Broadband/phone switch trouble

Penllithrig

Hello! We’re told that switching is supposed to be easy but I thought I’d share the tale of my switch. 

My contract with Sky came to an end and the broadband and phone line monthly price shot up to £40.50. I didn’t want to pay that so, as my mobile contract was with Plusnet, I phoned them and got a deal for £23.99. They would take care of everything and the switch would happen in a couple of weeks. The day came and went, no switch. After several more days and several phone calls, I was told someone at Plusnet hadn’t put the correct request in but that they’d sort it and send out my router in advance. That arrived but still no switch. More phone calls, more plausible responses. But, after 42 days, I filled in Plusnet’s online complaint form asking for someone in the know to let me know what The problem was. I then got a phone call saying “sorry, we can’t switch you, you’ll have to phone Sky and tell them you’re not leaving”! Marvellous!
I phoned Sky and asked to speak to their retention team. They were helpful, cancelled the switch and started to organise a better deal for me. Only they couldn’t finish that as there was a problem with the phone line, the number was unretrievable. He would have to speak to a tech person and would call me back in a couple of days. No call back came. Phoned them again. I spoke to someone else who said they might have to do a cease and re-provide but that would be a last resort so they’d send an engineer out. Bear in mind my phone and internet are both still working. The engineer came a few days later but by now the phone line had gone dead, he made some tests and a phone call and then someone from Sky rang me. Indeed a cease and re-provide was needed but wouldn’t take place for another couple of weeks. On the day they sent an Openreach tech out who fixed everything in ten minutes flat. My broadband had had to go off for 9 days during the re-provide process and my phone hadn’t worked for over 2 months. The whole process took 4 months. After all this, I spoke to another Sky person to sort my deal out and she not only got me a good deal on my broadband but on my tv as well.

My conclusion: don’t just switch as things can go very wrong, speak to your current provider first. But you do have to speak to the right person, because some are really no help at all.

brewerdave

Possibly your problem was created because your telephone exchange has moved into a state of "fibre priority"
I'm in a similar position in that I can keep my Plusnet provided broadband/phoneline but CANNOT switch to another provider for the same services as Openreach will stop the order.
Fortunately when I was haggling with Sky TV in December (they were very keen to sign me for broadband as well as my TV services) I told them I didn't think it could be switched - the agent disagreed ,but went away and came back to tell me I was quite correct!!

diystarter7

Hi OP

Sorry to hear that but it happens, You are trying to keep on top of things and it can be very frustrating.

Switiching and or moving, we try to pre-empt and have two sytems for a short while just in case.

Good luck