NEW BILLING SYSTEM IS APPALLING !

[#1]

First time I've tried for several days - not even available in MS Edge

[#2]

@plusnet, 3 wk old problem still not resolved and no indication when it will be so please email the latest bills for my 2 accounts.

[#3]

Whilst Plusnet are not commenting on these Forums, they seem to be quite happy to comment to third parties regarding what issues are and what are not connected to the new billing system.

This link makes interesting reading:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/09/plusnet-customers-charged-twice-under-new-billing-sys...

Funny how my issues – wrong discount applied and missing referral credits (all of them) – only appeared on my first bill under the new system. However, Plusnet seem to be saying that such issues are isolated incidents unrelated to the new system!

[#4]

They are still sending out emails to say look up bill on the new pages which have been given "a facelift". ROFLAO. Yes painted it all white.

What a shower, no wonder they call themselves PNet.

[#5]

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@Townman wrote:

@Mgnl1983,

Moderating this forum is done wholly by customers, not Plusnet staff.  As you suggest, staff are focussed on addressing the early life issues with the billing system.

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I do believe that PNet do not moderate the forum, they had enough of that many years ago, with 'certain' events!

But I do wish I could believe that they were working on this issue at all. Surely it should have been trialed, but no, as usual, blow the customers who cares what they think, just do it and perhaps we will fix it sometime and don't bother communicating about it, that lot of punters only pay our wages.

LEAVING SOON HIP HIP HURRAY.

[#6]

I very much doubt that "trialling" the new billing system with real users was ever a viable option.  Having run a number of major system migrations myself, it is frequently somewhat impossible to have part of the population on one core system and the rest on another, particularly where there is a common interface.

The issues which would need to be managed might be bigger than those attributable to the new system itself.  Running two billing systems in parallel accessed by a common user portal, interfacing to the same account (CRM) repository simply does not bear thinking about.

I would be surprised if there were no complex database transformations to implement this system - typically such transformations are not reversible - hence a real backs against the wall point of no return.  Any issues found need to be fixed in-flight.

What we cannot discern on here is the number of customers for whom the change over has not caused issues.  Will be interested to see what my first bill looks like tomorrow.  Given I'm billed at the end of the month, it rather looks as though all of my referrals (which will have been billed before me) have now all "come clean".

[#7]

this way is certainly a sure fire way to lose customers, when one cannot find anything about their bills. I think my referrals have been deducted, but nothing about them. Simply had an email saying what DD would be and the NEW LOOK (LOL), referrals ignored, but included. Go to page and everything is there on the top and down the right side, but just a fresh clean coat of white paint in the centre and nothing on it.

Nothing on here to update the punters who pay the bills and the wages, they are a useless bunch, what confidence can anyone have in them as an ISP when they cannot get this right in weeks. But they are a useless, uncaring bunch because they don't even bother to add an update at least every day. But hey why bother we are mostly locked into contracts and they hope we all have early onset short term memory loss.

Perhaps they are a new brand of suicide companies that risk all on change without any certainty or perhaps even a fair chance of being able to pull off the change.

PNet used to be good, then they were awful and now, words fail me that you would allow to remain here.

[#8]

Interesting to note that, after raising a ticket on this subject on Saturday, Plusnet still can't be bothered to respond.  Extremely poor customer service in my opinion.

Regarding the migration, have they never heard of backups?  Any time I was involved in a major upgrade, we made 100% sure the data and configuration had all been backed up first!  It's IT Admin 101 ...

[#9]

@Anon I agree that the new billing system has caused a shedload of problems for some customers but I have not really have any trouble with it, by not attempting to access it for a few days after it was introduced. Most of those affected seem to be starting new accounts or recently migrated or cancelled their accounts. These accounts in a transitory state have had the worst problems. Referrals have also caused trouble as they have done for a long time.

You seem to have switched to extreme rant mode, I hope that makes you feel better.

[#10]

Not that it was directed at me, but I wouldn't say I'd agree the problem was with new accounts.  I've been with Plusnet for a little over three years now and I've been seeing exactly the same as a lot of others.  I can't answer for everyone else in this thread though obviously

[#11]

I have been with Plusnet for over 12 years. I am three months into my current contract and so that is not new. My active referral credits have been with Plusnet for 12 and 4 years respectively and so nothing new there either. Therefore, I too do not think this debacle concerns only new accounts.

Only Plusnet know the extent of the problems but they are saying nothing - probably too commercially embarrassing.

[#12]

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@RealAleMadrid wrote:

@Anon I agree that the new billing system has caused a shedload of problems for some customers but I have not really have any trouble with it, by not attempting to access it for a few days after it was introduced. Most of those affected seem to be starting new accounts or recently migrated or cancelled their accounts. These accounts in a transitory state have had the worst problems. Referrals have also caused trouble as they have done for a long time.

You seem to have switched to extreme rant mode, I hope that makes you feel better.

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Perhaps I have known them for longer than you, about 20 years, that probably means I am new still. So perhaps I am entitled to rant, especially when I saw them through some dreadful times with customers being thrown out and threatened with court action by Pnet. I think they are worse now than they were way back then. But my last sentence of 2 years is nearly over, sadly no time off for their bad behaviour.

[#13]

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@infidelus wrote:

Regarding the migration, have they never heard of backups?  Any time I was involved in a major upgrade, we made 100% sure the data and configuration had all been backed up first!  It's IT Admin 101 ...

From a systems perspective, I suspect that this is much more a replacement than an upgrade.  I've run projects where once activated there can be no viable way back - back ups or not.  If for no reason other than you cannot shut down all that needs to be shut down to regress.  Therefore the only viable game in town is to deal with the issues.

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[#14]

I had notification of my latest bill a few days ago but couldn't view it on Firefox (blank area where it should have appeared on the page), which is my main browser. Logged into the member centre on Safari, which I only use when a page misbehaves on Firefox and WAS able to view it perfectly. Only problem there was that I had been incorrectly billed for two calls to a mobile number, which shoud be free and that was resolved, I hope, by getting a ticket raised via 'social media'.

I also raised the problem of the bill not appearing on Firefox and gave full details which were passed onto the relevant team. (It's the latest version of Firefox on a Mac running the latest OS.)

Usually, Firefox automatically opens pdfs into a separate window or tab and investigating further and thinking back to a similar problem I had some years back with, I think, E.on, the problem may be that this is supposed to open into the page that you're sent to. I've tried changing treatment of pdfs in Firefox preferences but nothing seems to work, so far.

N.B. The new invoice itself is well laid out and clear!

[#15]

@Mad_Moggies, FWIW I'm running the latest macOS Mojave (v10.14), Firefox v62.0.2 and I can see my bills with out any issues odd how it works for some but not for others.

I have my suspicions as regards the cookies but nobody's going to listen to me, so I'll keep it to myself.