Do I need to pull out, are things really always as MAD as they seem?

[#1]

As a new "almost" customer, NOTHING has gone straightforward yet - even paying by credit card was a problem, it took two attempts to get the site to even sign me up. (Money gone from my account on the day, but today I find there have been some internal problems at Plusnet end.)
Date for Engineer... all arranged (so I thought) for this Thursday coming - today I get an email telling me it has been altered unilaterally to a totally unsuitable time. Sent reply email... bounces back as it's not an address that accepts emails!
It spurs me to look down list of "questions"/tickets of course, there is a full page of them there and almost all of them are a complete mystery to me, relating to all sorts of problems, eg. payment problems and numerous other things I have supposedly either sent, or replies which have been sent, which of course I haven't' seen. So.. I send same information off as was in the email... to be absolutely amazed that reply time is more than 17 hours.... the aim is for within 24! Just as well I sent it this way I have great difficulty with phone calls, but hanging on for 80 minutes is beyond impossible! It makes even Insurance company claims call centres seem swift!
I was with BT directly some years back and it was bad - very, very bad - but not NEARLY as bad as this. 20 minute call queues were one thing, but the choice of 17+ hours or 80 minutes by phone is just not funny
Is this just some sort of one-off fault, or is it always like this as I am rapidly beginning to think?
Tell me people, do I need to bail out now?
Meanwhile along comes contact from existing ISP telling me my broadband account is to be closed next week... on the day I can't be in! I So this is looking as though at best I Will have no internet access for however long it takes to arrange a date. This happened to someone I know a good long time ago, they went 5 weeks without any internet was the result, I had been lead to believe this was a complete one off because of circumstance...  and all was wonderful since, but I am beginning to think I have made the error of a lifetime, it is only because they haven't had a problems since, because problems aren't even looked at, and even Sky who have ruined Bethere might still be a better option.

[#2]

Hi,
Apologies for the problems you encountered when signing up with us.
Unfortunately it is not possible to reply to the email notifications that you receive from us. In order to raise a question or reply to a question on your account you would need to do so through the member centre. This is so that our support team can deal with your query accordingly and directly on your account.
I have responded to ticket ID 80758230 on your account. If you could please have a look at this and respond to us at your earliest convenience we will be more than happy to help.
Thanks.

[#3]

Quote from: needheadexam

Tell me people, do I need to bail out now?

Tricky one to answer but coming from a customer who keeps an overall eye on what is going on, I would say no.
You won't get a better provider vs. the price you pay at the moment. The other alternatives have some shocking customer service and at least with PN, you get an honest answer (eventually).
The staff who keep an eye on the forums are pretty good and there is a good level of honesty on here (nothing seems to get swept under the carpet).
The waiting time for support is in my opinion not acceptable but they are working on improving this (they have opened another call centre).
Generally once everything is setup and running you'll have very few problems as long as you don't have any line issues and the BTOR engineer actually shows up (not something PN have control over).
You'll see a fair bit of negativity on this forum - it is the nature of support forums. If you look at some of the "competitors" forums you'll often see negative posts vanish along with the customer. This doesn't seem to happen here.
Fingers crossed you get your installation sorted with the minimum of future fuss

[#4]

*Edited - not relevant now

[#5]

Give them a chance they are good

[#6]

If saving about £1.50 p/month is worth the hours of time you will waste then stick with them.
They will never be able to give you the true root cause of any problem so expect any single issue to reoccur all the time.
You will probably get a price hike in the name of service improvement while service clearly degrades.
If the plusnet system works in one way don't expect anything but apologies and a "computer said no" approach to literally any problem you have even if they caused it.
If you think being forced to suffer that sort of rubbish is worth about £1.50 p/month then they "will do you proud" (apparently) if however you do not think it is worth getting stuck in to 18 months of misery for £1.50 then find the nearest exit... don't stay calm, don't walk,... RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
Dont want to take my word for it? check the Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/plusnet check the comments even against the posts they made for charity work, that is the true feeling of the plusnet customers not the few avid followers who sit here making 20 million posts over a few years all about how much they love plusnet.
Last time I posted anything like this it was deleted as spam (yeah ok) because they only want nice fluffy things they can directly respond to on here so it will probably be deleted again, as they are cutting me off in 2 hours because they literally cannot take payment due to a mistake they made and have not replied to my service question for 6 working days I suppose it makes no difference for me to post this again, hoping to save someone from an ISP I would select Orange over any day... sad but true.

[#7]

@inhost - They can't take payment because you won't provide them with a means of payment they accept as you're being stubborn and making it as difficult as possible to come to any resolution.
I could be wrong but from what I've read from your previous posts, that is how it reads.

[#8]

@DomS not the case at all, I provided them with pre authorisation via direct debit, I also offered to send them a cheque, it was only after a member of their team essentially committed fraud with my card details that I refused to give them any more card details... which I think is fair, especially given they admit the failure to collect payment in the first place is their own.

[#9]

@inhost Are you familiar with the law of libel?

[#10]

@jelv are you familiar with daylight? I imagine you don't get to see much with your face planted firmly on the buttocks of plusnet 24x7x365
To answer your question, yes more aware than you might realise, and my response: Allowable defences are justification (i.e. the truth of the statement), fair comment (i.e., whether the statement was a view that a reasonable person could have held),