Do You Want My Money or Not?
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Do You Want My Money or Not?
on 03-01-2018 2:22 PM - last edited on 03-01-2018 3:00 PM by Strat
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A few weeks back, I got an email saying my debit card details had expired and Plus.net were not able to take my DD payment. So I went onto the site and amended the details. A couple more weeks passed and I got the same email again. So I went back onto the site and amended my details again --presuming, for some reason that it hadn't saved last time.
Now, today, I get another email telling me I must make a payment or my service will be disconnected. So I login to the site again and am presented with the following dialogue, whenever I try to access any of the various tabs under my account. So, I can't even check the status of the DD without making a payment first.
OK. Fair enough. I'll make a payment. I click on the "Make Payment" button above and the 'Continue' button on the next page and am then confronted with this. ie. my browser can't or won't load the payment frame because it's getting an "insecure Response" error. Well, that's reassuring [not!] since I'm trying to access a page where I'll be asked for my bank details:
Time to try a different approach. I decide to go through the ‘Contact Us’ section and attempt to make a payment that way through “Customer Services > Account & Billing > I’ve missed a payment”. However, the “Make Payment” button on that page leads to a broken link:
Getting a bit frustrated now. So I fire off an email to support@plus.net [including these screen grabs], pointing out that I've already updated my details twice and that I'm trying to make a payment online, but their site is broken. A few seconds later, I get this automated response:
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately we don't pick up any emails sent to this address. That's because emails can easily be lost, misdirected or even deleted and we think it's better if this doesn't happen.
...
We prefer electronic 'tickets' to emails, this means that you can always see what updates have been made and check back over previous tickets too.
Back again to the plus.net site to try and open an 'electronic ticket'. needless to say, this involves rattling round like the proverbial fly in a jam-jar, trying to find anywhere on the site that remotely looks like a means of raising a support ticket. It's not under 'Help & Support'. That would be too logical!
Eventually, I find a 'Raise a Ticket' link under my account details:
I click on this link and am taken to the following page, where I have to choose what my support ticket is about from a list of subjects so esoteric that plus.net must have specially designed them to make sure no-one ever has the chance to actually raise a ticket:
By this stage, I'm getting close to head-butting walls in frustration. But there's one last thing to try. With a sense of despair, I click on the 'Live Chat' link to see if I can actually get through to a human being:
Are you serious? I can't contact a support person through Live Chat, without first giving you permission to sling a load of adverts and god knows what else spyware onto my computer.
As if all of this wasn't irritating enough, my internet has been running like a slug on mogadon all day today and periodically throwing this delightful page into my browsing sessions:
I presume plus.net are throttling my service until I cough up --even though I'm finding it impossible to do so as they won't take my [-Censored-]ing money.
[I could also mention the fact that trying to compose a post in this Mickey Mouse editor which scrolls to the top of the page every time I type a character isn't the most user friendly interface I've experienced either. But that vein in my temple is starting to throb again. So I think I'd better go and lie down in a dark corner for a bit]
Moderator's note by Dick (Strat) Avoidance of swear filter removed as per forum rule.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
03-01-2018 3:54 PM
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Must be a very rare thing for a company not to want to take your money, usually it's the other way around and they are too quick to take it.
Top marks for being so pertinacious, I guess many would have given up long before now.
Sorry I am not in a position to offer you advice but hopefully someone at PN will deal with this (un)usual problem quickly and to your satisfaction.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
03-01-2018 4:13 PM
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Having a pop up browser can stop you getting to Chat, and cause some of the other issues you had. Which browser were you using? Do you have access to another one?
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
on 03-01-2018 4:20 PM - last edited on 03-01-2018 8:12 PM by Mav
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Yes. I've got access to other browsers. I'm not so concerned about the chat not working --more amused by the fact that whatever system they're using breaks if the user has an ad-blocker installed.
My main gripe is with the fact that; of the two methods I've found on the site for making a direct payment, neither work. One won't load because of a security error and the other results in a '404 Page not Found'. And, as is often the case with so many companies these days, plus.net seem to deliberately make it impossible for you to contact them directly via email.
Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Full quote of preceding post removed as per Forum rules.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
03-01-2018 4:37 PM
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I am not customer services but I do work on the website in certain areas (not the pages in question though). There were issues with the site earlier which should all be resolved by now. Have you tried again?
The Chat does require that you either temporarily disable your adblock software or at least whitelist Google GTM which is how the Chat javascript is served to the website. Normal ad blockers work just fine but Ghostery and Adblock Origin are quite stringent and block pretty much everything - but they do have the option to whitelist websites for small amount of time to do what you need if functionality is diminished due to blocking of scripts.
I have taken notes about your experience using the account management pages and will be talking with a few people here to see whats going on with that related to updating payment details. It may have something to do with the website outage that happened this morning. I will not be able to update you personally about this though as all I can do is make the engineers aware of the issues you faced.
I hope one of the Help team comes along and can help sort this out for you though.
I know that this is probably the last thing you want to be asked but did you try calling customer services via telephone?
Frontend Web Developer | www.plus.net
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Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
03-01-2018 4:54 PM
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There were issues with the site earlier which should all be resolved by now. Have you tried again?
I've just tried again and finally managed to get the payments screen to load, in the third Browser I tried [Firefox, for the record]
The Chat does require that you either temporarily disable your adblock software or at least whitelist Google GTM which is how the Chat javascript is served to the website. Normal ad blockers work just fine but Ghostery and Adblock Origin...
I think you mean uBlock Origin, which I am using. Maybe the error message could be a bit clearer about this, as the lack of functionality is to do with the script you mentioned being blocked, not ad-blocking per se
I have taken notes about your experience using the account management pages and will be talking with a few people here to see whats going on with that related to updating payment details. It may have something to do with the website outage that happened this morning. I will not be able to update you personally about this though as all I can do is make the engineers aware of the issues you faced.
Good to hear. But, even if some of the other problems were caused by an outage, your engineers should definitely look into the fact that the 'Make Payment' button, which is accessed through the 'Help and Support' section goes to https://www.plus.net/pay which is a dead link.
I know that this is probably the last thing you want to be asked but did you try calling customer services via telephone?
No. If I want to recreate that experience, I put on a CD of my least favourite songs, played through a tinny speaker and get the missus to walk into the room every five minutes and announce "Your call is important to us!" in an irritatingly insincere voice.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
03-01-2018 5:15 PM
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I developed the adblocking notice as I also use Adblock Origin and others that use it found the chat was blocked. I can certainly take a look into having the wording changed to better reflect what is actually happening - I think I made it quite generic at the time.
I must admit, you gave me a laugh about the phone line. I didn't want to suggest you call but thought I'd ask anyway. I'd personally prefer to do everything online and getting on the phone would be a last resort for me.
Frontend Web Developer | www.plus.net
If you have an idea to improve the community, create a new topic on our Community Feedback board to start a discussion about your idea.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
03-01-2018 8:04 PM
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Sorry to read of your experience
There doesn't look to be anything left here that @jaread83 has already resolved/fed back. But with regards to why the payments aren't coming out automatically, leave this with me to look into when I'm back in the office tomorrow.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
04-01-2018 11:42 AM
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It looks like your December invoice was taken fine via your direct debit, but for some reason your direct debit was re-submitted just before your invoice date in January which meant we couldn't take the balance automatically.
Prior to the re-submission I can see we've been taking your money via direct debit for over 2 years without issues.
Let us know if you have any issues next month when the direct debit is active again.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
04-01-2018 12:04 PM - edited 04-01-2018 12:05 PM
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The reason I re-submitted the DD details was because: I changed bank accounts in December so I originally submitted new Direct Debit details on 18th Dec. Then I received an email from plus.net on 27th December telling me I needed to update my card details. So I resubmitted the Direct Debit details on 30th Dec.
[Noll = December]
Email from plus.net on 27th Dec.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
04-01-2018 12:21 PM
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As an aside:
Looking through my profile on this forum, I see that I had a previous issue resolved quite quickly, after posting here. I'm quite impressed with how useful this forum is --especially as it seems to be frequented by plus.net employees who do actually respond to people's problems [well --touch wood-- they have so far, for me].
I think you should mention this fact somewhere on the site and give this forum a bit more prominence as a support channel. Whenever I see a community or forum link on most websites, I pre-suppose it's going to consist mainly of end-users thrashing about in the dark, trying to help each other out and generally giving mostly useless and/or conflicting advice. It's very rare to find a forum that is actually frequented by employees of the company in question, who can actually "get things done".
If I'd remembered or been aware of this yesterday, it would have saved me a lot of wasted time and frustration trying to find ways to contact plus.net directly without having to resort to "ordeal by telephone".
Just a thought.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
24-03-2018 10:20 AM
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Sigh! –here we go again!
So, after thinking that I'd got this problem resolved in January, I receive the same email telling me my payment has failed on 12 Feb:
So, I make another manual payment to stop my Broadband being slowed to a crawl and then disconnected. Then I set up my Direct Debit *again!* I think this is the fourth time, but I'm losing count, to be honest. At the beginning of March, I receive the usual 'advance Notice' email. So, the Direct Debit setup appears to have been processed:
But no. On to 12 March and the old familiar merry-go-round starts again:
So I make another manual payment and setup the Direct Debit again for the umpteenth and first time. I receive confirmation of that on 13 Mar:
And then on 21st Mar it's Groundhog Day all over again:
In a moment of madness, I forget the fun I had last time, trying to sort this out and fire off a response to the suuport@plus.net address which is sending me these emails:
Silly Boy!....
So here I am washing my laundry in public again, trying to get this sorted. Is the problem with plus.net? Is the problem with my bank? I've not had anything from my bank at all to indicate that they've refused any Direct Debits from their side, or any confirmation [or otherwise] that a new Direct Debit has been set up on my account. So I'm none the wiser –especially as all I ever get is this circle of automated emails from Plus.net telling me conflicting things.
[BTW: The above has got to be the most asinine message in the history of email. For a start it comes from a "support@" address which doesn't actually provide any support and secondly that "Unfortunately we don't pick up any emails sent to this address. That's because emails can easily be lost, misdirected or even deleted.." beggars belief. In other words, "don't try to email us as we might lose it or accidentally delete it". Hmmm... Maybe just train your email handling staff a bit better then?]
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
24-03-2018 10:40 AM
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ADDITIONAL:
OK. I've just logged into my bank website and there appear to be two Direct Debits to Plus.net setup. Both matching the reference number quoted in the emails from my previous post, but with a different pair of suffixes [-3 and -5 as opposed to -4 in the emails].
So, what's going on? It looks like Plus.net are submitting the Direct Debit instruction to my bank over and over again, but with a one digit difference at the end of the reference number each time.
I'm not privy to the inner workings of how all this stuff is handled, but could that have anything to do with it? Maybe that's the way it works normally, or maybe my bank is declining the Direct Debit because it's being submitted multiple times with slightly differing reference numbers. As I said in my abortive email to the `support@plus.net' address, Plus.net and my bank need to talk to each other and sort this out because there's nothing I can do from my end, apart from keep re-submitting the Direct Debit instructions each time, which could be doing more harm than good.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
30-03-2018 1:40 PM
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Hi there,
I'm sorry to hear that you've experienced further problems with the direct debit instruction. I've had a look into this and this looks to have been cancelled by our billing team by mistake. The direct debit instruction is showing active on your account again now - I've also sent a message to our billing team to ask them to make sure this doesn't happen again next month.
Re: Do You Want My Money or Not?
30-03-2018 4:35 PM
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OK. Thanks for trying to sort this.
But I'm sure you'll understand if I hold off clicking the "This Fixed My Problem" button until after I see what happens when my next payment is due.
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