95 comments Add a comment
I bought a monthly contract from PlusNet online and my ADSL line was finally activated on 15 August. On the 17th August the internet promptly failed and after spending an hour trying to connect without any success, I realised that there was no way I would be using my broadband connection to work from home that day and rushed off to work (luckily, this time the failure was fixed in a couple of hours).
The following Monday, which is 21st of August, the broadband died again and it has never worked since. Instead of enjoying a PlusNet broadband service, I have been forced to sit on their customer service help line, (which is frankly useless without an Internet connection as all it does is direct you to their online trouble-shooter) and spent lots of time and energy on sorting out the broadband service problem...
I was told that the cause of the problem was BT lines fault and PlusNet had raised the fault to BT. I called BT help line and BT refused to help me as BT only deals with this sort of problem directly with broadband providers.
In desperation, my husband finally persuaded an operator to send an engineer from BT to look at the problem. I then spent a whole afternoon off work waiting for the engineer - who never turned up.
As there is no way to speak to anyone from the PlusNet support team (as I am only ever directed to leave a message), I rang the PlusNet sales line and was told that they did not know how long it would take for the problem to be fixed.
The Internet is a vital part of my daily work and I cannot afford to wait any longer. Seeing the hopeless situation, I asked for a cancellation of my account and a full refund as I am paying for a service I am unable to use. Instead of releasing me from an unusable service, PlusNet demands further £72.00 for line activation and hardware fee, they have refused to give me a migration code or disconnect me and so I am unable move to any other ADSL service.
Apart from calling NTL to install a cable broadband, do I have any other options? I rang OFCOM for help but all the specialist adviser I talked to suggested I do was to wait for PlusNet to fix my problem which I simply cannot afford to do.
It does not sound quite right to me. Is there not any industry regulatory body to protect consumers from such unsatisfactory and virtually non-existent services?
By: Mrs Qian
Leave a comment
Sorry to hear about the confusion over the Openreach engineer visits. Are you still having problems getting online? If you are then I'll happily take a look and see if there's anything I can do to help? I'd just need some means of identifying your account like your username or a recent support ticket reference.
Best regards,
Bob Pullen
Plusnet Digital Care.
The engineer fee is standard fair to be honest. It's a charge levied by BT Openreach themselves and any ISP that uses them will be subject to the same terms. If we didn't tell you about it and you got charged then I doubt you'd be happy. If you've carried out all the diagnostic tests we've asked of you then there's no way the problem can be specific to your equipment so you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
I'm sorry you're having problems though and hope the engineer managed to get to the bottom of things. If you're still having difficulties then feel free to provide me with a support ticket reference from your account and I'll happily take a look to see what I can do to help.
Best regards,
Bob Pullen
Plusnet Digital Care
No offence ,but am I glad you are having this problem as it is identical to the one we have been having for the last 6 months.I have just received a call from them now to say an engineer is coming out to inspect the fault ,but if its faulty wiring etc ,I have to pay them £60 for the priviledge ! Never had any faults before with our other providers.I hope you get yours sorted soon ,but I will keep you informed of our outcome,needless to say I would never recommend Plusnet to anyone and will not be continuing the contract with them either.
Pat
OK, thanks for the clarification. Leave it with me and I'll see what I can do ...
Best regards,
Bob Pullen
Plusnet Digital Care
Thank you for your comments, including the acknowledgement about the less than desireable nature of my experience with Plusnet, and the fact that a lot more could have been done.
In answer to your question about whether I was using a Apple MAC, the answer is "no", just a windows 7 based computer - primarily built for online gaming.
I appreciate your offer of some reimbursement for the costs incurred when I left. I am still living at the same address. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.
The engineer appointment was made on the internet, with the date and time confirmed there and then. I do not recall any follow-up text or email though.
If you provide me with your old account username then I'd be happy to cast my eyes over your account and see if there's anything I can do for you based on your circumstances?
I can't really comment much further without knowing all the details. I can guarantee you that we won't have deliberately left you without service whilst you waited to migrate though.
As I mentioned before, sorry we let you down and it's a shame to see you go.
Best regards,
Bob Pullen
Plusnet Digital Care
It was surreal to the point that I almost concluded that there was some deliberate vindictivness on the part of Plusnet, before finally concluding that it was just another piece of evidence for a company unable to provide a high level of customer service.
What about the problems with your customer service portal? The fact that if a problem is not addressed immediately, necessitating further input from the customer, it is picked up by numerous different employees, many of them who don't bother to read previous posts, and then give irrelevant answers, often clearly cut and pasted from some body of stock answers?
What about the fact that despite the enormous problems I experienced with Plusnet, including the fact that they got the engineer problem wrong, they still insisted on charging £75 to be released from the contract, adopting a don't give a damn attitude when I decided to leave? This smacks of downright arrogance and does not bode well for any present and future Plusnet customer.
I was lied to when joining Plusnet, as simple as that. I was lied to! I was told that I should get the same speed that I had with Virgin, and then got about half of that speed, and the cop out was the fact that Plusnet had used its speed checker on my line, showing a slower speed. A technicality. Plusnet completely ignored the fact of the reality of my previous speed. In fact, a Plusnet employee admitted that Virgin used different equipment, hence my faster speed with them. I certainly was not told this when signing up to Plusnet!
#
You can't contact them by email, only by phone and there is only one number, if you get through you will be on hold for 20 minutes. They will blame you and infer the problem is with your equipment (which In my case they supplied). They will never call you back.
Summary - they are utterly useless.
Plusnet is shockingly bad - both in terms of sales and customer service. Never again! Their customer service being based in Yorkshire is just as bad - worse in my experience - than overseas call centres.
They keep banging on about a customer service award received in 2010. It is now well into 2012! Thinking of changing your Broadband provider? Take my advice based entirely on experience - Plusnet is definetely a PlusNOT!
nonaki