Not happy - urgent help needed!

[#1]

Just had an email from someone I recommended PlusNet to and who had been pleased with the service up till now. A few days ago she upgraded from PlusNet Essential (including phone) to PlusNet Value plus Evening and Weekends.
Last night she rang me to say that her phone had been cut off for calls (could only get through to PlusNet CS) and her credit limit had disappeared. She'd phoned support and they reinstated it all - don't know if she checked the credit limit was back or not but she was able to phone me OK.
I've just had an email from her to say she's been cut off again and the help she got today was useless as she was told her line for phone calls will be active again within 24 hours and when she enquired about compensation, the CS person said she couldn't hear her and told her to ring again. She's also updated her ticket but when that will get answered, who knows? What if she needs to make an urgent call before she's allowed to make calls again? She doesn't make many calls, only essential ones.
She is not happy at all about this, and neither am I. Why should she be deprived of making calls through absolutely no fault of her own??? It's possible it's connected with a billing mistake which was made this month and which she raised a ticket about (line rental missed off) but that's not her fault either.
If anyone from PlusNet can look into this I would be very grateful. She's my one and only referrall if you can see that at your end. I have to go out shortly and would like to think it could be all sorted out by the time I get back.

[#2]

Hi there,
It looks like this was caused by an account change, we've got someone working on it right now.
I can't remove call barring yet as the order is not showing as completed yet (you can't have more than one order at one time).

[#3]

thats B Stupid, you cut someone of because of a mistake on your part and then cant reconnect then, If it was me (Again) I would see you in court

[#4]

She went over to the new product earlier last week - 2nd Feb* I think she said, so there can't be an order on the account. This was how she was able to see that the line rental wasn't on the invoice for the current billing period.
Added to that, the person she spoke to on Sunday was able to remove call barring immediately, hence her being able to phone me last night and tell me about it.

Hey, wait a minute! I think the penny's dropped. Does this mean that whoever upgraded the account from Essential (which includes PlusNet phone rental) didn't do the upgrade to Evening and Weekend phone properly at the same time, so there isn't any credit allowed till the order has been done? It would explain why the rental didn't appear on the original invoice too. An almighty b***s up if that's what's happened!

* Yes just checked back in my referrals page and the billing date is 2nd of the month.

[#5]

Come on, Mand..... you can do better than that....... surely. 
If it is "so difficult to remove call barring". then tell us how difficult it is.... what is involved? does it require new circuit boards to be placed on the equipment? does it require re-wiring the equipment? How many "engineers" are involved in the process? .....just what do you have to do that takes so long?
  If you can put call barring on within 5 minutes, then you can take it off just as quickly, and in effect I think it should be done PDQ to keep this customer happy....

[#6]

This is getting stupid. I've just rung the customer and she still cannot make calls out. 
She NEEDS to make some calls tonight.
Her credit is still showing as £55, as reinstated last night, having disappeared yesterday, so how comes she was able to ring me last night after that was done and yet again is not able to make calls today?
She had an email from PlusNet at the end of last week to say the Home Phone Evenings and Weekends was all set up now and indeed it was as her evening calls were no longer being shown with a charge next to them, so there should be no outstanding order showing for her line unless someone has forgotten to close it properly. The only thing left over is the billing for this month's line rental, which got left off somehow and which she's been told will now be added to next month's bill
Please, if anyone at PlusNet reads this can you please sort out this c*** up pdq. (I would have PMd Mand but she's offline as I type this.) 
All she's getting from CS, when she tries to make a call and instead gets put through to them, is that she's in a queue for the barring to be lifted. As it's not her fault it's been put on the line, why should she have to wait along with people who have ignored messages sent to say they're close to their limit (she never had any warnings like that, just that she'd used up her credit, which she obviously hadn't). 

[#7]

Mand has been "on - line " tonight from about 20:00 to 20:20,
according to the "Who is doing what" statistics, she had a look at  "Home Phone" at about 20:03
Whilst she may well be "off duty" I feel it is a bit remiss of her, not to advance any further information after her posting the words....
" we've got someone working on it right now. " at 15:14.
and it being obvious that no further action has been applied to , or updating the situation. . 

[#8]

@Mad Moggies, the order has been placed to remove call barring now. I'm sorry that this couldn't have been done sooner, but to manually manipulate the automated process would have caused significant billing problems in the future. I'll pick this up tomorrow to make sure your referral's issue is resolved satisfactorily.
@Shutter, good to see you're keeping such a close eye on me. I was here earlier, and intended to reply to this then but something intervened unfortunately.
Regarding the problem, it was being worked when I said that, and we're expecting to roll a fix tomorrow morning.

[#9]

The "significant billing problems" are not the customers fault....... therefore they should not be used as an excuse for delaying the correction of an almighty mess up by somebody....
Once again, the response from you is (almost) blaming the customer for wanting to use the service she is paying for, yet cannot do so because by doing so would cause "significant billing problems"..
this really is turning into a farce ..... PlusNet made the error, if it cause them "extra work" to put it right to the customers satisfaction,( i.e. restoring her ability to make outgoing calls) it should be done, with NO DELAY... The "significant billing problems" can be sorted out "at leisure" AFTER the re-connection has been done.... NOT before....
"rolling a fix by tomorrow morning"..... what exactly does that mean.... anytime up till11:59.  what a way to carry on..... (which will be well over 24 hours since the mess up started) is this any way to improve customer confidence?
someone, somewhere, needs to be looking for a new job............
Meanwhile, who set up a system, where you can cut a customer off within 5 minutes, but to repair that mistake will cause "significant billing problems in the future".  and further 24 or 48 hour delay to the customer.?
Seems to me that the system needs a radical overhaul, where these sort of mistakes can be rectified, quicker than they are made.......

[#10]

None of these problems are the customers fault, but fixing one billing problem by causing more is not a good way to handle things IMO.
I'm not blaming the customer for anything here, and have spent a large amount of time today trying to get this resolved ASAP.
FWIW, we can't apply call barring within 5 minutes, it takes just as long to apply as it does to remove.
What I mean by rolling a fix tomorrow is that we have a fix which is currently undergoing testing, we can't just roll a problem fix directly to the live problem, in case it a) doesn't work or b) breaks something else.
To the OP, I'm sorry that this issue occurred, and that it's taken a while to resolve. Would you prefer for me to call you or your referral tomorrow to sort this out?

[#11]

What neither the customer nor I can understand is that last night when she spoke to CS they were able to remove call barring and reinstate her credit there and then. It must have been removed because she was able to ring me and talk to me about what happened.
Her credit is still there but she was cut off again by this morning and this time it's going to take a day to remove the call barring.
We both reckon something must have gone wrong with her upgrade from PlusNet Essential to PlusNet Value with Home Phone Weekend and Evening. She applied for it soon after her January billing date, which was confirmed by email with all the new monthly costs stated. Her Account was changed to Value on the correct date but the line rental was missed off her invoice, so she notified PlusNet and was told this month's line rental would be added to next month's invoice. Then she got 2 notifications a few days later, saying E&W had been activated, which should have been done on her billing date.
I do hope she is given some sort of compensation for all this trouble that is no fault of hers whatsoever.

[#12]

Quote from: Mand

To the OP, I'm sorry that this issue occurred, and that it's taken a while to resolve. Would you prefer for me to call you or your referral tomorrow to sort this out?

Mand, just saw your reply. Have spoken to the customer and she's happy to be called in the morning but not before 9.30 am.
Thanks for your help with something that should not have happened.

[#13]

Had a call from the customer shortly before 9.00am this morning, testing to see if she could ring out - which she could, as she got through to me (my husband took the call). 

[#14]

Result ! 

[#15]

Quote from: Mad

Mand, just saw your reply. Have spoken to the customer and she's happy to be called in the morning but not before 9.30 am. Thanks for your help with something that should not have happened.

Done and sorted.