Why, after all this time, is there still an ongoing issue with the payment system on plusnet? I can't even begin to explain how incredibly frustrating this is, from a customer point of view.
I don't need to go into too much detail as, I see, many others have already shared their experiences of this very issue, but just to confirm it would seem I am one of a small handful of customers who, no matter what, cannot process payment on their account.
Just like others have mentioned, the account restrictions kick in almost immediately after 'failed payment' where the 'splash page' is meant to appear, but doesn't. Connections to Akamai sites, it would seem, are successful, but, and most importantly of all, any attempt to reach the plusnet website is blocked. This then creates something of a security nightmare as it leaves only two options:
1. Log in via an alternative connection (mobile or otherwise) which isn't a particularly good idea when submitting personal details (or)
2. Contact customer services via telephone.
For those interested, I tried both methods, and both encountered issues along the way.
When logging in via an alternative internet connection, upon trying to process payments, I am greeted with: "Error Sorry, we are not able to complete this request at the moment, please try again later."
My previous experience of calling the contact centre (back in January) gave me the following issue - payment couldn't be processed over the phone as the system wouldn't allow payment to be processed at their end either. To quote a ticket: "When trying to take this payment from yourself I was unable to do so but I have raised this due to it's an issue we are experiencing where we are faced with an empty assignment key when trying to take payment."
This, then, presents the customer with something of a headache - you can try to make a payment, but no matter how you try, payment cannot be processed.
For me, back in January, this meant I was hit with a bill for four months or so. That's not great so soon after the festive period. But I did have a connection for this period, and of course I expect to pay. There's no problem there. You provide a service, I pay as a customer.
When the contact centre aren't able to process payment, their advice is generally to call back again later to try again. What's more, every time the contact centre are reached, they seemingly create a new ticket rather than tag this onto existing open tickets. This all then leads to a frustrating experience for the end user, and generally slows down any response due to the number of open tickets.
To cut a long story short, after many months of goodwill gestures, and correspondence with the complaints team, once again this morning I was presented with account restrictions, the failed billing splash page issue where it failed to appear (including account restrictions being applied almost immediately after the failed billing) and the exact same issue when trying to process payment via alternative routes.
This isn't good enough. It has been going on for far too long now, and this isn't the way I expect to be treated as a customer after being loyal for so many years. You were a great company when I joined, and I would like to think that I will be with you for many more years to come, but I am by no means happy at the moment. I think the biggest problem with this ongoing issue is the amount of frustration and time it takes, as a customer, to resolve it even though it's no fault of my own, as a customer. You seem to put all of the emphasis back onto the customer to fix this by requesting multiple calls and contact in order to attempt to take a payment. Where a service is provided, I'm happy to pay - so let me!
I have offered to work with the complaints team to try and troubleshoot this ongoing issue, and to feed my continued experiences in by means of attempting to try and improve the way this is handled in the future to avoid others from having to face the same frustrating experience. Although this was acknowledged by a fantastic member in complaints (just the once), unfortunately any open dialogue with the complaints team is constantly closed automatically due to inactivity, which isn't great when you consider there is likely to be a gap of at least a month (the billing period) between communications - sometimes longer if a goodwill gesture credit is applied to the account.
I understand my issue was passed to the internal investigations in order to try and resolve, and I haven't been given any method of contacting that team directly, so I just wanted to let you know today that it would seem that, unfortunately, I'm now back to square one where all of the problems have returned. I just want to know the way forward now. I have been fair and reasonable throughout, but I am incredibly disappointed now. The new systems, not just billing, but the lithium customer services platform, just aren't working it would seem - they are contributing to a bad customer experience.
