Plus Net needs a better system to handle elderly customers

[#1]

My father an elderly father lost his debit card and went to the bank to cancel the card. Unfortunately, he was not aware that cancelling his card would affect his plus net online accounts. It did? However, since we were waiting for a new debit card to come through, I paid the Invoice as you can see from the screenshot, but I am still receiving "We haven't received payment for your monthly service". It is obvious there is an administrative error on Plus Net part, and to have me upload this information in a community chat room is disgraceful. This has now made me want to cancel my account, as I too am a customer with Plus Net, but it would be so difficult to do this on my father's part. Please correct this error and stop sending me texts

[#2]

My father an elderly father lost his debit card and went to the bank to cancel the card. Unfortunately, he was not aware that cancelling his card would affect his plus net online accounts. It did? However, since we were waiting for a new debit card to come through, I paid the Invoice as you can see from the screenshot, but I am still receiving "We haven't received payment for your monthly service". It is obvious there is an administrative error on Plus Net part, and to have me upload this information in a community chat room is disgraceful. This has now made me want to cancel my account, as I too am a customer with Plus Net, but it would be so difficult to do this on my father's part. Please correct this error and stop sending me texts

[#3]

Moderators Note

Two topics from OP on same subject merged.

[#4]

Hi @DH4

Thank you for reaching out on our Community Forum. We would actively discourage you from sharing any billing / specific contractual information within the public domain, and would instead ask you to send a staff member a private message in order to have this sorted. In addition to this, our forum is not the only way in which you can raise such queries, our Social Media Team are on hand to deal with such things, and our call centre agents would also be happy to take your call - if you're a named user on the account.

Going forward, please can you send me a private message with your fathers account username, and I'll be happy to investigate what appears to be going on here. If your father pays his monthly bill via Direct Debt, this should not have had an impact on his payments, however if payments were being taken via his card, which i assume is the case, the card details would need to be updated.

[#5]

@adam945 

This is the type of incident that supports the need for the restoration of the ticketing system or the implementation of some other method of contact via the Member Centre so that customers do not have to rely on public forums or social media or long waiting times on the phone.

Sending a staff member a PM might be a valid way forward if Plusnet were provide a prominently displayed list of staff members currently available. Mind you, I tried that a few times with a long standing billing issue where the ticket had been closed and never got a response and so I am not confident that it would work.

[#6]

I am puzzled!

I have a debit card from my bank and a direct debit to pay for my Plusnet service.

Surely I could cancel my debit card without affecting the direct debit and vice versa.

Dave

[#7]

You would think so.

[#8]

---

@daveplus wrote:

I am puzzled!

I have a debit card from my bank and a direct debit to pay for my Plusnet service.

Surely I could cancel my debit card without affecting the direct debit and vice versa.

Dave

---

The money comes from the same account but in different ways

A direct debit uses the sort code plus the account number which very rarely changes unless you change banks

A debit card uses the sixteen digit number on your debit card plus the expiry date and the three digit card varication code on the back of the card    Both of these change when you get a new or replacement card and you must tell PN 

HD

[#9]

---

@daveplus wrote:

Surely I could cancel my debit card without affecting the direct debit and vice versa.

---

Unless the Bank changes the account number?

If you get three goes at trying to guess the PIN number of a card that you find then this equates to a 1 in 3,333 chance of getting access to the account.

If only the Lottery odds were this good! 

[#10]

Thanks for getting back to us @DH4 

If you're still getting payment reminders from us then I suspect we haven't received the payment.

Can you confirm the payment showing on your bank's end not simply in a pending state?

If that's the case, for us to investigate further we'd need to see a copy of the statement. Ideally not a mobile statement, as these generally don't show pending transactions very well. 

Feel free to drop me a PM with a screenshot of this from a desktop device or a photo from a paper statement, showing the transaction and all transactions following that to date.

@jgb wrote:

This is the type of incident that supports the need for the restoration of the ticketing system or the implementation of some other method of contact via the Member Centre so that customers do not have to rely on public forums or social media or long waiting times on the phone.

The ticket system has been discussed at great length over the years here. I'm afraid that decisions have been made to move away from this in favour of other ways with getting in touch.

Personally, I do somewhat share your feelings about the ticket system, but it's sadly no longer a support method we offer.

That said, we can still raise tickets ourselves and we'll be happy to help if someone responds to one we raise.

@jgb wrote:

Sending a staff member a PM might be a valid way forward if Plusnet were provide a prominently displayed list of staff members currently available. Mind you, I tried that a few times with a long standing billing issue where the ticket had been closed and never got a response and so I am not confident that it would work.

May I refer you to the Forum Rules?  The staff members who roam our Community Forums nowadays generally consist of myself, @BD, @adam945 and @TheMightyAJ as you may have noticed. 

All PM's to the Plusnet Help Team go into a central system internally queued up like all posts within the support boards here. This basically means if you message someone who's not in the office, someone else can pick it up.

I hope this helps.

[#11]

@Gandalf 

Yes, the ticketing system, or lack of it, has been discussed at length but that does not necessarily mean that it will not crop up again when its advantages are obvious, at least to customers if not to Plusnet management. I am pleased to see that you have some sympathy about its loss.

As to PMs to the Help Team, I note your comments and the Forum Rules. Suffice to say that the Help Team member I sent the PMs to was the staff member who had been dealing with the long standing billing issue I had and the relevant ticket that dealt with it before it was closed by Plusnet with the issue still there. I had no reply from the particular Help Team Member or from anyone else and so the PM appears never to have been picked up from the queued central system. In the end, in the absence of any response and with the issue going on for over a year, I had to raise the billing problem as a formal complaint. am pleased to say that my dedicated handler in the Complaints Team has worked and still works wonders to sort the account out. Pity that it had to get to that stage though. 

[#12]

@jgb wrote:

As to PMs to the Help Team, I note your comments and the Forum Rules. Suffice to say that the Help Team member I sent the PMs to was the staff member who had been dealing with the long standing billing issue I had and the relevant ticket that dealt with it before it was closed by Plusnet with the issue still there. I had no reply from the particular Help Team Member or from anyone else and so the PM appears never to have been picked up from the queued central system. In the end, in the absence of any response and with the issue going on for over a year, I had to raise the billing problem as a formal complaint. am pleased to say that my dedicated handler in the Complaints Team has worked and still works wonders to sort the account out. Pity that it had to get to that stage though. 

It's been a relatively recent change since we've started coming back onto Community Forums with more of a presence.

Glad to see the your complaints case handler though has sorted things out for you.