Removed Landline now want to charge to reinstate

[#1]

Due to my BB provided by John Lewis (supplied via PN)  closing, I had to look at other suppliers. I thought just transferring directly to PN would be easy, but apparently not!

Plusnet offered me the same FTTC service as before, but also assured me they could arrange for fibre to be put into the premises to offer Full Fibre and faster speeds. As they assured it was available, I decided on the latter. An appointment was made for an engineer to bring in the fibre and fit the ONT box. However, on the day,  my copper phone line was disconnected, but no engineer turned up to sort out the fibre.

PN then told me the job was marked as complete and the service operational, despite no fibre being fitted. Later they admitted that fibre wasn't available to my property after all. OK I said, please re-connect my line and I'll have the FTTC service back over the copper line. Well, we'll have to charge you £49.99 for reconnection first!  I told them that it wasn't my fault they had it disconnected the copper line before confirming the availability of fibre and I expected them to sort it out without further payment. We are currently in discussions.

Anyone else had this problem?

[#2]

@Nick58  This sounds like a typical Openreach mess-up, why on earth would they remove the copper line before checking that FTTP was available.🙄

Raise an official complaint with Plusnet, they need to get Openreach to rectify their error and you should not have to pay anything.

Complaints code of practice 

[#3]

Hey @Nick58 can you drop me a PM with your new username on please for the new FTTC connection and I can take a look at the additional 49.99 you've been charged. 

[#4]

If no engineer turned up, then the copper line won't have actually been removed. What will have happened is that Plusnet will have had a cease order for the landline, linked to the completion of the fttp order. When Openreach marked the fttp as complete,ntye cease will have been released.

It's still down to Openreach's mess up marking the fttp install as complete when it obviously isnt! but he landline should only be stopped.

[#5]

Thanks for your replies.

I've not paid the £49.99 to reinstate my line. The person I spoke to said that if I paid it PN would reimburse me the amount when the FTTC account was up and running. I said that I'm happy to start an account immediately for FTTC with PN, but I'm not happy paying the reconnection fee up front as I did not cause the problem. I also said that if PN were happy to reimburse the fee to me after I paid, I couldn't see why they wouldn't pay it up front. Alternatively, if it was Openreach's mistake, surely they would reconnect it without charge!

Claudia I've PM'ed my user account.