Another Nightmare with Plusnet

[Dawn Sm]

I've noticed previous threads on this. My own experience with this started with an upgrade to Fibre on 12th March. Plusnet sent BT Openreach engineer for upgrade and since then NO BROADBAND AND OFTEN NO LANDLINE EITHER!

 

Have been pushed from pillar to post - BT landline people, then Plusnet to their "suppliers" BT Wholesale who then speak with their BT Openreach people. No communication between the different sections - all of which are BT. One Plusnet chap confessed that they speak with the same folk in India as if I had gone direct with BT! So much for their marketing of local service in Yorkshire etc!

 

Have been long customer of theirs (10 years +) and bitterly regret letting the engineer into the house on the 12th. Wish I had gone with BT direct now but they talked me out of it when I asked for MAC code. Out of loyalty stayed with them. HuH.

 

Getting desperate so will write to CEO but doubt will get any response. No resolution in sight.

[ims21]

Thread moved to the Telecoms forum

[im-mad]

Hi Dawn

 

I have contacted a friend of mine who works for Plusnet to ask him how to escalate the problem. He deals with business customers and so will probably not be able to work with you direct.

 

Have been pushed from pillar to post - BT landline people, then Plusnet to their "suppliers" BT Wholesale who then speak with their BT Openreach people. No communication between the different sections - all of which are BT. One Plusnet chap confessed that they speak with the same folk in India as if I had gone direct with BT! So much for their marketing of local service in Yorkshire etc!

 

Have been long customer of theirs (10 years +) and bitterly regret letting the engineer into the house on the 12th. Wish I had gone with BT direct now but they talked me out of it when I asked for MAC code. Out of loyalty stayed with them. HuH.

 

Openreach although part of BT must be run as an independent company so as not to give BT a faster response over other companies. I had a problem much like your with BT and they said that Openreach were a law unto themselves.

 

As most Internet Service Providers have to deal with Openreach you would have had the same problem (Virgin being one of the few who don't).

 

When I get a response from my friend I will update you.

 

Hope this helps

 

M

[im-mad]

I will send a message to Plusnet Customer Support on CAG asking him to have a look in

 

M

[Guest Bob Pullen. Plusnet Customer Support]

Hi Dawn,

 

I've noticed previous threads on this. My own experience with this started with an upgrade to Fibre on 12th March. Plusnet sent BT Openreach engineer for upgrade and since then NO BROADBAND AND OFTEN NO LANDLINE EITHER!

 

Sorry to hear you've been having problems. I don't suppose you're able to provide me with your account username or a recent support ticket reference from your account so I can take a quick look and see if there's anything I can do to help?

 

Have been pushed from pillar to post - BT landline people, then Plusnet to their "suppliers" BT Wholesale who then speak with their BT Openreach people. No communication between the different sections - all of which are BT.

 

As 'M' has alluded to, BT Wholesale and BT Openreach are separate entities to BT Retail and must not give preference to one ISP over another. Admittedly it sometimes causes problems having to do things this way but you've the regulators to blame for that one

 

One Plusnet chap confessed that they speak with the same folk in India as if I had gone direct with BT! So much for their marketing of local service in Yorkshire etc!

 

Whilst some BT Wholesale departments do have off-shore staff, not every enquiry to our support team requires their intervention. Regardless, your first port of call is always somebody here in Sheffield and it's us who deal with BT Wholesale on your behalf.

 

Have been long customer of theirs (10 years +) and bitterly regret letting the engineer into the house on the 12th. Wish I had gone with BT direct now but they talked me out of it when I asked for MAC code. Out of loyalty stayed with them. HuH.

 

Without knowing the specifics I can't really comment on the problem, but BT Retail use exactly the same Wholesale network we do so there's a good possibility that you'd have experienced similar problems with them.

 

Anyway, I hope things don't take too much longer to sort out and give me a nudge if you'd like me to look into things.

 

Best regards,

[Dawn Sm]

I do remember you Bob when I was responsible for a largish business account years ago so would appreciate any help you can give! Didn't realise you were still at the coalface so to speak! Thanks to M for the intro too. I understand the no-favouritism basis of the BT / Plusnet relationship (which is sensible) but surely straightforward communication back and forth ought not to be so ineffective. Anyhow, the main ticket ref is 67100694. The current position is we are 'on' since 9.00 am today but if past weeks are anything to go by, it will fail again shortly, probably overnight, and may take days to come back. I'm not aware anyone's actually fixed it in the last few days but then I'm waiting for Plusnet update (due last Tuesday and chased yesterday).

[Guest Bob Pullen. Plusnet Customer Support]

Thanks Dawn,

 

I can see that another engineer was out over the weekend and a brief check of our RADIUS logs certainly suggests things have been stable since then from a broadband perspective. I can't vouch for the phone though without running tests on the line?

 

I also notice that another engineer has been tasked with further remote work so I guess we're not in the clear yet.

 

At the moment, it's probably best I leave the fault investigation to continue its course as things (at least for the time being) seem to be in hand.

 

When things are back up and running and we're confident there won't be another lapse then I'm pretty sure we can look at applying some credit or similar for the trouble you've had.

 

I see that you've written a letter of complaint too. I can pick that up myself or leave it to our dedicated complaints team, it's up to you. I know they're pretty busy at present though so it may not be until later in the week. Whilst I recognise the letter's addressed to our CEO, it will be our complaints team that do most of the leg-work and reply.

 

Sorry you seem to have been the victim of the processes we've had to follow. I share your frustration in the matter

 

Best regards,

[Dawn Sm]

Yes we've had some service for 3 consecutive days - yay! Engineer on Saturday undid some previous wiring done by colleague earlier in this process and that's helped. Am aware there is still an issue 'in the cabinet' which is affecting our line (and others) hence why it is still being worked on. I agree it's probably best if you don't get stuck in at present, Bob - but appreciate the offer. As for the letter of complaint that's been sitting there for two weeks now, unanswered, so another week won't matter. Surprised it was published on the help desk tho as I had highlighted some staff who had been (relatively) effective but also those who didn't seem to grasp the essentials (fortunately I was relatively polite!). My thoughts/opinion might have been useful to supervisors but to a wider audience ...?! I will get back with some hopefully useful thoughts when the issue is definitively resolved.

[Dawn Sm]

I said I'd get back with news on this - yes I know, it's a further six weeks on! But we have a result - line stability (tho still keeping fingers crossed).

 

Eventually,some three weeks after I lodged the letter of complaint with Plusnet, it was picked up by a very tenacious member of the Plusnet Complaints Team who stuck with it through to eventual resolution. BT continued to give him (and me) the runaround although he was less easily fobbed off with excuses than I had been. I do think he thought I was exaggerating until he had to deal with the same BT team I did. Through his persistence however, we got there but it was like pushing water uphill. In total, I think we saw around 14 BT engineers of varying skill levels, a few of whom also took on the issue as a personal challenge. The problems identified included faulty hardware in the fibre cabinet, which I knew about way back in March when an engineer did correctly identify faulty ports. It took weeks for this to be sorted. There was also a problem in the cabling between the fibre cabinet and the copper cabinet but the biggest issue was that BT kept falling over themselves (undoing each other's work) and their lack of intercompany communication and poor external communication with Plusnet.

 

I understand that things break but MY biggest problem initially was getting someone to sort it out - which the Plusnet Complaints team member did - for which I am grateful.

What I learnt was:-

 

If you find yourself with a problem which could be either down to BT or your ISP, get your ISP to get a grip of the problem asap.

 

In Plusnet's case, the Complaints Team chap explained that I should have been allocated one-to-one assistance on this after the first week (not six weeks in). In particular, two failed BT visits should have "escalated" the issue in the Plusnet procedures. This did not happen - in spite of my repeated requests for such assistance. The so-called escalation procedure within Plusnet failed miserably here and I believe/hope that this is being looked into by them further. In any event, I would recommend persistence (although not via the online Question/Answer thing (for reasons I'll explain below) until you do get hold of someone who will take the matter on until resolution - you need a direct contact number, not the Helpdesk. If necessary, drive to Sheffield (I very nearly did until I found this forum and started to get some kind of attention).

 

The Plusnet online Q/A report fault system is not particularly helpful. All such comments are time-stamped so if you add some further detail (or speak to someone on the Helpdesk who adds some detail), then that puts your fault back to the bottom of the pile. If you are waiting for something to happen and it doesn't (e.g. BT fail to turn up), by all means call but make sure that they don't just add it to Q/A thing as that puts it back by up to 24 hours (48 over a weekend). At a weekend, you can get someone on another desk picking up - they will then try and get rid of you by updating the Q/A - scream NO at them! Good luck.

[im-mad]

Glad you are now sorted . Happy surfing.

 

M

[Guest Bob Pullen. Plusnet Customer Support]

Thanks for the update Dawn, I'm relieved to hear there was light at the end of the tunnel

 

Apologies again for the time it took, here's hoping there's not a relapse any time soon.

 

Did you manage to get some credit or similar applied to your account for your troubles?

 

Best regards,