My partner and I moved into our first home together on December the 6th 2022. In preparation for the move, we found a great black Friday deal for broadband and secured a deal with Plusnet full fibre for our new home. There were a number of providers available in our area (including Plusnet), and having had Plusnet in my previous property we were happy to go with this deal. We both work from home at least 2-3 days a week and therefore need good, reliable internet as we both are often doing video calls.
Prior to actually moving in, an appointment for an engineer to come out to us to install the internet was offered to us on the 23rd of December (the earliest available), which we snapped up. As we hadn’t yet moved in, this appointment was cancelled immediately by Plusnet as the property was showing as currently having an existing provider. No problem we thought – plenty of boxes to empty, decorating to do and Christmas looming.
Once we had moved in, we were offered an appointment for the 10th of January and this appointment also got cancelled. The engineer missed the appointment without any communication and we had to ring Plusnet to find out what had happened.
We were then offered an appointment for the 19th of January and an engineer showed up and installed the router, but unfortunately was unable to connect us from our house, to the pit (the box in the road with the cables for the whole street). He mentioned that a specialist team would be needed to find our cable, which was buried and he was unable to locate it.
Having now phoned Plusnet (today 20th January) to ask for an update for when this will happen, they have said the earliest someone will be available is the 20th of February, almost 3 months after we secured the black Friday deal and 2 months after we’ve moved into our home. That’s the ‘earliest’. It could be any time after that date. The customer services rep today explained that Open Reach (the engineers that work with Plusnet for installations) are behind on delivering full fibre to their customers hence the delay (which has never been communicated with us).
The real stinker is that Plusnet refuse to offer compensation to us until we are connected – currently 20th February at the earliest. They said that we are free to look at alternative providers and cancel our Plusnet installation but that would mean we would no longer be entitled to any compensation. This feels downright unfair and the service has been abysmal. We also asked why they are still taking on customers if they cannot fulfil their existing (or newly signed up) customers, which they were unable to answer. You’ll see from their own page, that there are some clearly delineated compensation options.
Having to wait 3 months to install internet is totally unacceptable. What can be done to help us?
