My plusnet story - really bad

landman11

ElkyElky wrote: »

"I currently pay between £70 to £90, for these crap call centre monkeys! "

I think your the only person on this planet to pay £90 a month for broadband. You know you can get it cheaper elsewhere, right?

I think this is going off-track a little. This is what i pay in total roughly to plusnet. My broadband package is actually £35 including VAT per month. For what im getting that is really over-priced. Hence why im moving.

hippey

I'm assuming by what you have written you have the whole bundle with Plusnet.

It is entirely possible that there was a hardware failure which wasn't picked up when your circuit was swapped over, but it's the way it gets dealt with is obviously the issue! For memory there is a very short service break which isn't normally noticed by the end user and in essence the broadband is the same, albeit some people report a slight increase in speed, however in your case the very short break never reconnected.

On business services most major operators offer support service which is chargeable depending on how fast faults need to be repaired, your line rental includes the basic support and then the charges go up the quicker you need it fixing, however if internet access and telephone service is business critical you should always have a contigency service 'just in case'. For instance, a PAYG 3G dongle & mobile phone with calls diverted from your landline to it. (Something which the operator can do)

This do not excuse the way your complaint has been dealt with, or the way the services seem to have gone wrong. BUT it is never a good idea to write blog & information online like you have done, not only does it solve a problematic situation but I'm sure sometimes it makes people work slower or even to a certain point cease thier relationship with you and then that action regarding your comments. I have done a similar blog regarding issues I had with BT but in a very much different tone and it worked wonders!.

landman11

hippey wrote: »

I'm assuming by what you have written you have the whole bundle with Plusnet.

It is entirely possible that there was a hardware failure which wasn't picked up when your circuit was swapped over, but it's the way it gets dealt with is obviously the issue! For memory there is a very short service break which isn't normally noticed by the end user and in essence the broadband is the same, albeit some people report a slight increase in speed, however in your case the very short break never reconnected.

On business services most major operators offer support service which is chargeable depending on how fast faults need to be repaired, your line rental includes the basic support and then the charges go up the quicker you need it fixing, however if internet access and telephone service is business critical you should always have a contigency service 'just in case'. For instance, a PAYG 3G dongle & mobile phone with calls diverted from your landline to it. (Something which the operator can do)

This do not excuse the way your complaint has been dealt with, or the way the services seem to have gone wrong. BUT it is never a good idea to write blog & information online like you have done, not only does it solve a problematic situation but I'm sure sometimes it makes people work slower or even to a certain point cease thier relationship with you and then that action regarding your comments. I have done a similar blog regarding issues I had with BT but in a very much different tone and it worked wonders!.

Thanks for your advice i found it useful and will have a chat with Plusnet and see if could have been the reason or possibly be an avenue that could or couldn't have been explored. As for the blog that was created in an air of desperation as not only Plusnet but companies of such sizes can treat customers badly. Yes the package i had with Plusnet was a plan where everything was thrown in Broadband, Phone Calls, and Line Rental. As for a backup plan i had a 3G connection here at the office, but was using at my own cost of cause. The issue was because it was taking so long and Plusnet didn't want to admit that MAYBE they didn't know what the issue is/was. I would have accepted if they had come back to me and said "Well we don't actually know why these issues are causing you so many issues with your line" i would of been more positive thinking and would of said "Hey ok, thanks so much for your honesty. But lets work together, work this out as a partnership and maybe with my tech background and yours we could try and get to the route of my fault.". But instead all i received was bottomless promises, lies, managers that didn't call me back when promised, stuttering csc agents when i asked what i thought were simple questions, bluffing and endless BT engineers, who each told me they didn't know why Plusnet sent them, as no fault was there to fix.

Yes agreed, maybe the blog idea was a little extream but as i had pretty much done everything i could, i really couldn't think of what else to do or suggest so turned to what i knew best and that was the internet (When i could get on it).

But again thanks for your reply it was very useful.;)

hippey

I think some of the problem is the way the CP's work with Openreach, you have a fairly simply fault but getting the right engineer to fix it is the problem, or even tracing the fault get it fixed can be complicated and it would be so much simplier if CP's fault department could talk directly to engineers & customers to get the system working. It sometimes happens but not always!

Good luck!

bod1467

Do you have a business-grade account with Plusnet? If not then the comment about you needing internet access for your business is irrelevant at best, and a breach of Plusnet's Residential account T&Cs at worst.

landman11

siteguru wrote: »

Do you have a business-grade account with Plusnet? If not then the comment about you needing internet access for your business is irrelevant at best, and a breach of Plusnet's Residential account T&Cs at worst.

Like i said, i am a business customer with a registered business line, and i have a business broadband package with Plusnet (Business Option 3). Im NOT in breach of any T&C's. I have communicated and worked with Plusnet and upgraded as my usage of my package changes to the correct ones. So nothing to worry about there. Needless to say, if it had of been a residential customer, it would of made no different really, as far as dealing with the fault is concerned. Anyway (leaving the T&C's to a side at the moment) As far as customer service is concerned, Plusnet appear to have lost focus in their ruthless quest to grow BIG! to fast and not have the network infrastructure to manage the high demand for their products and services. I fear that the back office network infrastructure expansion team (or maybe not as the case maybe) maybe sitting there and saying, "Well ok, we have half a million customers already on our network. How can we make more capital without investing or spending huge amounts of money expanding our current network(s), allowing us to add a further half a million customers." and i think the true responce to this is/was "Ok, if we half the service of what our current customer base is getting, we could fit twice as many customers on the same network, without really spending any more money!". But as we all know the result of this moment of madness is. that loyal customers like i was, start to feel the pinch. And as a result issues like mine span out for weeks, months or whatever on end with little or no improvement or resolution at all. And at the end of all this, customers just get so cheesed off they leave . and that for a once loyal customer like myself spells a right nightmare.

landman11

hippey wrote: »

I think some of the problem is the way the CP's work with Openreach, you have a fairly simply fault but getting the right engineer to fix it is the problem, or even tracing the fault get it fixed can be complicated and it would be so much simplier if CP's fault department could talk directly to engineers & customers to get the system working. It sometimes happens but not always!

Good luck!

I agree, it would be easer in hindsight for BT Openreach to work directly with the EU (End User). To try and diagnose any possible line or BT Network faults. But, if it were BT that is at fault, they don't really want to fix it all that quickly. Now with that aside im pretty confident that its not BT at fault in this case. As 2 different types of BT Engineers have pretty much confirmed this to me in a bunch of verbal, audio and visual tests. To prove a point, My friend who is attached to the very same exchange, who lives 2 miles distance from the exchange as my home/office is. However his connection often exceeds 7meg from his BT Total Broadband Connection. I however never exceed 1.5Meg. No one has ever given any explination from BT or Plusnet for my speed issues. Plusnet appear to continually blame BT and when BT turn-up at my office they blame Plusnet for throttling my connection. So i am stuck in a catch 22 situation and keep going around and around in circles. I should not have to be worrying and stressing about my bb connection like that. Believe you me, i have better things to be doing and worrying about. I should of been able to call into csc at plusnet and they say "No problem sir, leave it with us we will get right onto it, and get this issues fixed a.s.a.p" but no all i got was passing the buck and stuttering csc agents, who were clearly ether lieing to me or bluffing their way through the conversation. As it would appear they didn't actually know the answers to my questions or how to fix the fault.

davmail

brewerdave wrote: »

Join HORRANGE if you really want to experience Customer Disservice at its very best!!!!

Too true,Orange don't give a fig about their customers broadband problems.:mad:

landman11

davmail wrote: »

Too true,Orange don't give a fig about their customers broadband problems.:mad:

Too true, i have herd many negative comments/things about Orange broadband in the media recently and also closer to home. My own farther was a victim of theirs, who has now been gladly moved away from with my help. One such place they were featured was, BBC's Watchdog prime time consumer show. Which listed them (at the time of broadcast) among 10 of the top WORST ISP's in the UK. At the time others included were Talk Talk, Sky, Bulldog and Tiscali (Whitch most of the common ISP's in the uk still use their old and current network infrastructure to operate business today). In fact most of the highly recognized ISP came up, tipically the cheapest ones, and who were operating on the old BT/Tiscali ADSL Max / 20CN Networks.

cathysorbo

Greatgimp wrote: »

I've been a Plusnet customer for 7 years - no problems.

Then wait until the time comes when you want to finish with Plusnet - they will tell you that in order to take their service to your new address (moving home) you will have to pay them £49.95 as that is what BT will charge them. You then phone BT who will connect you for free so return back to PlusNet and tell them that you will no longer need their services if they insist on making these charges. They say 'OK' we will terminate your service but we will have to charge you £25.00 for this service.

Believe you me, Plusnet have become money grabbing so and so's -