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No Phone for 13 days

shushyb99
Hooked
Posts: 7
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎22-11-2017

No Phone for 13 days

I am a new customer having moved from Virgin. Despite being told that the transfer would be seamless and I wouldn't have any break in my service, the exact opposite has happened. My broadband wasn't up and running until 7 days after the transfer date from Virgin on 9th November and I've had no dialling tone on my phone since then either. Have had three visits so far from Openreach engineers and still no working phone line. Apparently the fibre connection isn't working properly. The response from Plusnet has been painfully slow and I'm appalled that after 13 days I still have no phone.  What a way to treat new customers. Has anyone else experienced similar problems?

4 REPLIES 4
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,922
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: No Phone for 13 days

Hi,

A warm welcome to the forums. It really is not a good story here - however you are in the hands of BT Openreach who provide and service all connections for all ISPs except Virgin. There is therefore every chance that the experience would have been the same no matter which ISP you changed to. 3 BTOR engineers (or more likely their subcontractors) not being able to get you a working service is quite shoddy - unfortunately BTOR take no ownership of such issues and have no sense of care towards the end user ... they just keep passing their problems back to their customer ... in your case Plusnet.

I take it that you had your number with Virgin moved over?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: No Phone for 13 days

Hi there. I'm sorry to hear your phone service isn't working.

It looks like an engineer went out 24 hours after the fault report was raised and reported back, advising that they need access to your property for further testing.

 

I'll respond to your ticket soon.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
shushyb99
Hooked
Posts: 7
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎22-11-2017

Re: No Phone for 13 days

Thanks for your reply. We were supposed to move over from Virgin to Plusnet on Friday 10th November. There was a delay in 'porting' our telephone number across from Virgin and we were told this was finally done on Monday 13th.  The first engineer arrived on the 9th November to install the phone socket but that was a bit of a disaster. He couldn't find the phone line and wasn't allowed to pick up the edge of the carpets to check for the old BT cable which we knew was still in the property.  We had to suggest to him that he run the outside phone line from the telegraph pole along the back wall of our flat and put in the new socket into the wall of our bedroom.  We now have our main phone and router sitting on my bedside table which of course is not ideal. We will now have to get someone to run an extension into our lounge at the front of our building so we can move the equipment (more expense).

Although the phone was connected on the 9th and we had a dialling tone we couldn't make any outside calls. We could only call Plusnet. We reported the fault and the fact that we also had no broadband. Two further engineers arrived on the 17th and got the broadband working but then the dialling tone disappeared on our phone completely. Having spent another 2 calls waiting 30 minutes each time I asked for an urgent visit by an engineer who duly arrived with only 10 mins warning on Saturday 17th.  He spent 3 hours working on the line, telling us that the first engineer had installed a line that wasn't suitable for our broadband service.  He had to install a brand new cable from the telegraph pole into the building. He then went to the street cabinet to check the line and came back to to tell us that the fibre connection was faulty. Only one line was working which was why we had broadband but no phone. He left the broadband connection in place and said he couldn't fix the fault and he would put in a report and ask for another engineer to do what he termed a 'lift and shift' of the fibre connections in the cabinet on Monday 20th. He said they wouldn't need access to our property again as the fault was in the cabinet. Needless to say I heard nothing again until yesterday (Wednesday).

I now have Plusnet telling me that the engineers do need access again and a visit has been arranged for Monday 27th November. There doesn't seem to be any urgency about the fact that I have been without a phone since 9th November and the extreme inconvenience this has caused.

I completely agree that the service from the Openreach engineers is shoddy. If I had known what a shambles this whole process was going to be I would never have changed from Virgin. I would have tried to beat them down a bit more in price and stayed put. I have several friends who were thinking about changing their provider and moving to Plusnet - however after hearing my experience they've decided not to bother.

To add insult to injury I got an email from Plusnet on 13th November confirming that now my broadband service was up and running, I was getting speeds of 37Mbps. I was angry and extremely puzzled as this was 3 days before the broadband was actually activated!!

The lengthy waiting times for calls to customer services/support is really unacceptable. My time is precious and I have much better things to do than hang on to an automated line waiting for someone to answer.  The staff are always very polite and pleasant but they must spend their whole day apologising to customers for the poor service. I suppose the next thing will be a battle to get my bill adjusted and a credit put through for each day that I've had no phone or broadband.

Sorry for the rant but I have never received such poor service from any company. I can only hope that the next engineer knows what he's doing......

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,922
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: No Phone for 13 days

He spent 3 hours working on the line, telling us that the first engineer had installed a line that wasn't suitable for our broadband service.

I think the cause of your problems was shoddy BT Openreach workmanship - the reality here is that any ISP you had chosen (other than Virgin) could have been blighted by the same BT engineer.  Given that, blaming Plusnet for the failures and implying the same to friends hardly seems reasonable.

That said, one has to agree that the phone answer times are unacceptable ... may be if BT were not so shoddy, there would be less need for people to clog-up Plusnet's support lines?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.