cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

JaneHSmith
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎22-06-2020

Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

I've just transferred my mums home phone service from Post Office to Plusnet. She has 'BT Advanced Call Blocking Phones'. These work by asking the caller to identify themselves, then plays their message to the receiver who then decides whether to accept the caller 'this time', 'every time', 'send to answer machine' or 'block their number' by pressing the relevant number button. This has worked perfectly for the past 2 years, but now she's on Plusnet the phone doesn't give the option to 'accept every time' or 'block'. This means that every time I call her (2-3 times a day), I have to announce myself & wait for her to listen to the announcement before deciding which button to press. She has dementia so I have to contact her often & this is a TOTAL PAIN as well as causing her unnecessary anxiety. Please advise me how I can get this to work as we need the service to protect her from scam calls & international sales calls. Many thanks.

8 REPLIES 8
MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

@JaneHSmith  Hi, Those phones need Caller display to be active on the line for them to work properly. My guess is that it was active on the previous service but somehow has got 'lost' on the transfer. It's a free service and so shouldn't be a problem to activate it. If you're an 'authorised person' on the account , then the quickest option might be to give Customer services a call on 0800 432 0080 .  Alternatively if you have access to your mums account you can check if Caller display is showing as active by logging in,select the 'phone' tab and then click 'call features' . If caller display is not showing as active then you should be able to activate it online.

Problem is there are some circumstances where it might be shown online as active but hasn't actually been activated by Openreach, in which case the customer service call is the best option.

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.

198kHz
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 5,730
Thanks: 2,773
Fixes: 41
Registered: ‎30-07-2008

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

@JaneHSmith Welcome to the forum. 🙂

There's no compatibility issue with Plusnet.

However, for any call blocking phone, Caller Display is required. This is normally applied by default on a new Plusnet connection.

Unfortunately, when a customer transfers to Plusnet from another provider, the system sometimes needs a kick start from one of the Help Team to get it going.

One of them should see this post shortly and help you out.

 

EDIT:  @MisterW types faster.

Murphy was an optimist
Zen FTTC 40/10 + Digital Voice   FRITZ!Box 7530
BT technician (Retired)
JaneHSmith
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎22-06-2020

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

@198kHz @MisterW You both appear to be right. Although it's taken 6 phone calls to mum to finally get the answer (thanks to dementia), it seems my name & phone number are no longer being displayed so caller display has not been activated. So it seems I wont be able to sort this out until I physically go to her house as, although my sister & I both have Power of Attorney, there is no way of recording this anywhere so will have to go through the rigmarole of calling from her house so she can give them permission to speak to me! Also, it suggests in the phone instructions that it works better without 1571 but  there is no way of switching this off in the control panel either! So frustrated with it all, but at least I know what needs doing now. As you suggest that this is a common occurrence why don't Plusnet just do whatever might be necessary when a new account goes live? Thank you.

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?


@JaneHSmith wrote:

So it seems I wont be able to sort this out until I physically go to her house as, although my sister & I both have Power of Attorney, there is no way of recording this anywhere


There is apparently. I remembered seeing a thread about this recently , its here https://community.plus.net/t5/Everything-else/Power-of-Attorney/m-p/1717782 . Seems you can scan it and email a copy.

I'm going to try escalating this thread to see if I can get one of the Help team to expedite a solution to the lack of caller display

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.

198kHz
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 5,730
Thanks: 2,773
Fixes: 41
Registered: ‎30-07-2008

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?


@JaneHSmith wrote:

As you suggest that this is a common occurrence why don't Plusnet just do whatever might be necessary when a new account goes live? Thank you.


You may well ask. 😉

Several questions re Plusnet's flaky systems and procedures have been asked on the forum over the years, usually without any proper answers.

Still, with staff, and some knowledgable customers, on the forum it's pretty good overall for a budget ISP.

Murphy was an optimist
Zen FTTC 40/10 + Digital Voice   FRITZ!Box 7530
BT technician (Retired)
Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

Hello,

We’d configure the call features of a line with what was requested upon signup. If you log into the account then go to the call features webpage Here you’ll be able to add and/or remove them such as voicemail and caller display.

If there’s a discrepancy between what’s showing in the account and what’s actually working then we can investigate this as we may have made an error when provisioning the line. This will generally be human error if that’s the case because when we automatically provision a service, our system will pass on the call features that have been configured on the account. I may be wrong but personally I’ve not seen one instance where we automatically place an order with the wrong configuration of call features.

If you’ve got power of attorney, I’d recommend emailing the full documents across to us at postroom@plus.net and we’ll validate it.

If you’ve not got this sorted yet and/or you’ve followed the above steps and having issues let us know and we’ll be happy to investigate further tomorrow. 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
JaneHSmith
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎22-06-2020

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

I got through to you by phone yesterday & your colleague confirmed that although Caller ID was 'on' as far as you were concerned,  it hadn't been activated at the exchange for some reason. He has put an order through for this to be activated but will take a couple of days apparently. I can also confirm having visited my mum that caller ID was definitely not being displayed on the phones as it has been for the past few years & this has only happened during the switch over.

Re 1571 - he says that this wasn't on anyway but this was the only thing mentioned in the instructions for the phones that might have stopped it working (other than caller ID not being on!) so I presumed this was the cause of the problem.

Anyway, hopefully normal service will resume in a few days time!

Thanks for the info on POA - although your colleague added me as an authorised contact, I will email this over to you to avoid any future doubts.

Thanks again.

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

Re: Plusnet not compatible with Call Blocking Phones?

Thanks for getting back to me @JaneHSmith 

No problem, I'm glad to see this is getting sorted out now, if caller display isn't activated by tomorrow feel free to drop me a PM with your mum's account username and I'll be happy to check this as it shouldn't take more than 24 hours.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet