BT do not seem interested in fixing faults if you are not a BT customer?

[#1]

I am helping a lady who has been without her phone and broadband for 3 weeks. Other people in the area who had faults about the same time were fixed in 3 to 4 days but they were with BT. This lady is with Plus for phone and broadband. She is also a cardiology patient who does need her phone to work but that does not seem to matter. Many tickets and phone calls to Plus have not resulted in any useful action by BT. I wonder if other people feel, or even known, that BT put faults where the customer is not with them on the back burner as not important. Three weeks is a long time to be without a phone line. Also annoying is Plus help saying they will call her back on her mobile to advise her what is going on but do not do so. She has been been putting the problem down to BT not doing anything but is now getting fed up with Plus for not letting her know what is going on. Such a shame as she has been with Plus for some time.

[#2]

Don't you think PN are to blame?  Openreach don't care if the fault is reported by PN, BT Retail or any other telecom provider and the fault process is completely transparent to comply with Ofcom requirements.

[#3]

No, I don't think Plus are to blame. It is a problem between an exchange and where the person lives. Various tickets show Plus asking for something to be done but nothing is done. Are you saying that Plus are not asking for it to be fixed? I don't think that is the case and what is your reason for saying that? While Plus seem to be hard pressed on the Help - I would not want the job - which is why they don't ring back. I am a computer tech person and 'talking somebody through something' who knows nothing about computing (and does not want to know) is very difficult, time consuming work. It may be that they are so hard pressed - from one call onto the next - that they never actually do anything other than talk to people; I can see that happening. Plus seem to have separate divisions that they refer things to; are they in the same position of not being able to actually do anything? I have no way of knowing. However the long wait to talk to a person indicates they could do with more people on the Help desk. My daughter worked for a call centre for a while and has some idea of what goes on. She says once you clear the screen from one call and onto the next the previous caller is gone. They do have some 'phone out time' if they remember who they were going to call and what about.
Regarding the topic: You say BT do not know who is asking them to fix a fault so they cannot 'choose' who they will fix first. The promise of 'an engineer is being sent to the exchange to sort it out', which is what we are told by Plus, means that will happen regardless of who asked? In the case of an engineer not doing that is it down to Plus or BT? BT should keep Plus informed as to what is going on (so they can inform the customer) but it appears they are relucant to do so or is it that Plus did not ask them in the first place? Who knows but the whole affair is very sad as technical people - and I used to be one of them - cannot get their act together.

[#4]

Hi Pancho,
Would you be able to PM me a username or ticket ID so we can have a look at it for you?

[#5]

Thank you Matt. Ticket ID is 39544242. Last I heard was an engineer was going to look at the problem today. I have had no phone call of joy from my friend so I assume, at 17.21 hours, that she is still off. Anything anybody can do would be useful. She is really fed up as I would be.

[#6]

Well, so much for Matt Taylor and his looking at it. Nobody looked at it. I had to phone Plus over and over again on the ladie's behalf and she was finally connected this morning by a BT person in a roadside cabinet. One female helpline person was willing to help but was not able to do much. She did phone back and that is more than the rest of them did. My opinion of Plus for sorting phone line problems has dropped considrably. The emphasis now shifts to getting some compensation for being off for three and a half weeks. Trading standards have been advised (not by me) and they are going to 'look into it'. One wonders what is really going on at Plus. Are they, like everybody else, running on the absolute minimum number of people? Seems the only solution is to keep phoning them.

[#7]

Well he did ask you to send a Private Message to him not put it on here.

[#8]

Ellis. Thank you. I had no idea what PM meant. I did search the help for PM but it brought up nothing. (A Glossary would be useful?) I have no idea how to do that. Perhaps you might indulge me a little and tell me how it is done. Would be part of my 'Learn something new every day'. Regards.

[#9]

To PM (Private Message) someone click on the icon underneath their avatar.
Add something in the 'Subject' box if you wish and type your message in the text box below that.

[#10]

under your name you have three blobs, if you hover over the RH one you will see it says Privatel Message  i.e. PM, so to sent one to Matt you go to his entry and click on it and you will open a message box like the ones here
at the top of this page is also a sub heading, MY MESSAGES, you can look at all the recieved there, and if you kept a copy, the sent ones
Hope that helped
Strat beat me to it, but in short form

[#11]

Yes, Thank you. I am poking the icons about to see what comes up. I did find a way of sending an email to Matt via his profile. Thank you for the help and PM. Regards.

[#12]

I've received the message though via email rather than on the forum as a PM - all you should need to do is click on the username you want to send the message to then select 'send private message' from the options on the left? Apologies if this is what was done, if that's the case I'll need to look into why it didn't actually send it to me.
Either way I'm looking into it now.

[#13]

BT are responsible for the telephone lines but whether a PlusNet customer or BT you have no rights.
Open Reach or 'Out of Reach' as I call them can cause havoc but the consumer has no right to contact them - this is wrong.
In my experience they rarely fix the problem first time - then take as long as possible to return.
On the 3 last occasions BT has been completely at fault - no apology and they act as they are doing you a favour by returning.
Some are rude and agressive with always this £144 charge threat if any of the fault can be held as yours.
The charge for transferring calls to your mobile should be a FREE service if they had wrecked your line.
I am contacting OFCOM (problably a waste of time). PlusNet must learn not to be so subservient to their masters

[#14]

I suspect you are not far off the mark but there are some nice people as well. From experiences with other service companies, that there is no alternative to, that a nice person who is helpful to the customer is moved sideways, possibly thought of as 'dangerous' maybe saying something the company would not like such as agreeing with the customer.
I am still waiting for Matt, who is 'looking into it'.
PS. Does anybody live in a flat with a Kone lift? Send me a Personal Message. (PM)

[#15]

Hi Pancho,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I've had a look and the ticket is closed along with a 3 day ongoing connection for the broadband at a profile of 3500. Likewise calls are working fine and we're seeing them on the itemised bill all the way up to yesterday.
Is there anything you still need investigating on there?