What are my rights if my broadband install is taking too long?

trashedteen

To cut a VERY long story short, I have been waiting 4 weeks now for Plusnet (or BT) to complete my installation. 

I was previously with Plusnet before moving house. I have moved 3 doors down and on the first installation the engineer took the exact same line which went into my old flat and extended it into my new one. I was then told that the service could take up to midnight to activate, fair enough. 

Cut forward to the next day, no service, I call Plusnet to explain and am told that the engineer didnt have the keys to access the box and couldn't complete the install. Another install is booked to complete the job between 8-1.

I wait in all day for this appointment and no engineer shows. I get an email from Plusnet to say I missed the appointment and I will be charged £25 for it. I call Plusnet, they agree to waiver the fee and arrange ANOTHER install. 

3rd install now - engineer shows up this time and I am told there is nothing he can do at my property as the issue is at a junction box down the road from me. He's there 10 minutes. 

And now, I have yet another installation booked to finish this job on this coming Thursday. 

I have spoke to Plusnet about leaving the contract and was told that if I wanted to do so, I would default back to my old contract and would have to pay a fee to cancel. 

As I'm sure you can imagine, I'm pretty annoyed by this point and was looking for some advice on what my rights are should they be unable to complete the install on the 4th occasion? So far, this has been ongoing for 4 weeks now and I will have taken 4 days off work by this point for which Plusnet have begrudgingly agreed to credit my account £25 for each failed appointment. That's not even considering the countless hours I have spent on the phone with them. I asked what they believed was a "reasonable time" to get my internet running and they said this was done on a case by case basis and they could answer that in the event that I chose to leave.

Would really appreciate some advice on this, I'm at my wit's end!

Exemplar

First off well done on your patience.
Second you are in the machine now so this can get frustrating. However you need to have more patience. This will be being escalated by the engineers at BT (Openreach) and will, eventually, get to the right engineer.

Browntoa

I moved , took 3 weeks before it went live .

Never did find out why 

macman

Start again with any other provider and you will get exactly the same issues, as it's down to Openreach.

trashedteen

Thanks for the responses, I know a majority of the problems are down to BT and I have been as patient as I can with Plusnet as I understand it's not their fault. They are, however, my only point of contact and I cannot speak to BT directly. 

Does anyone know what my rights are in terms of leaving?

There is a feed for Virgin in the flat below so if Plusnet/BT cannot deliver I will go with them.

JJ_Egan

Pay off old PN contract and you are free to use any ISP .

Presume that PN are letting you end contract to take up new contract .

No rights as such for OR to install in xxx days even more so with Covid .

trashedteen

So to clarify, my options are to wait an indefinite amount of time,and take an unknown amount of days off work until they can get my service running or leave my contract and pay a fee?

JJ_Egan

Unless you can find a law that says service must be installed by xx time frame .

Personally i would be pushing your ISP to let you out of contract penalty free then you are free to move to VM .

macman

Surely until such time as the OP has service commenced, they cannot be bound by the contract. The old contract ceased when they moved house, this would be a new one?

littleboo

The ETC's (presumably there were ETC's as the OP mentions a fee to cancel) on the previous contract would be waived on condition of a new contract at the new address. If the new contract is not taken up, the ETC's become due. 

trashedteen

4th install today and once again they were unable to complete. That's the 4th time in as many weeks that they have been unable to complete the job. I think I have been patient enough and would like to push to leave the contract fee-free, does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to handle this?