Currently on hold on the phone and I've been waiting now 32 minutes so far.
I placed an order with Plusnet for phone and broadband on the 3rd of August for an office I've moved into and was given an installation date of 25th August. I was told there was no active line in the building so I was required to pay the 50 quid engineer callout fee. Not a problem. I paid it.
On the 13th of August I got a strange text message from Plusnet saying that my order could not continue because there was no active line at the address and I was required to pay for an engineer visit. I was told that once I'd paid this fee, the order would continue.
I phoned up and explained that I had already paid the installation fee. The guy in provisioning apologised and said he didn't know what had happened and that he would take personal responsibility for it. He placed the order again, with an installation date of the 24th August - which was last Wednesday. It was an AM appointment.
I arrived at the premises just before 8am and waited for the BT engineer. While waiting it dawned on me that the broadband router had not arrived. So at 08:30 I phoned Plusnet and was on hold for about 15 minutes. The customer services person told me they couldn't help and I would need to phone back and speak to the provisioning dept after 9am. So I did - was on hold for 20 minutes, then a guy answered and he put me on hold again to look into it.
He then told me the order had been placed incorrectly by the provisioning team and BT had rejected the order, so were not going to be visiting. I wasn't happy. I'd taken time out from work to visit the premises to wait for the engineer and Plusnet gave me no warning that the order had been cancelled - so I was waiting around for nothing.
The guy in provisioning said he could place my order again but I asked him if there was anything he could do to compensate me for my time - as I'm self employed and had to take half a day out for nothing. I asked for a partial refund - he said no, they don't deal with refunds in provisioning and I would need to phone the 0800 number and speak to customer services.
So I went home, phoned the 0800 number from my landline and was on hold for over 20 minutes. I spoke to customer services and explained my whole story - again, only for them to tell me that they couldn't handle any sort of refund and I would need to speak to the provisioning department! Not happy. I waited on hold to get through to the provisioning dept again.
Spoke to a lady who apologised. They do a lot of apologising at Plusnet and it seems to me that they think being overly polite and apologetic fixes everything - it seems to be a substitute for actual customer service. She said that the refund had been authorised and she would update my support ticket with details and a confirmation of my refund. I agreed for them to place the order again - which is due to be installed on the 6th of September - over a month since my original order.
Next day (Thursday) I got a confirmation of the installation date - but no confirmation of my refund. I updated the ticket asking them to please confirm that my refund was being processed because I didn't want to go ahead with the order unless the refund was going to be honoured. There was no response - for 3 days.
Then today (Saturday) I got a confirmation that the ticket had been closed with a comment about the engineers appointment. The ability for me to re-open the ticket or reply had been removed. Still no confirmation or comment about the refund. I felt I had been totally ignored and they were not intending to honour their promise.
So I phoned up again as I started writing this and I was on hold for 39 minutes! I have just gone through the whole explanation of my issue all over again - again - again. I was told that my refund was being processed. I asked why they didn't inform me before as I'd asked - and as usual, all I got was an apology. I waited 40 minutes on the phone just to receive a confirmation that they should have sent me 3 days ago.
As a self employed person, I've lost more than the £50 they've refunded me not to mention the lack of phone and broadband service that I need to do my job at a premises I'm paying for but can't actually use.
Its been a very frustrating and disappointing experience - mostly with the inconvenience of being on hold for such long periods of time. I'd say I've easily spent an hour and a half on hold with them while dealing with this issue. I'm startled by the utter incompetence of the staff and this American style customer service is pretty sickly and dishonest - just smile and apologise and everything will be ok.
Plusnet now reminds me of BT - poorly trained, incompetent morons passing you around from one department to the next, not claiming responsibility, getting the orders wrong and then making things worse by not communicating with you - and of course the long wait times on the phone. The only difference between plusnet and BT is that BT have always had a belligerent, arrogant attitude, Plusnet seems to cover this up with smiles and bullsht but they are just as bad.
I hate having my time wasted. If they screw it up this third time around and the line ends up not getting installed on the 6th, I won't be asking them to try again.
