to tell him about the free redirection of his incoming calls to a mobile phone which BT Retail would offer in the same circumstances.
You've failed to tell him about the pro-rata refund he will receive for the time he is without any services.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

orbrey — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:43:15 GMT

Jelv,

Quote from: jelv
Adam,

Really?

Quote from: jelv
You've failed to tell him about the free redirection of his incoming calls to a mobile phone which BT Retail would offer in the same circumstances.

Unfortunately those are chargeable and will be billed at the standard mobile rate. I'm not sure if this can be added after a fault is raised but will check, and will also check on whether it was offered in the first place (and feed back as necessary).

Quote from: jelv
You've failed to tell him about the pro-rata refund he will receive for the time he is without any services.

We'll be more than happy to apply this once the fault is resolved, as ever

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

godsell4 — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:46:38 GMT

If BT is your line provider, BT will direct all calls to a number of your choice, including mobile numbers, while your phone line is down, this redirect is free.
nb. fixed typo, put ISP instead of line provider

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

itsme — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:03:34 GMT

That should be if BT are your telephony provider not your ISP.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

godsell4 — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:05:53 GMT

Yep, whoops a typo.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

ayuplad — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:03:56 GMT

Thanks godsell4.
Plusnet is both the broadband and the telephony provider in this case. There had been no mention of diverts or pro rata refunds until Matt stepped in.
Frankly, I think charging for a divert is ridiculous when providing it free should be the least that is done.
Secondly, a pro rata refund is really not going to make up for the inconvenience of having no phone or BB for nearly two weeks. It wouldn't be so bad if it was "just one of those things" but the line was broken by BT's own contractors cutting down trees (and apparently phone lines too). You'd think that might encourage BT to sort it out promptly. They are more than happy to charge you £60 if you do something silly but they won't accept responsibility for the consequences of their own actions and of course Plusnet aren't prepared to do anything beyond the occasional meek enquiry to BT about when they might actually start repairing the line.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

orbrey — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:35:59 GMT

The trouble is when we contact to chase a fault we speak to a callcentre, we don't have any direct access to people doing the work either. I assure you we are chasing and will update as soon as we can, I'm sorry it's been going on so long.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

ayuplad — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:34:10 GMT

I appreciate it may be difficult for you individually to get to know what's going on but as a company Plusnet must carry some weight with BT and so they should be putting pressure on to get the service improved otherwise BT will go blithely on providing the same old rubbish service thinking everyone is happy!

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

orbrey — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:40:19 GMT

The delay at the start was because the fault was raised as a noisy line rather than line damage (those reports are dealt with generally more quickly), we've listened to the call and there was some doubt at the time over whether the line was actually damaged or not which is why it was raised as such.
We're currently arranging some refresher training for our faults team to improve the handling of faults with the home phone service.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

ayuplad — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:48:50 GMT

You may have listened to the call but as I recall, I was quite clear that there had been contractors cutting trees around the line and that I suspected they had damaged it. As it was dark, I couldn't see the (clear during daylight) damage to the line and no one asked me to confirm.
Your chap told me that he had confirmed the fault was not on my property during that first call. There was no dial tone and no broadband sync. I'm no telephone engineer and no detective but surely the conbination of contractors cutting trees, no dial tone and no sync would lead to the conclusion of line damage and not line noise. I'm aftraid your excuse is rather lame!

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

ayuplad — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:38:49 GMT

After one poster mentioned the possibility of a pro-rata refund, Matt Taylor said "We'll be more than happy to apply this once the fault is resolved, as ever".
His offer not to charge when no service is being provided was appreciated. The sad thing is neither Matt nor any of his colleagues actually followed through. Whilst the fault was resolved over a week ago, no one has been in touch to offer this refund. I have now had to explicitly ask for it. I have also asked for a refund of the premium rate phone call I had to make from my mobile to report the fault and the £20 of cellular data I had to pay for whilst I had not internet. I haven't mentioned the calls I had to make from my mobile instead of the landline.
Now I'm just waiting for the old patter about not giving compensation, even when they cut through your phone line, before I vote with my feet, order a MAC code and give SKY a whirl!

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

grudkin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:58:41 GMT

Quote from: ayuplad
Now I'm just waiting for the old patter about not giving compensation, even when they cut through your phone line, before I vote with my feet, order a MAC code and give SKY a whirl!

Do you really honestly think things would have been handled any differently by B$kyB or any other phone provider/ISP for that matter?
BT is to blame, end of!

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

orbrey — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:08:22 GMT

Hi ayuplad,
I've added a response to the ticket, I'm sorry for the delay in coming back to you. I hope that helps.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

ayuplad — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:04:11 GMT

Quote from: grudkin
Quote from: ayuplad
Now I'm just waiting for the old patter about not giving compensation, even when they cut through your phone line, before I vote with my feet, order a MAC code and give SKY a whirl!

Do you really honestly think things would have been handled any differently by B$kyB or any other phone provider/ISP for that matter?
BT is to blame, end of!

I don't know how any other ISP would have responded and I appreciate that it all ends up back at BT but Plusnet need to do their bit right before it goes into the hands of BT (which I don't think they did) and they need to use their relationship with BT to get BT to pull their finger out or else nothing will change. In fact because BT no longer have any irritating end users bothering them, it would be easy for them to become complacent unless the bad feedback is passed on by intermediaries. I'd love to speak to BT about their incompetence but I can't which is why I have to take out my frustration on Plusnet in the hope that they might take it up with their supplier!

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

David_W — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:15:51 GMT

If PlusNet or indeed BT (different section to the one that comes out and fiddles with the wires) were to use any influence on BT then it would be illegal (unfair competition), all ISP's that use the BT infrastructure (including BT themselves) have to be treated equally, the major difference is in how ISP's treat their customers. PlusNet are generally very good with customer support and if you post on this forum (as you've found out) you'll get world class support which you may not get with other ISP's. I'm not sure many ISP's would give a goodwill gesture too after a problem, it's mostly "it was broke, we fixed it, that's all she wrote". With other ISP's you may have spent hours on the phone to an 0844 number not getting anywhere fast and no way of checking the status of your faults. PlusNet are not perfect, but they are pretty darn good.

Re: Plusnet wash their hands of responsibility

PeterLoftus — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:57:32 GMT

Ayup Ayuplad
I think you know all that
Best of luck with your case
Opeanreach wont talk to us common customers so what can you do!
one Yorky to another