Service from plusnet - is it acceptable that ...

[#1]

Phone line broke in the storms one week ago today.  I asked plusnet to forward calls to my mobile whilst the line is down.  At first they ignored the question.  I asked again and was told that yes they can do it, but I will be billed per call as if I had dialed the mobile number from my landline.  So I'm paying for a landline which isn't there, and they then want me to pay for call forwarding too.  I don't think that's acceptable.  Do you?

[#2]

When I want to discuss my faulty landline with plusnet I have to call from my mobile.  Throughout the evenings, and from 8am in the morning, plusnet tell me they're very busy and experiencing a high volume of calls at the moment.  The wait time is typically 1 hour.  Is that acceptable?  Or does it just mean they don't have enough staff?

[#3]

Two separate topics merged and two polls removed as they serve little purpose

[#4]

I think the poll serves a lot of purpose.  Plusnet are very keen to publish the results of their quality service polls.  Is plusnet's service on these two issues acceptable?  I don't think so, and I'm interested in what other plusnet customers think,.  Please reinstate the poll rather than supressing it.

[#5]

You can see what other posters think from the comments.
A poll isn't necessary in either case
With respect to call waiting times we all know that they are unacceptable and with the opening of the Leeds Office it is expected that they will eventually come back to more sensible levels at peak times

[#6]

Quote from: Ant1974

Phone line broke in the storms one week ago today.  I asked plusnet to forward calls to my mobile whilst the line is down.  At first they ignored the question.  I asked again and was told that yes they can do it, but I will be billed per call as if I had dialed the mobile number from my landline.  So I'm paying for a landline which isn't there, and they then want me to pay for call forwarding too.  I don't think that's acceptable.  Do you?

This has long been a gripe - and it's why my phone line and that of a number of others is still with BT because they do still give free diversion when there is a fault.

[#7]

Oooooh! now that is something that is worth knowing.
Some years ago we had a fault that was actually BT trenching team who cut our line and once BT acknowledged the fault (as thiers!) they agreed a redirect to a mobile for free..................I think was something like 7days before they fixed it AOK.  But that was a goodly number of years ago so at least for us the problem is a rarity ~ fingers crossed 

[#8]

This raises an interesting question...
In the cases described it is / was BTw /BTOR services which had failed
In such circumstances BT Retail provided a free divert to mobile service - I doubt BT Retail take the cost hit on this, I presume they get compensation from wholesale or Openreach.
If this is correct should not PN (and ther customers) also get the same or is this yet anther example of BT Retail being unfairly favoured by the other (old) BT divisions?

[#9]

Quote from: Townman

In such circumstances BT Retail provided a free divert to mobile service - I doubt BT Retail take the cost hit on this, I presume they get compensation from wholesale or Openreach.

They take the hit. Ultimately it is a commercial decision over whether or not we are to cover costs of calls when a customer has a fault.
I've raised it with my manager and if anything changes I'm sure we'll update this thread.

[#10]

Until that policy changes there's a number of us that won't take the Plusnet phone no matter how much we might save.

[#11]

Changing the policy would require significant development resource to implement, and large scales changes within our existing call rating engine which would need to be prioritised against other requirements that the business has such as our new billing engine, new products & services. It's unfortunately not just a switch that we could flick.

[#12]

This was raised by the FCS back in 2008 to OFCOM/Openreach:

Quote

We would have preferred to see an increase in the level of compensation (to provide greater incentive to avoid such failures) but understand Ofcom’s view that the impact of the other proposed changes has not yet been tested. We also note that Ofcom has identified call diversion costs as part of the overall cost burden on CPs and advise that FSPA has recently written to Openreach suggesting that call divert should not be charged where the failure of service was caused by a fault within the BT network.

Seems to have gone unanswered....

[#13]

As a recent transferrer from BT, I'm finding Plusnet a lot less user friendly now I am a subscriber!
At least when my phone line went down with BT they transferred my calls to my mobile for free.
Calling Plusnet means being on hold for ever. And no, an apologetic message telling me they are opening a new call centre isn't good enough.
I overshot my 100 prepaid mobile minutes, and find I'm paying 23 pence for a 1 minute call.
Anyone know of a way I can be alerted when I've hit my 100 minutes, so I can avoid such ridiculous charges. Any hints gratefully received.
richjenn13

[#14]

Hi richjenn13,
Unfortunately we've not got a service in place to inform you when you're reaching your limit. It's advised that you keep an eye on your phone bill on the member centre to view how many minutes you've used so far.

[#15]

@richjenn13
Please give our COT a call as they might be able to work out a better package for you.