topic Re: £50 engineer charge + general incompentence in Plusnet Feedback

£50 engineer charge + general incompentence

wordsfan1 — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 18:15:22 GMT

Plusnet already know all this but if any other customers can advise how I might finally get this resolved it would be much appreciated.
Reported fault 12 days ago. Engineer did something and made mattered slightly better temporarily. But not completely fixed fault at any stage. (Fuzzy and clicky phone line. Very slow internet, internet gone completely frequently).
Cut to now, I think approx 8 hours on phone so far. Spoken to several tech team call handlers 3 team leaders.
Have been spoken to and dealt with very rudely at times.
Current situation can't get another engineer our as there's potential of £50 charge being applied to my account which especially 9 days before Christmas I cannot afford!
During last conversation with a team leader was told through conversation :
Charge will not apply in certain circumstances
Charge wouldn't be applied till after Christmas
They would refund the charge if it were applied
They will waive the charge (but apparently waiving in their dictionary means a refund when told how that would work.
I started this phone call asking to speak to someone more senior than a team leader.
Was repeatedly told that there was no point 'they can't do anything different than what I'll do' really? So what's the point of them being more senior then!?
So...tomorrow will be day 13. Being told I'll get a call before midday. Not holding my breath.
Plusnet used to be great. My experience this year has been dreadful!
I just want working WiFi, I don't even care about the phone as I hardly use it. But apparently you can't just have WiFi.
I don't think it's too much to ask.
I've also been told contradictory information of what's on the fault report, including apparently there was no engineer booked for this morning (so my daughter and I must have imagined that phone call to arrange the time then!). That the fault is 'closed' etc
I can see briefly from the forum post titles I am FAR from the only one experiencing problems.
Anyone actually got anywhere getting problems resolved recently?

Re: £50 engineer charge + general incompentence

chenks76 — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 08:59:13 GMT

the charge for an openreach engineers is standard practice and only applies if the fault is inside your property at a point AFTER the master socket.
this applies to all openreach callouts.

Re: £50 engineer charge + general incompentence

aesmith — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 12:03:31 GMT

I've seen all sorts of definitions for where a charge will apply, and I think this is one area where the ISP's attitude helps or hinders in terms of how much the push back. When I was with BT the charge applied for a "customer equipment" fault, which sounds all right except that BT's definition of "customer equipment fault" was that there was no fault found elsewhere, so they'd raise these charges on an intermittent fault if it wasn't apparent when they visited.
I've seen at least two definitions from Plusnet, one was "should an engineer find the cause of the fault to be on your internal wiring or setup" and another was "If the engineer finds the fault to be within the boundaries of your property," the latter one being quite concerning because it suggests they'd try the charge if the fault was within BT's own cabling or equipment if it happens to be within your boundary.

Re: £50 engineer charge + general incompentence

chenks76 — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 12:11:56 GMT

they both mean the same thing.
"with the boundaries" means anything beyond the master socket.
the only addendum to that would be if the master socket has been tampered with.

Re: £50 engineer charge + general incompentence

davidj66 — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 13:59:32 GMT

Quote from: chenks76
they both mean the same thing.
"with the boundaries" means anything beyond the master socket.
the only addendum to that would be if the master socket has been tampered with.

...not quite correct -I've seen a customer of BT charged because the underground cable to the external junction box was damaged -and they blamed "gardening damage" ie someone had allegedly damaged the wires with a spade/fork.Also heard of charges raised when the external cable was routed along a wall and had become damaged by outside causes.

Re: £50 engineer charge + general incompentence

aesmith — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:11:54 GMT

Quote from: chenks76
they both mean the same thing.

Maybe intended to, but they don't say the same thing.

Quote from: chenks76
"with the boundaries" means anything beyond the master socket.

Ditto. It may be what was intended but it doesn't say that, and what they say doesn't mean what you claim - or not to an normal person reading the text. "Within the boundaries" means "Within the boundaries", it is not qualified in any way to exclude BT's own wiring or equipment.

Re: £50 engineer charge + general incompentence

rongtw — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 16:43:43 GMT

MM BT charges weird , Mother in law had no master socket in her house , only a wall mounted phone point.
Now where the BT cable entered her house the cable went under the floorboards to the socket , this was where the problem was .
BT fitted a master socket where the cable entered the house , BUT charged her £120