I'm not a regular contributor to the forums as our account has been running smoothly until around December 2019.
I feel suitably cheesed-off now to share with others on the Forum.
We have had a direct debit billing problem and I was asked to delete the direct debit and then setup a new one. I did this at the end of last year, but then for whatever reason it wouldn't setup on my bank account. It's a certain Spanish-owned bank beginning with S. I contacted them to alert them that a new DD mandate was coming through from PN but they never saw it.
Each month subsequently I called once per month to attempt to pay by debit card, but the billing system never unlocked the payments so that I could pay manually.
My last call went to PN on the 31st March just after the full lockdown was implemented.
I spoke to my regular contact on the Customer Service Team and I was going to try manually paying again at the next biling period.
The last thing I said at the end of that call was, "please ensure the account doesn't get disconnected due to this problem, it would be the worse possible time while working at home and under lockdown".
And guess what...
The account was disconnected at 0330 on Sunday morning on the 5th April. Losing landline and broadband. It also took the account beyond the point of no return.
That also meant we had to be treated like a new customer, which meant potentially 3-4 weeks due to restrictions on Openreach Engineers.
The worst possible time to lose a usually very reliable broadband service.
The landline was back in a couple of days, the VDSL about 3 weeks, brought forward slightly by 3 days from the oirignal date.
Service was on a par with what we had previously. Our copper pair is very long so we only get sync speeds between 24-27 Mbps on FTTC.
The fun now continues!
Because of PN's billing system my referrals cannot be carried over because those other usernames of my referrals are tied to my now defunct old account. A discount is being applied every month so I now have to watch it closely to enure it is.
The remaining balance on the old account which I had been trying to pay for 3-4 months was 'written off' as a good will gesture. Great I hear you cry - until this last week I received a letter from a debt collection agency in Glasgow where PN had referred the 'written off' amount.
I had a call from Customer Services on Saturday just gone assuring me that was just a blip and the debt was cancelled.
This morning I then received an email from the Debt Recovery Company, I took the time to call them this morning, taking 30 minutes to learn that the debt hasn't been cancelled and is still active as far as they are concerned.
I think I have been extremely patient through all this hassle, so come on PlusNet get yourselves sorted out. It's really not good enough!
We wait and see how long this drags on!
Cheers David
