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I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

biggun1
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎09-12-2013

I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

I joined Plusnet on the 12th September via the internet form. It took 2 weeks and several phone calls (all with a huge amount of time on hold waiting to speak to some one) to actually get anywhere with my instalation.
By now my old service provider has issued me with a migration code for my broardband and as it's been more than ten days disconnected my broardband ~ I'm left with no internet.
Eventually, after failing to turn up twice the engineer arrived. Spent twenty minutes wiring a new wall socket and left, didn't clear up after himself, didn't put anything back as he found it, trod mud into the house and left telling us that it could take up to 48 hours before we have a phone line again - but thats normal.
50 hours later and still no dial tone I ring Plusnet (cue twenty minutes of hold music and being told my call was imoportant) from my mobile only to be told it's either my equiptment or my old service provider causing the delay. I then speak to BT and EE who both tell me there is no problem and to check with Plusnet! This continued for two days until finally BT did a line test and confirmed that the fault was at the exchange following our conversion to fibre - thansk for that mr Plusnet engineer.... Two weeks later and our phone line and broardband mysteriously come back without warning and everything seems to be OK - but our Plusnet Fibreoptic is actually slower than our old EE Broardband! Thanks for that! Cue another thirty minutes on hold only to be told it's all we can expect to get from our exchange which is strange as our neighbour is getting 10 megs more than us and he's on BT, but who cares at least we have a phone and internet.
Scroll forwards to the third of December and through the letterbox comes a bill from BT totalling £90.24 worth of calls for the last 3 months, which is strange as we have signed up to an inclusive call package from Plusnet. So I spend another 40 minutes on hold before getting through to someone who tells me there was a problem setting up my phone line, so rather than tell me or try to sort the problem they just forgot about it and let me run up a £90 phone bill with BT whilst spending hours on the phone thinking it was all inclusive with my Plusnet package!
I think Plusnet is a complete joke. Your customer service is appalling, you don't seem to care about your customers at all, your waiting time to speak to an advisor is useless - 40 minutes on hold just isn't acceptable, and so far you haven't managaed to get one part of my order right.
Would I reccomend you to any one I know?? No definately not, you rank as the worst company I have ever delt with.
Would I leave you tomorrow if I could? Hell yeah! 'd go stragt back to EE or I might give Virgin a go.
13 REPLIES 13
picbits
Rising Star
Posts: 3,432
Thanks: 23
Registered: ‎18-01-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Can I just point out that Plusnet have *no* engineers which go out onsite and this is all dealt with by BT Openreach who Plusnet have to book on your behalf.
I'm sure one of the staff will be along with more info soon.
Have you done the tests in this thread ? http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,96155.0.html
Click on the bit for the BT speed test and post your results - it may give us an idea what is going wrong Smiley
biggun1
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎09-12-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Hi Dom and thanks for your reply.
Regardless of weather they are employed by Plusnet or Openreach they are agents acting on behalf of Plusnet, therefore any complaints regarding them should be delt with by Plusnet.
That aside it has been a catalog of errors from start to finish. Made worse by the fact that every time you try to contact Plusnet you end up on hold for a minimum of 20 minutes! It's shocking and in no way shape or form acceptable. Added to which because of the delay in sorting out the phone line failings by Plusnet I have just had £90 deducted from my bank account by BT - 3 weeks before Christmas...Thanks for that Plusnet.
picbits
Rising Star
Posts: 3,432
Thanks: 23
Registered: ‎18-01-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Indeed - I'm 100% with you on that. If a BT engineer has made a mess then it should be sorted and yes, Plusnet will have to deal with it on your behalf.
On a plus side, once you've got stuff sorted with PN, they seem to run a pretty reliable service unless you have issues with your line (this would be the same with any provider though). They are also a pretty friendly bunch on the forums so once they pick this up, things should start happening.
Fingers crossed you get it all sorted - I'd say welcome to the Plusnet family but I fear that with your current issues you may not feel as part of it as you should at the moment.
biggun1
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎09-12-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Dom, I have no idea how much they are paying you but I fear it's not enough.
Right now I would like a migration code from Plusnet and I'll quietly leave without making a fuss - so long as they refund me everything I have paid them as I have been paying BT for the same service at the same time!  I can live with the dissapointingly slow connection speed but I can't be paying for a service I'm not recieving or joining a company that I can't speak to when I need to.
I really hope this forum is public and people trying to choose an ISP get to see all the dissapointed people threads on here.
As for things starting to happen once they see I'm complaining on a forum, why should it take me complaing on an open forum for them to do something about it?? That really is echoing my point about poor customer service.
picbits
Rising Star
Posts: 3,432
Thanks: 23
Registered: ‎18-01-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Grin I get paid nothing and no - I don't get any perks.
I'm one of the happy ones on here who has had good service from PN. I've had to contact them (around 10 months ago) with a line fault and had no issues but they were a lot less busy then.
I monitored the forum before I made the choice to move from BE to PN and while there were quite a few disgruntled customers back then as well, I also saw the staff make the effort to help on the forums and most issues were sorted.
This forum is public to view and as long as you don't go effing / blinding / slandering blah blah blah then the Moderation is good and the posts are left on.
I certainly think there is a lot of room for improvement for the customer service issues via the helplines (although they are opening another call center to cope with the demand but this doesn't help you at this current time). Certainly the issues should have been addressed before you had to resort to posting it on the forum but in a way it's good to hear about these issues from customers rather than Plusnet potentially sweeping stuff under the carpet.
Unfortunately due to the nature of support forums, people who haven't had a problem will generally not pop up and post the positive experiences while customers who have had issues will normally come on and let off a bit of steam and complain. For people who haven't been involved in support roles before, this will appear that 95% of customers have issues and hate Plusnet while only 5% of customers have had positive experiences.
Off topic but when I worked in support for one of the UK's largest retailers, I aimed for 100% customer satisfaction and had a fantastic track record of resolving problems (I got head hunted because of my reputation). Generally once the customers had their issues resolved, wouldn't be heard from again unless they came back to purchase another item. Very occasionally you'd get a letter from the customer saying thank you - this made it all worth while. When I eventually left, I ended up working full time for one of my customers (who turned out to be the MD of a local company)  - he wouldn't let me go !
gnicholson8
Grafter
Posts: 319
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

As picbits has said, these forums are filled with people with problems as that is what it is here for, support and help.
If you go over to the Sky forums (who were my old ISP) you'll find it is a hell of a lot worse than it is with PN, and I don't even want to know what the BT ones are like.
It does look like you've had trouble since your move (I know the feeling with this as well) and it is the same old issues of BT Engineers (BT Openreach) doing their usually "Steller" job.
I am surprised your line is still with BT and not moved with PN, if you log in to the member centre of Plusnet does it give you any information regarding your home line?
One of the PN staff should pick this up soon, however as they are usually on here 9-5 it may not be until the morning.
biggun1
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎09-12-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Well Dom I hope your right about PN sorting it out and well done for spotting that I was only joking about you being on the payroll. As for swearing - I don't, it doesn't get you anywhere.  I am becoming increasingly frustrated at how many calls this is taking and not getting anything back other than 'we're trying to sort it - automated messages'. The last repersentative I spoke to was refreshingly honest and told it like it is - It's PN's fault and PN need to sort it, So well done Harry in customer services - now if they could just resolve the probem or refund my payments and give me a migration code that would be great. It's taking far too much of my time and money trying to sort a problem that shouldn't be there.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Hi biggun1,
I've started looking into this enquiry and am hoping to be able to find out more about what's happening from the agent who queried our suppliers as to what's going on with the phone line. I don't think I'll be able to come back with a full explanation today due to this, but rest assured I'll be back with a lot more information and hopefully a solution tomorrow morning for you. I'm really sorry things have happened the way they have and will do my best to get things sorted for you.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Hi. I've done some more investigating, basically we've not been able to move the phone to us due to this address mismatch, which we're currently chasing (I believe this is in the ordering system which is why it's not affecting your current service with BT).
That brings me on to the next thing - you've been billed by BT because the service is still active with them. As the phone hasn't activated with us yet all you've paid is one month's line rental as part of your initial fee and this won't start running until the phone activates. Having said that, if you no longer want to go ahead with the transfer of the phone (which would be understandable, though of course we'd rather you did) we'll happily refund that for you.
At present we're escalating the query we've made to the address matching team, as soon as that's confirmed sorted we'll be able to place the order again to move the service if you still do want to go ahead.
I'm really sorry for how all this has gone so far, hope that helps explain.
biggun1
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎09-12-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Hi Matt.
I have received an email telling me my phone should be switched to Plusnet on the 30th December.
As for couldn't change the phone due to my address mismatch, how come you can change my broadband with the 'address mismatch' but not my phone line? Why didn't you bother to tell me you hadn't changed my phone line - then I would't have run up a £90 phone bill thinking I was using an all inclusive call package with plusnet.
As for if I no longer want a plusnet phone line - I don't wan't anything to do with you! Plusnet have been hopeless from start to finish. I have written to Ofcom as I feel they need to be made aware of your companies incompitance.
I want a member of your customer service to phone me, I want my phone bill of £90.24 paid - it's not my fault you didn't tell me you hadn't managed to change my phone line over.
Oh, and once I've received my money I'd like an apology.
gnicholson8
Grafter
Posts: 319
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

But did you ever get confirmation e-mails from Plus.net to confirm your phone line is live an active, did it ever show the details on the Member Centre?
If the problem with the Mis-match was caused by your previous supplier (BT) why not go and chase them for it. Unless PN actually told you that your new line and package was active then it's not just their fault. and if you ASSUMED your new line was active without checking then.. well it is partly your fault too 😕
picbits
Rising Star
Posts: 3,432
Thanks: 23
Registered: ‎18-01-2013

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

If I was in his situation and Plusnet had told me my line was to be transferred on a certain date and it wasn't but hadn't informed me of the issue then I'd be rather angry too.
I had a similar thing with Tiscali - they were meant to take over my phone line and internet but cancelled the internet install without telling me then took over my line after I'd told them not to.
I spent months getting that mess sorted out.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: I'm apoplectic with rage at the continued poor service from Plustnet.

Once again, I am very sorry about how this has happened. I'll leave the question over the BT invoice in the hands of the complaints team, but it looks like you were contacted on the 4th October to let you know that the phone order hadn't completed and would be at least another 15 days. It looks like that order was rejected on the same day, though we didn't receive any notification of this which will be why you weren't informed.