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£2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

seanballard66
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎18-05-2012

£2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

what a great company (not!) five days to fix a fault then an insulting £2.16 pro rata payment that I had to request.. I will be off to bt as soon as infinity installation is possible .So much for their great costumer service I wasn't told about diverting calls to my mobile and wouldn't let me use another phone to log into voicemail unless they could charge me for it . I lost work as I am self employed and couldn' t reply to calls nice one plusnet
14 REPLIES 14
scream
Dabbler
Posts: 20
Registered: ‎06-05-2012

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Hi Seanballard66,
I am sorry that the £2.16 you received as a reimbursement was not what you feel to be satisfactory. We always work out how much you would have paid for the services lost over the time that you were without them to come to the figure that you are to get back. This way we make sure the customer gets back what they are owed in comparison to what they would have paid us, instead of just pulling a random inaccurate figure out of the hat, so to speak.
When you say you weren't informed of diverting calls to your mobile, do you mean that you were not offered this service or were not given the break down of how it works?
We do not offer our voicemail plus as a basic package like the usual 1571 service as the features included are rarely requested for daily use, apologies that this was not offered to you either.
It is an unfortunate situation that you have lost work and I am sorry to hear this. Of course we cannot anticipate faults happening and we do also have to work to the timescales that are passed to us from our Wholesalers when we do have faults that include them to rectify the problem.
seanballard66
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎18-05-2012

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

in reply to your response no I was not informed of any way of accessing my calls and " I " had to request reimbursment .If you are  as advertised such a honest an down to earth company why don't you let customers know that your phone lines are only rented from bt and you have no way of checking faults yourself as it was an exchange fault that was rectified without visiting my home .although I had to stay in to wait for an engineer ,who phoned my mobile after I had contacted bt myself.
                                                                                                                                                                    regards s ballard
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
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Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Plusnet are capable of testing your line and no doubt did. It's not always possible to confirm the precise location of a fault which is why an engineer visit may be needed.
BT OpenReach are responsible for the maintenance of the line whoever the service provider is (this has nothing to do with honesty). The service provider reports the faults to BT (note - that's not BT Retail) who then deal with it. Most OpenReach engineers do contact the end user whilst investigating/repairing a fault.
I'm sure a Plusnet Digital Care rep will take a look later  this morning to look at the other points you raised that were handled poorly.
Oleo
Grafter
Posts: 58
Registered: ‎22-01-2009

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Quote from: seanballard66
in reply to your response no I was not informed of any way of accessing my calls and " I " had to request reimbursment .If you are  as advertised such a honest an down to earth company why don't you let customers know that your phone lines are only rented from bt and you have no way of checking faults yourself as it was an exchange fault that was rectified without visiting my home .although I had to stay in to wait for an engineer ,who phoned my mobile after I had contacted bt myself.
                                                                                                                                                                     regards s ballard

Just dropped by, and saw this misunderstanding. Thread getting a little old, but some may not be aware of 'who owns' your phone line. I'll try and keep it simple.
PlustNet is a service provider, they rent or purchase phone and internet services at wholesale levels and retail to the public and businesses. Unless your line has been 'unbundled' at the exchange by a company that has its own equipment installed, you almost certainly have a BT product from BT Wholesale, no matter who the service provider is. It is BT Wholesale that owns the line, BT Openreach do the physical work to maintain and install new lines and services. Even when you subscribe to BT Retail services, they do not own the line or physical infrastructure. They are reselling a BT Wholesale product. The old BT that did own the whole lot was broken up into three distinct companies (which now form a group), with distinct areas of ownership and responsibilities in order to allow free competition. Faults can certainly be checked by Plusnet, or indeed, by any other service provider you subscribe to. Some are more efficient than others. If the fault cannot be cleared by button pushing, then the fault is escalated to BT Wholsale, and ultimately BT Openreach if road digging or site visit is required. Some people find this all a bit of a  muddle, and I cant blame them.
Hope that helps.
itsme
Grafter
Posts: 5,924
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎07-04-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Quote from: BigStarryNight
Unless your line has been 'unbundled' at the exchange by a company that has its own equipment installed, you almost certainly have a BT product from BT Wholesale, no matter who the service provider is. It is BT Wholesale that owns the line,

BT Wholesale don't own the lines. All physical lines leaving the exchange are the property of BT Openreach and they are responsible for all maintenance and repairs irrespective whether the line is unbundled or the service is provided by BT Wholesale.
Anotherone
Champion
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Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

@seanballard66
It seems no one from Plusnet bothered to address the points you'd raised in reply #2 and that's nearly 4 weeks ago.
Chris
Legend
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Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

It's not that no one bothered to address the points, we simply missed this thread. An honest mistake which can and does happen from time to time.
I've asked one of the team to take a look at this now.
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Hi there,
Looking at reply number 2, it seems the question is why we don't inform people that the lines are actually owned and fixed by BT rather than ourselves? Having looked at the fault ticket I can see that it opens by explaining that a BT engineer will attend, and when the fault was fixed 5 days later you should have received a text explaining that a BT engineer had visited and resolved the fault.
Regarding the reimbursement, this isn't normally something we'd offer as we are still charged for the services when a fault has been raised. Having said that we're always happy to investigate a problem and offer a gesture of goodwill.
Anotherone
Champion
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Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Thanks guys, the only reason I mentioned it was that he had complained about not being given some information and I didn't know if there was a need for anything to be looked at with regard to the ticket response.
It might be worth mentioning that it would be a good idea for CSC/Faults Agents and everyone else to refer specifically to OpenReach or BTw where appropriate rather than just plain BT as a lot of people do not understand the relationship, or think Plusnet is part of BT Retail and don't understand you are an independently operating CP (despite being owned by BT Group).
Thanks again for the reply.
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

For the sake of clarity, we are owned by BT Retail (a part of the BT Group).
We are however (as you have mentioned), an independently run ISP.
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
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Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

James, I do know that, but the point I was making was it confuses those not in the know by the way you refer to plain BT.
AlaricAdair
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Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

A point to note is most phone line contracts are not "consequential loss" contracts. Generally the most compensation you'll get is equivalent to the rental for the period the service was not available. Some suppliers have a slightly larger compensation figure, but that amount is inevitably provided/funded by higher service charges.
Now Zen, but a +Net residue.
quelquod
Pro
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Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Quote from: AlaricAdair
Some suppliers have a slightly larger compensation figure, but that amount is inevitably provided/funded by higher service charges.

You're correct of course, but a point to make here is that the typical downtime of a phone line is vanishingly small - considerably less than a percent IIRC. However the inconvenience cost to someone who has their phone out of order for days or weeks is considerable. SO it is only good customer service, and not a great cost overall, to compensate people who are affected.
After all, BT themselves offer free redirection during an outage and they are not known for bearing losses gladly!
Democracy - 3 wolves and a lamb voting about what to have for lunch!
alanf
Aspiring Pro
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Registered: ‎17-10-2007

Re: £2.16 for line fault that lasted five days

Quote from: AlaricAdair
Generally the most compensation you'll get is equivalent to the rental for the period the service was not available.

This discussion is on the Home Phone board. The OP lost money because he/she uses the line for business purposes. With PlusNet business phone services there is the possibility of some compensation under some circumstances.
"15. Do you offer compensation for service issues?
We can claim compensation on your behalf for problems fixed outside of BT Openreach's Service Level Agreement. We can't guarantee that your claim will be upheld or be held liable for any additional costs which you are charged.
Compensation claims are limited to £180 per customer line per year.
16. What can I claim compensation for?
We can handle claims for the following:
   Problems arising from transferred services, new services or telephone line conversions.
   Outgoing calls barred and temporary out of service.
   Cease orders - failure to cancel the line on date specified.
   Cancel own orders- failure of our request to cancel a pending order, (i.e. BT don't cancel the order on time).
   Failure of service - faults with the line (such as noise etc.).
   Appointments - engineers failing to meet appointments which have been booked.
   Disconnections made in error - BT disconnecting a phone service when they are not entitled to do so.
To make a claim, Raise a ticket using our Help Assistant. We'll assess your claim and if it's valid, we'll apply to BT Openreach for compensation on your behalf."
http://www.plus.net/support/phone/business_phone/biz_phone_faq.shtml#compensation