Cannot see my bill on Firefox

[#1]

Given that Plusnet is a technology company, part of BT, how come viewing bills is now so horrendously difficult? I am using Edge now - I NEVER use Edge. Firefox is much more secure. However I find (April 2020) that I am now required to install ANOTHER pdf reader just to see my bill. Then, having installed that, I STILL can't see my bill. 

Contact support using Livechat? No way "You have an ad blocker. Disable your ad blocker" - NO - I don't have that problem with any other supplier for whom I am a paying customer

Phone? "No phone support due to the Corona Virus - use online help (which is worse than useless)" Plusnet is a technology company! I know we are in the midst of a crisis, and people are isolating (me too) but the whole point of telephony is it can be rerouted to operators working from home (at least we could when I retired from an IT department 13 years ago)

I have now seen my bill, and discovered why it is so much higher than normal. But to see it I had to install a large Adobe pdf reader, which I don't want, and use Edge, which I normally avoid like the plague. The first thing I will be doing when I have finished this is uninstalling Acrobat....and I notice in the current Which? magazine that Zen Internet is by far the best broadband supplier...

[#2]

Welcome to the forum. 😊

For some reason known only to themselves, Plusnet bills, every month, are named '$STANDARD'.

If you rename it to '$STANDARD.pdf' or of course anything else with '.pdf' then it should behave normally.

I hate Edge too.  😣

[#3 · Accepted solution]

@Pippins1  Welcome to the forum.

The problem is that Plusnet download the bill without adding .pdf to the file name. If you go to the file holding the download then rename it by adding .pdf you will find that you can open it.

I also refuse to use Adobe. Try Foxit Reader, it will cope with most formats.

[#4]

Thanks for both of your quick replies - very helpful. That has explained TWO questions - a) how to see the bill that Plusnet seems keen for me not to see, and b) what all these strange files called $STANDARD that have appeared in my download folder are (lots of them because I made lots of attempts).

I have been with Plusnet since the first days of Broadband - navigating their various sites has NEVER been straightforward! What are they playing at?! I have been coding, project managing, and quality assuring since 1980 - I would have been embarrassed to have been involved in such a mess - and whatever happened to the concept of meaningful filenames?

[#5]

I think most of the techie contributors to the forum would agree with you - Plusnet move in mysterious ways their wonders to perform, as someone almost once said. You may be aware of the current billing problems, which started in Sep 2018.

+1 for Foxit.

[#6]

@Pippins1 

Glad that's sorted. Zen clearly have better customer support which is reflected in their higher price. I guess that if your line is stable and you are one of the lucky one's whose account is set up correctly then there is no point in paying for better support as you are not using it.

At the end of the day they use the same BT infrastructure. I guess that the difference is that they have more per customer, better qualified and to be fair to Plusnet staff, paid, technical help teams and they are more proactive when it comes to chasing Openreach.