Plusnet.........worst service provider ever

[#1]

I've had an ongoing problem regarding broadband speeds and dropouts now for a couple of months. Each person I speak to gives me different reasons/excuses as to the cause of it, one even blaming my online backup running. It culminated in an engineer being arranged for Monday, with a stern warning that I would be charged £50 if I wasn't in at the pre-arranged time for his visit. Well I was in all afternoon until after 6PM (the arranged slot was between 1PM and 6PM). No phone call.....text....email.....simply nothing. I now feel justified in demanding £50 from you for this none show. You would have charged me, so it's only right that I charge you. I did send this message to your online support team as an add on to a ticket arranged with them asking for an immediate reply as to when to expect this charge to reach me, and what method would be used to pay me. Still no reply, but it's just what I expected. Next step is Ofcom. Fed up to the back teeth with Plusnet, and their lack of customer care.

[#2]

Hi Togman,
Assuming that the appointment was correctly handed over to BTOR (the people who actually install services) then it was they who failed to turn up, it is them who lacked the customer care.  The £50 charge if YOU are not in is a charge levied by BTOR, not PlusNet.
BTOR failed appointments are legion, though failure to properly book appointments is also too common.
Hopefully someone will get a new appointment scheduled quickly and as a free expedited order.

[#3]

I had a phone call today from BTOR apologising for the failed visit yesterday, so it had been arranged properly. I then told them I felt more than justified to charge them £50 for failing to turn up at the arranged time, and was told that I would have to take it up with Plusnet. I've already attempted this and it appears it has fallen upon deaf ears, just like all my other correspondence has. The way I see it is that I have a contract with Plusnet to provide me with a usable service and to maintain and repair that service as and when necessary. They arrange with BTOR to carry out any repairs, not me. I therefore think it's reasonable to expect Plusnet to pay me compensation to the tune of £50 and for them to take it up with BTOR to reclain that sum of money from them. I do not have any contract with BTOR, it is Plusnet who deals directly with them.

[#4]

Well said Togman.
I had similar experiences with BTOR not turning up and me wasting all morning waiting for them earlier this year (at the time I was with Talktalk).  It took 3 BTOR visits to fix my problem which turned out to be an external line fault but they still tried to charge me £50 twice and I had to waste innumerable minutes on the phone to Talktalk's Indian call-centre, being passed from one person to another.  I even filled out an excel spreadsheet detailing all the calls and visits etc with a view to sending to Dido Harding.  But then they started to mess about with the `look' of their webmail and that was the last straw so I thought I was being clever switching to PlusNet.  Sadly, now I'm not so sure.  The waiting times to get through to support are almost as bad as those with HMRC, I often have failed log-ins or abrupt termination of email sessions. Also it's got incredibly slow recently.  One good thing re BTOR is that Ofcom wants to break its monopoly stranglehold on the infrastructure and is currently examining its cosy relationship with BT.
Pity BT took over PlusNet.  BT is once again in Daily Mail's top 5 worst for customer service, se fear the ethos has filtered down to PN.  Pity, because being a Yorkshireman I hoped for better from an outfit founded in Sheffield.

[#5]

Hi Togman,
I am sorry to hear about these issues. The way this engineer charging works is that for every BT Engineer appointment there is a charge of £160. If they don't turn up then BT has to absorb this cost, however if they do turn up and you are not in etc. then £50 is charged to you and £110 to ourselves. As this is the situation, we would not be able to refund you a further £50 and take this up with BT as they have already paid out the £160 so they will not cover further costs.
I hope that the issues get sorted soon and your service is connected. Thank you for your understanding.

[#6]

How have they paid out £160 if they didn't show.
The point here, is that there is a cost for an engineer to have a wasted visit and £50 is charged to the customer. There is also a cost for your customer to have to wait in and have his time wasted. It is not unreasonable for this to be a symmetrical arrangement. "I waste your time - £50. You waste the customers time - Also £50
And no -  £50 doesn't cover the full cost - in either direction.

[#7]

Quote from: MelRocks

Hi Togman, I am sorry to hear about these issues. The way this engineer charging works is that for every BT Engineer appointment there is a charge of £160. If they don't turn up then BT has to absorb this cost, however if they do turn up and you are not in etc. then £50 is charged to you and £110 to ourselves. As this is the situation, we would not be able to refund you a further £50 and take this up with BT as they have already paid out the £160 so they will not cover further costs. I hope that the issues get sorted soon and your service is connected. Thank you for your understanding.

When you say thank you for understanding you have missed the point completely The inference is that I understand, but I DON'T understand one little bit so please don't further patronise me with your clichéd comments. If their engineer doesn't call, how can there possibly be any costs for them to absorb?.  If you see fit to charge me for wasting time and not being in for one of these chaps to call, then I certainly see fit to charge you when someone appointed by you fails to call. I hold YOU, as  my ISP provider, responsible for anything to do with the service I PAY YOU for.  A simple phone call from them early in the day to explain that they wouldn't be coming would have sufficed. The manner of your comment only serves to confirm to me that Plusnet has no concerns about customer satisfaction and is yet another fob off.....just like everyone else I have had to deal with throughout this sorry saga has done......fobbed me off repeatedly with a different explanation from everyone I've spoken with as to the cause of the problem. One person said he had found a fault within my settings that was responsible for the fault and that he had now reset all my settings and that I would have no more problems. This made things worse. I then managed to speak to another supposedly technical person who informed me that someone (your technical person) had interfered with my settings and had them all wrong, and THAT was responsible for my problems.  He then said he had reset everything and I would have no further problems.....BUT I DO.  I have an engineer supposedly calling tomorrow, and after he has been.....if indeed he bothers to come, I shall be forwarding the entire details of this debacle to OFCOM. Plusnet have had their chance to show me how much they care about my custom and have failed in the most miserable of fashions. I should also tell you that I raised this subject of the £50 with BTOR, and they also told me it was Plusnet who are responsible for compensating me the £50.

[#8]

Quote from: MelRocks

The way this engineer charging works is that for every BT Engineer appointment there is a charge of £160. If they don't turn up then BT has to absorb this cost, however if they do turn up and you are not in etc. then £50 is charged to you and £110 to ourselves.

Mel,
Can you confirm the source of these figures please?  Looking here - 4.1.6 Abortive Visit Charge - from the Openreach website Product Prices

Quote

Feature Operative date Until Charge £ Exc VAT Abortive Visit Charge (per engineer per visit or call out) 12/12/06 31/07/13 85 Abortive Visit Charge (per engineer per visit or call out) 01/08/13 00/01/00 90

Which suggests that the abortive visit charge is just £108 incl VAT.  This looks like the current figures on Openreach's website as I can find no later listing - is it out of date?

Quote

Openreach will NOT charge when: ##The job has not been appointed ##Openreach misses the appointment ##There is no access to line plant which is not within the End Users control ##An engineer simultaneously delays more than one order at the same address. Only one charge will be raised. ##Faults are ultimately proven off the customer’s site and access wasn’t necessary. ##An engineer is unable to attend the End Users site due to MBORC scenarios such as snow, flooding,  foot and mouth, security alerts etc. ##Appointment slot details have not been correctly communicated to the Communications Provider - i.e. system failure in EMP prevented appointment details from being passed to the Communications Provider.

Also from Service Maintenance Levels  fact sheet...

Quote from: https

Enhanced service offerings... Apart from missed appointments, the following enhanced service offerings are all chargeable: - Missed appointments: Automatic payments to you when the missed appointment is our fault

I've yet to find BTOR documentation of the failed appointment payment to ISPs, but I believe it is in the region of £45 - can you confirm this please?
Kevin

[#9]

I too must admit to being rather baffled by this.
Why would BT charge PN £160 if a BTOR  engineer fails to keep an appointment? 
The only  legal reasons BT has to charge PN,  or a customer a fee is if the customer is not available  when the engineer calls, or if the fault is found NOT to be with BTOR's network , in which case PN are being very generous in only charging £50 to a customer .
Looks to me as though this customers post has not been understood. Can someone look at it again?
Question: what do PN do when BTOR do not keep an appointment? Do they  charge BT  a fee and pass on a significant proprtion of that fee to the inconvenienced customer? 

[#10]

The only way this abuse of customers will be fixed is by a change of regulation (Ofcom) or for MPs to pass primary legislation providing compensation arrangements for when suppliers fail to attend. The level of compensation should be punitive to force the supplier to mend its ways.

[#11]

According to the latest Which report, BTOR will have PAID Plusnet £160.00 for the failed appointment. Plusnet are choosing NOT to pass this onto Togman. Good luck with Ofcom.

[#12]

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/delivery-rights

[#13]

The users contract is with Plusnet and any consideration of financial arrangements between Plusnet and "their supplier" is totally irrelevant. If Plusnet tried to raise that when it was taken to a small claims court the judge wouldn't accept that as evidence.
The contract is blatantly unfair as it is one sided.

[#14]

Togman,
If you were determined to stand your ground you could take this to a small-claims court and I think you would win as your contract is indeed with PlusNet I believe. They would also have to pay the court costs involved if you won.
One thing though, you would have to prove your "loss" for the time you lost waiting, ie if you lost a days pay or a days holiday from work (equivalent to a days pay), which might actually amount to considerably more than £50. If I were a PN rep. I'd seriously be considering paying the £50 as a goodwill gesture, and by doing so, cutting my potential losses. From PN's point of view, they will not actually be losing money if they are getting £160 back from BTOR.