The woes of switching provider

EXPOACHER

Following recent advice I decided to look into switching my phone and broadband provider. Purely to save a little bit.

I've been with Sky for many years with my phone and fibre broadband paying them £20 per month plus line rental. On the 28th November I completed an online transfer to go to plusnet saving £15 per month.

Received the sorry to see you go letter from Sky including a date for the change to happen. That should have been the 13th December. In the meantime I was getting text messages from plusnet saying the order had been place but was then cancelled due to a system error! I received three of these.

Anyway the new router arrived and so I thought that everything was on track. On the 13th my phone line went dead, so I thought that it was happening as planned. But no, as of today I still have no phone. I've spoken to both plusnet and Sky and I'm basically getting nowhere. One side are telling me that my phone line is showing as still active (plusnet) and the other side (Sky) are saying that it definitely is not and that they released the number back to Openreach on the 13th.

The latest date that I have been given by plusnet for completion is the 30 December but I have no confidence that this order placed today won't end up being cancelled too!

I am basically afraid to go home at night as my wife who lives on the phone is giving me stick. She is convinced that I have messed something up. Does anyone have any advice that they could share? By the way my broadband with Sky is still working although I have no phone!

[Deleted User]

That does sound like Plusnet have messed up, try their forum and PM a mod, they can escalate it for you:

https://community.plus.net/t5/Forum/ct-p/Forum

EXPOACHER

Thanks for the suggestion. I spoke to someone last night who actually sounded as though he was interested and wanted to help. If nothing comes of it I will try your suggestion.

Thanks

oscarblue

Woes indeed, I took up SSE's offer in November for Fibre and phone line, and SSE handled the switch from BT, half way through the switch I got an email from BT saying they were sorry I was transferring my phone line but were glad to see I was keeping my fibre bb with them, I immediately rang SSE and was told to do nothing as it was just BT being awkward, so I left it at that.
The switch went live 29th Nov all working fine.
On the 9th Dec I received another email from BT detailing my Fibre broadband with them and that it was going to cost me £37 per month.
After a long phone call to BT, they told me that the order sent by SSE to BT to transfer the phone and broadband, was only for the phone line, and if I would like to cancel the fibre it it will cost £31 cancellation fee plus £37 for 1 months broadband, and if I didn't cancel it they would charge me £37 every month, so I cancelled it there and then. Currently BT are blaming SSE and vice versa and I'm stuck in the middle with a £68 bill that I shouldn't have (and have no intention of paying) I've a feeling this will end up on the ombudsman's desk.
I'd be interested if anyone else has had similar problems, as the agent at BT said this had happened before with SSE.

teddysmum

I transferred ADSL from Sky to PlusNet and regret it. My incoming was announced as 5.3Mbps when I was getting 6 to 6.4 over wifi with Sky and I had frequent drop outs.


It settled down after about 6 weeks, but I'm still having one dropout per day (twice in the middle of surveys which would have paid £5 each) and had several this morning; brief but annoying.

ahja

Go on facebook and rant! Nothing like telling the world to get someone to actually get their **** into action! They will have someone monitoring their account and hopefully they will be able to help. I had months of problems with my old isp and this ended it. The problem with any call centre is that unless you are on their list of script answers they really don't seem to be able to deal with anything.

oscarblue

ahja wrote: »

Go on facebook and rant! Nothing like telling the world to get someone to actually get their **** into action! They will have someone monitoring their account and hopefully they will be able to help. I had months of problems with my old isp and this ended it. The problem with any call centre is that unless you are on their list of script answers they really don't seem to be able to deal with anything.

The problem is I don't really know who's at fault, as BT and SSE are blaming each other, so I really need to get this into the ombudsman's hands.

Has anyone been down this route before? from what I understand, I can't contact the ombudsman office until after 8 week of the first complaint, that would be in another month or so, and BT are already threatening me with late payment charges.
Should I pay what is outstanding, which I really don't want to do, and then try and claim it back??

I understand that if I can get a 'deadlock letter' from one of the party's then I can go straight to the ombudsman, I have asked SSE for such a letter, but they say that all options have not yet been explored, and I don't know if they are obliged to give me such a letter anyway.

[Deleted User]

oscarblue wrote: »

Woes indeed, I took up SSE's offer in November for Fibre and phone line, and SSE handled the switch from BT, half way through the switch I got an email from BT saying they were sorry I was transferring my phone line but were glad to see I was keeping my fibre bb with them, I immediately rang SSE and was told to do nothing as it was just BT being awkward, so I left it at that.
The switch went live 29th Nov all working fine.
On the 9th Dec I received another email from BT detailing my Fibre broadband with them and that it was going to cost me £37 per month.
After a long phone call to BT, they told me that the order sent by SSE to BT to transfer the phone and broadband, was only for the phone line, and if I would like to cancel the fibre it it will cost £31 cancellation fee plus £37 for 1 months broadband, and if I didn't cancel it they would charge me £37 every month, so I cancelled it there and then. Currently BT are blaming SSE and vice versa and I'm stuck in the middle with a £68 bill that I shouldn't have (and have no intention of paying) I've a feeling this will end up on the ombudsman's desk.
I'd be interested if anyone else has had similar problems, as the agent at BT said this had happened before with SSE.

Not of much help to you at the moment but that is where you went wrong initially, you should have contacted BT as well at the time and never accept the word of just one party.

missile

EXPOACHER wrote: »

In the meantime I was getting text messages from plusnet saying the order had been place but was then cancelled due to a system error! I received three of these.

Anyway the new router arrived and so I thought that everything was on track. ....

I had exactly the same when I changed to PlusNet
I did get connected, but the !!!!witts connected me to super slow Broadband then tried to blame Open Reach for PlusNet error :mad:

After many telephone calls and e mails I eventually got the fibre connection, I am paying for. Apology for their poor customer service .... I am still waiting :money:

Hope you get connected soon.