Phone Line fault

[#1]

So I manage my parents accounts including their telephone and broadband.

My parents told me the internet is not working this morning, as it happens my brother is visiting so I was in the middle of talking to him on the land line on how to test the router when the call dropped.

He walked to the top of the garden to get a mobile signal to tell me the phone now continual rings and when answered has a very heavy buzzing background noise.

After plugging directly into the BT line gives the exact same symptoms.

As I type this there is a thirty (yes 30) minute wait for customer service.

There is nowhere on the website to directly report a fault, nor even secure message customer services.

I cannot even run an automatic line tester.

A few misguided FAQs does not constitute customer service.

Worse still this is the same recurring fault that my parents suffers several times a year.

We have to book an appointment for the engineer to visit, with no internet nor phone service for several days, (£65 if the fault is in the house) then I have to normally ring one of my parents neighbours to tell them the day of the appointment. And then normally the fault magically clears at 8am on the day of the appointment and yet the engineer will still visit the house and say "There is not fault found, you have to pay the £65" this is EVERY SINGLE TIME. 

Being a cynical person I suspect the exchange has faulty equipment that should be swapped out but that costs money so it just gets unplugged and reinserted again to clear the fault before the engineer leaves the exchange.

Being even more cynical I suspect that an engineer is maliciously causing the faults to keep himself busy with overtime.

So how do I escalate this appalling service to someone who can actually sort out the problem once and for all.?

[#2]

Probably the most annoying thing is that as soon as the engineer declares 'No Fault Found' the investigation stops. There is no escalation to find the root cause because the case is closed.

I cannot escalate within OpenReach as my contract is with PlusNet,

PlusNet say they cannot escalate as the fault is closed. 

I have tried escalating to BT who own both PlusNet and OpenReach only to be told that I have to escalate with PlusNet.

After BT took over PlusNet the customer service has fallen off a cliff whilst the prices have risen relentlessly. Moving to Sky or TalkTalk I don't think will solve the problem. The only way I see to fix this, is to get a new line installed and tested to maximise the quality and then cancel the old line. Which is an expensive way to solve a fault that has been recurring for over five years.

A neighbour to my parents is getting 20Mbps over the same infrastructure, whereas the best I have seen to my parents is 3Mbps and normally its about 1.5Mbps and if that doesn't say there is a line/exchange problem then what else would ?

[#3]

Moderator's note:

Several unhelpful posts removed.

[#4]

interesting Mr Moderator - you dont find it helpful to see what your paying customer say about your company? I would be extremely concerned if customers where i work were saying things like that - especially longterm customers who actually signed up because the believed in the company ethos - please explain your actions. Are you sure your actions are for the good of people reading this? Or are you covering up what your paying customers actually think? How about your companys link to lodge an official complaint - is it you we should be looking at to see how this has gone missing? (For reference, your company is breaching the law by not providing a clear and simple official complaints procedure).

Im sure many prospective customers would find ti extremely helpful to see exactly what they are getting into

[#5]

@paulwf

Moderators are customers like yourself and not employed/paid by Plusnet.

I have already sent you a PM explaining my actions.

[#6]

Mod's are customers just like you.

[#7]

Yes I got them, and thanks I fully agree.

[#8 · Accepted solution]

Well I finally may have had the result I wanted five years ago.

It turned out the same engineer who install the 20Mbps line to the neighbours house attended the fault at my parents.

As predicted the fault had cleared by the time the engineer turned up, fortunately my brother had videoed the problem including the appalling noise on the line. The engineer checked the broadband speed and decided that 2.5Mbps wasn't correct when compared to the neighbours. He ran a new last mile cable and fed the house from the pole that was installed after my parent line was installed.

Bingo, no line noise and broadband immediately up to 13Mbps. Hats off to the intelligent engineer who was interested enough to fully investigate.

The downside - it only took five years to fix this fault (maybe).

My brother later decided to remove the old cable which turned out to have been buried just inches down without any protection and parts of it looked as if a dog had chewed it.

[#9]

I'm happy to hear the fault has finally been resolved.

If you'd like to leave your thanks for the engineer, just fill out this short form from the Openreach site.

Anoush