cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Salesman promised not met

FIXED
Freddie_Hayek
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎07-06-2019

Salesman promised not met

I have recently returned to the UK. Initially I attempted to set up broadband with a rival supplier. The tenant was with plusnet and when the new supplier contacted plusnet plusnet told them that I was taking over the tenants line - news to me. I had n ot contacted plusnet over this and didn't even know the tenant was with plusnet.

I found this out on May 28th, the day before I was due to go live. 

I was advied I would have to start the process again. The other provider thought it would be quicker signing up with Plusnet as the previous occupier had used them. I spoke to Plusnet, expalined the situation and the salesman was unsurprisingly very keen to sign me up. I was promised I would be live within 10-12 days, but he would expedite it so it should be sooner. He said he had to say 10 - 12 days as that was what they were told to say. 

 

Today I get a text message and an email advising my start date would be June 20th! When asked why apparently BT openreach have delayed things and there is nothing they can do.

 

How can it be acceptable to take so long to set up broadband? My wife and I are looking for jobs and it makes things rather difficult without broadband. I am spending half my life in the library at the moment.

 

The promise by the salesman has not been met and I still don't understand why Plusnet cancelled the switch to the original broadband provider.

 

 

16 REPLIES 16
adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
Thanks: 882
Fixes: 221
Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: Salesman promised not met

Hi there, 

 

I'm really sorry to see this. Just to clarify is the account holder yourself or the tenant who lived in the property previously?

 

As we're unable to change ownership of an existing service it would involve terminating any existing services on the line before we can provide ours. As we're now activating a service against a line that's been "stopped" it means we have to follow a process that takes a minimum of 14 days as a requirement of OFCOM. 

 

I understand this may not seem helpful to you but I hope it explains the situation and the reason for the delays as transparently as possible. 

 

Adam

If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
Freddie_Hayek
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎07-06-2019

Re: Salesman promised not met

The previous account holder was the tenant.

 

On the assurance by the salesman that it would take 10-12 days (officially - unofficially it would take less as he would expedite it!) I decided to sign up with Plusnet. 

 

Clearly this promise has not been kept. Hopefully the call has been recorded - it is all there.

Why did Plusnet not allow the switch to shell energy broadband?

 

 

adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
Thanks: 882
Fixes: 221
Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: Salesman promised not met

Hi there, 

 

Unfortunately the advisor has misadvised you entirely and I'm so sorry about that, it's clear this has set entirely the wrong expectation and caused issues for you as a result. We take such things very seriously so I will be looking for a recording of the original sales call so I can take a listen and pass on some feedback. 

 

The reason a transfer to another provider would have failed is the same reason we wouldn't be able to change the ownership of the previous Plusnet service on the line, as that service belonged to someone else we had to terminate that service and provide a new one to yourself. 

 

 

If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
Freddie_Hayek
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎07-06-2019

Re: Salesman promised not met

Shell energy clearly advised that Plusnet have not agreed to switch the service because apparently we were taking over the account. 

 

So the tenant didn't cancel the service even though they had moved out? And nothing could be done until I contacted you to advise that I had moved in and only then could you terminate their account? Up until when are they being charged?

 

I tried using the existing plusnet router and the password on the router but that didn't work - it showed a connection from my laptop to the router but not from the router to the internet. It seems to me the tenants' account was closed on May 29th when I tried this.

 

Please review the phone call. 

adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
Thanks: 882
Fixes: 221
Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: Salesman promised not met

Hi, we can't advise you on what you've asked about the tenant's account due to data protection I'm afraid.

 

It may have been that the account was disabled for some reason when you tried to connect. 

 

I'm going to review the call as soon as I can and will definitely get some feedback passed on about the conduct of the sales agent. 

 

 

If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
Freddie_Hayek
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎07-06-2019

Re: Salesman promised not met

Hi Adam,

 

I have heard that Plusnet have a 12 day SLA with BT.

 

Therefore if this was initiated on May 28th then we should have our broadband by now. Can you please confirm your order number with BT and the day the order was sent?

 

Or does this not apply because of the ‘stopped account’ issue you refer to above?

 

 

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Salesman promised not met

Thanks for getting back to us.

I can see the information you've asked have been added to the support ticket 190634264 on Friday.

We're doing all we can to get your service up and running as soon as we can, however due to the way these type of orders progress through the Openreach systems there is nothing we can do to speed it up.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Freddie_Hayek
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎07-06-2019

Re: Salesman promised not met

I appreciate your efforts to get our broadband set up as soon as possible, but I will not be happy until:

1. I have an explanation that I can understand as to why Plusnet declined the switch request by Shell energy

2. I have an explanation I can understand why it is going to take 23 days t activate my broadband, especially when your SLA with BT is 12 days. 

 

3. Why the salesman promised activation within 10-12 days when this has not been met

 

 

 

 

 

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Salesman promised not met

@Freddie_Hayek wrote:

1. I have an explanation that I can understand as to why Plusnet declined the switch request by Shell energy

@adamwalker wrote:

The reason a transfer to another provider would have failed is the same reason we wouldn't be able to change the ownership of the previous Plusnet service on the line, as that service belonged to someone else we had to terminate that service and provide a new one to yourself. 

It's logical that we'd cease the active services on a line if the existing tenants asked us to close their account. In an ideal world, we'd simply keep the line active and transfer the account to yourself but I'm afraid that this isn't possible.

 

@Freddie_Hayek wrote:

2. I have an explanation I can understand why it is going to take 23 days t activate my broadband, especially when your SLA with BT is 12 days. 

Not sure where you got an SLA of 12 days from to be honest. Different types of orders have different standard lead times. When you signed up on the 28th we placed an order on 29th but that was rejected due to the open cease order. We then placed the order again on the 30th and that was again rejected due to the same open cease order that hadn't completed yet.

We then placed your order on the 6th as a simultaneous start of stopped line with fibre broadband. The standard lead time for this type of order is 14 days. Obviously engineer availability comes into play for any type of order and can delay things.

Worth noting that standard lead times for an order apply to individual orders we place with Openreach, as opposed to when you place the order with Plusnet.

 

@Freddie_Hayek wrote:

3. Why the salesman promised activation within 10-12 days when this has not been met

@adamwalker wrote:

Unfortunately the advisor has misadvised you entirely and I'm so sorry about that, it's clear this has set entirely the wrong expectation and caused issues for you as a result. We take such things very seriously so I will be looking for a recording of the original sales call so I can take a listen and pass on some feedback. 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Salesman promised not met

Fix
I’d just like to add that while a cease order is in progress to stop the active services on a line, no one can get an order in place to takeover the line not even another provider as there can only ever be one order open on the Openreach systems at any one time.
From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Freddie_Hayek
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎07-06-2019

Re: Salesman promised not met

Hi Gandalf,

 

Thank you very much for your responses.

 

Yes it makes sense that if the previous occupier hasn’t cancelled their account that you cannot set up an account for me. Unfortunately Shell Direct advised me that Plusnet had put a stop on the switch because apparently I was taking over the account of the previous occupier. They did not contact me about this - I only learned of this when I contacted them for an update. 

 

It it is rather annoying for me that the previous occupier did not cancel their account and that it takes a few days for the cessation order to take effect and then a further 14 days to activate my account. 

 

It s very frustrating living without broadband, especially when looking for work. My experience n Australia was much better than this. 

It was an employee of BT open reach who advised me the SLA was 12 days.

 

thank you for your help

 

 

 

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,920
Thanks: 9,537
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Salesman promised not met

The U.K. model is something of a catch 22 problem. Ofcom has built a business model for line take over which seeks to inhibit line slamming. A line take over has to allow 14 elapsed days from ordering so that the current subscriber can change their mind or refute the request to transfer. This therefore creates a minimum period for taking over a working line.

There is then the matter of outgoing incoming occupants of a property - suppliers usually require a minimum of 14 days termination notice. As described above once the current supplier places the cease order on the line, no other order will be accepted by BT for that line until the cease completes. Unbelievably BT’s system will not facilitate placing a pending order to be executed after the cease. Suppliers need to wait until the cease completes and then place a supply new service order which has a lead time of at least 5 days depending on engineer availability.

What does seem stupid is that where the service before and after is to be supplied by the same ISP / CP (no change to BT asset records) the service supplier seems prohibited from just changing their account billing details for the line leaving asset ownership information unchanged.

It has been hinted that this is something to do with the 999 Emergency Services data ... but as I understand that proceed, the data is supplied to BT from the CP by a process outside of the BT ordering system.

I am sure that there are easier ways of doing this, but with Ofcom fingers in the pie it will remain complex!

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Salesman promised not met

Thanks for getting back to us.

Sorry again for the frustration caused by the processes we have to go through.

Let us know how it goes on the 20th.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Salesman promised not met

@Freddie_Hayek I can see your account activated last night, how have things been since then?

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet