Three engineer visits arranged so far and still not one has arrived

[#1]

First appointment scheduled for last Wednesday between 8am and 1pm no one shows up or phones to say they wont be coming this day.
I phone Plusnet who cant give me any updates and advise someone from their supply team will call me back with an update but it may not be today.
No call back from the supply team unttil following day and say they can get someone out on Monday of this week between 8 and 1 again which i agree to.  I also sent a notice of complaint email to plus net advising i was not happy at taking a day off from work for no one to show and no one to call me back about it until the following day which i am still awaiting response to.
On Monday more time off work waiting for an engineer not to show, another call to plusnet and again cant tell me anything and will get the supply team to contact me as soon as possible.
Again no call back to the following day.  When i report i am not happy with the service and want to cancel the supply team put me through to the cancellations dept.
Cancelations dept promises they can get an engineer out to me this morning so they wouldnt not turn up three days in a row would they?
Time of work again and at 12:30 i get a text to say the supplier will not be attending now till next monday.
If i had missed three appointments to get the line installed it would cost me £50 each time to reschedule the engineer to come out but no mention of what they will pay me when i take days of work for no one to show.
Looking through the Plusnet site they have had awards for customer service from Which? In my experience with Plusnet the customer service has been non existent and to receive a text today saying the engineer will not be attending until next Monday was the last straw....
If the customer service was so good would they not be calling me straight away knowing this was the third engineer visit to install my broadband that has not been honoured.

[#2]

@AndrewD63
I'm really sorry to hear about the issues you've mentioned here.
I'll take a close look into why these visits didn't go ahead as planned with a view to getting some feedback through to our suppliers.
Regarding the failure on today's visit I feel we should have kept a closer eye on the appointment to make sure our suppliers confirmed that with us before we did with you so I have some feedback to pass on internally too.
With that in mind I'm going to take ownership of the ticket so I can check the order whilst I'm here between now and Friday to make sure I can inform you promptly in the light of any further issues.
Apologies for the repeat issues again, I'll make sure we credit you as a gesture of good will as soon as we have you connected.
Adam

[#3]

Quote from: AndrewD63

If i had missed three appointments to get the line installed it would cost me £50 each time to reschedule the engineer to come out but no mention of what they will pay me when i take days of work for no one to show.

Look at http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/updates/briefings/generalbriefings/generalbriefingsarticles/gen...
Plusnet should get £45 from OpenReach for each missed appointment.

[#4]

@Adam
Thanks for your reply.  I don't think i will continue my wait for Plusnet fibre to be installed. I have wasted what holidays i had left  from work this year waiting on a engineer to come for pre arranged appointments now on three separate occasions  and do not intend to spend a fourth.
I have been promised that the next arranged visit will go ahead now twice after my first engineer did not turn up and twice i have been let down.

@jelv thanks for the info companies like this are quick to punish the customer for any mistakes they make with the date but not so keen on compensating the customer when its them to blame.

[#5]

Quote from: AndrewD63

@Adam Thanks for your reply.  I don't think i will continue my wait for Plusnet fibre to be installed. I have wasted what holidays i had left  from work this year waiting on a engineer to come for pre arranged appointments now on three separate occasions  and do not intend to spend a fourth. I have been promised that the next arranged visit will go ahead now twice after my first engineer did not turn up and twice i have been let down.

I completely understand where your coming from but you realise these issues would be present if it was either Plusnet or another ISP, it isn't their engineers that fail to turn up, it is the BT Openreach engineers and it's the same situation for all ISP's.
Unfortunately, Plusnet do get stuck in the middle when the engineers don't turn up as they have no direct control over them, all they can do is book an appointment with them.
It's the same as having to wait for updates. If a BT Openreach Engineer was due to arrive today, the notes for Plusnet usually don't get updated (by BT Openreach) until late that evening, so obviously they do get left it in the dark about it.

[#6]

Until someone (OFCom) makes it economically penalising ( and £45 isn't! ) for BTOR to just not turn up then they will continue to do so when it's convenient. But then again why would BTOR accept  any penalising T&C's , they don't have to , they're a monopoly

[#7]

Hi, AndrewD63
You should make a formal complaint to PN asking for compensation, on what you have reasonably lost due to this, PN handle these case by case.
http://www.plus.net/support/service/policies/complaints_code_of_practice.shtml#howtocomplain
Regards
Mike

[#8]

@gnicholson8
Thanks for your reply.  Yes i do understand its not fully the ISPs fault when Openreach fail to attend an appointment.  I feel though this should have been handled better by Plusnet.  I am sure they can contact the ISP to escalate issues with them and not everything is done through an online portal.  When an appointment is missed someone should have been managing this ticket with the ISP to ensure there was no repeat or at least be keeping me updated.
You may expect once or maybe twice if your very unlucky an engineer would not attend but three times in a row is completely unacceptable.
What annoys me the most though is i now have no holidays left even if i did want the engineer to attend next week.
I think the only option left is a fresh start with another ISP

[#9]

Quote from: MisterW

Until someone (OFCom) makes it economically penalising ( and £45 isn't! ) for BTOR to just not turn up then they will continue to do so when it's convenient. But then again why would BTOR accept  any penalising T&C's , they don't have to , they're a monopoly

Very good point, i am sure if Ofcom, said for every appointment you do not bother to turn up to, you have to compensate the ISP £100 , who then have to pass this on to the customer, missed appointments would rapidly go down.
Regards
Mike

[#10]

Quote from: AndrewD63

@gnicholson8 Thanks for your reply.  Yes i do understand its not fully the ISPs fault when Openreach fail to attend an appointment.  I feel though this should have been handled better by Plusnet.  I am sure they can contact the ISP to escalate issues with them and not everything is done through an online portal.  When an appointment is missed someone should have been managing this ticket with the ISP to ensure there was no repeat or at least be keeping me updated. You may expect once or maybe twice if your very unlucky an engineer would not attend but three times in a row is completely unacceptable. What annoys me the most though is i now have no holidays left even if i did want the engineer to attend next week. I think the only option left is a fresh start with another ISP

I do see what you mean, (I went through the same issue and took six visit to get phone/fibre installed) and I agree PN can/should handle them better but from my experience, even when PN contacts Openreach directly they don't get much in the way of information and it usually takes time.
It does really annoy me that Openreach feel it is acceptable to carry on these practices and gets away with it. I even E-mailed key heads of Openreach about this myself.  I also agree that all ISP's (not just PN) need to apply a lot more pressure to their suppliers to stop these problems happening again and involvement from Ofcom is also essential to this.
I can understand your frustration and sure, you can start fresh with another ISP however you'll end up at the back of the queue. With plusnet at present you have a VERY strong argument to ask for an expedited appointment for the install, if you do swap ISP you will be waiting for another 3-4weeks or when the next available appointment in your area is and then you run the risk of it happening again. 

[#11]

Have a word with these people about Openreach https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/contact

[#12]

@Andrew im having exactly the same problem no shows by engineers, each phone call taking anything up to an hour mostly waiting and plusnet showing very poor customer services leaving me very frustrated and angry, I have emailed the CEO and he replied saying he was passing my matter over to higher level of support team, James Bailey Complaints Manager contacted me this morning via this forum and said I would be contacted  today but still nothing. I not prepared to phone them again from my mobile wait  up to an hour just to be told no body can help and I would just have to wait. So I will be emailing the CEO again and asking him to cancel my contract and refund all money that I have paid out. 

[#13]

Just looked again at the text I received this morning to say this mornings supposed visit from the engineer would now be on the 2nd of December and it states " Unfortunately our suppliers have confirmed your appointment for 02/12/2013 between 8AM and 1PM. We do apologize for not getting the 27/11/2013 appointment if you are unable to make this appointment please contact us to amend to a later date."
So even though I was promised by the cancellation team they would definitely be there this morning they did not confirm this with BT or let me know it was not confirmed.
@daffyduck1 sorry to hear you have similar issues Iwish iI had viewed this forum before signing up though as I have not been provided any broadband I will be cancelling in the morning and asking for a full refund plus expenses. As a paying customer I havenever been treated so poorly.
I will also be taking this further with Ofgem and Watchdog as sugg ested in previous posts.

[#14]

Hi there, I can see Adam's taken this on as a personal ticket to chase for you, not sure he'll manage to get that date brought forward at all but I do assure you the ticket's in good hands there. Hope we manage to get things sorted for you and you don't feel the need to cancel.

[#15]

Hi AndrewD63 ,
I'm really sorry if we promised an appointment for the 27th as we shouldn't have done that until we had that confirmed with our supplier. The 2nd is the very soonest available date as it stands.