Vunerable Lady no phone for over a week

[#1]

@Gandalf as you have helped me many times in the past I wonder if you could check this out for me.

I recommended Plusnet when my son's elderly mother in law wanted to switch from Sky and now she has been without a phone for over a week this also means her care alarm is no longer working as well.

My son has spoken a couple of times to Plusnet to chase this up and was told yesterday it would be working by last night and this has not happened. There doesn't seem to be a fix time from Openreach?

I can PM you with her account user name which is also in my referrals showing as active with an activation date 09/10/2022

Thanks.

[#2]

Hi @Richchad,

I'm really sorry for how long your son's mother in law has been without her phone service. 

I can see this afternoon we've raised an emergency welfare case with Openreach to put a lot more priority on fixing the fault. 

One of my colleagues in our escalations team plans to check back later today on the progress. 

I've just checked now though and Openreach have accepted the welfare case and are getting an engineer out urgently. Haven't been given a timeframe but it'd normally be either today or tomorrow at the latest.

[#3]

I don't know whose fault it is but it seems ridiculous that an vulnerable old lady still hasn't had a phone line or her care alarm since 24th October.!

My son has rung Plusnet everyday to see if his mother in law has been connected and gets the same answer that Openreach have promised an engineer will look at it today, they have told him that for the last 5 days..!

He is now telling me he wished he hadn't switched his mother in law to Plusnet which I recommended as one of my referrals.

Surely PN should be able to pressure Openreach to connect her phone and care alarm as a priority?

My son has now made a formal complaint to Ofcom but that doesn't really fix the problem right now.

This has now caused unnecessary friction with my son and I am also wishing I hadn't recommended Plusnet as he thinks they are a joke.

[#4]

Hey @Richchad,

I'm very sorry to hear about the situation. I've had a look over the account today and have provided an update via email, which can be accessed here. I tried ringing your son, but wasn't able to reach him - I hope the ticket update answers any questions he might have at the moment, but if not then please ask him to write back and I'll pick this back up for further review as soon as possible.

[#5]

@TheMightyAJ  thanks for taking a look at the account, not sure if you have misunderstood that this isn't my account but my sons account for his mother in law as the link you have provided doesn't work as I assume this is to his account and not mine so rightly doesn't allow me to see the email you have sent.

Hopefully my son will see the email and respond accordingly.

[#6]

Not to worry @Richchad, the ticket response had been logged on the correct account, I just wanted to add a response here on the thread to make sure you knew we'd seen this and are looking into it

[#7]

---

@Richchad wrote:

My son has rung Plusnet everyday to see if his mother in law has been connected and gets the same answer that Openreach have promised an engineer will look at it today, they have told him that for the last 5 days..!

He is now telling me he wished he hadn't switched his mother in law to Plusnet which I recommended as one of my referrals.

My son has now made a formal complaint to Ofcom but that doesn't really fix the problem right now.

---

Plusnet can only pass on the information provided by BT Openreach.  Plusnet has zero direct control over the management of BT Openreach.  If there is a fault in BT Openreach's infrastructure, such a fault will have been manifest for migration to any ISP ... so may be the right sentiment here, is that your son might have wished he had not migrated from Sky to anywhere else?

Sky do things very differently from BT - the local circuits (LLU) are not connected to BT equipment - their phone services are provided as VoIP not PTSN.  Where a service is migrated from Sky, BT Openreach must (a) reconnect the local service back to their equipment (it is not Plusnet's) and (b) reinstate the telephone service / number as a PTSN service ... and sometimes BTOR make a hash of it for Plusnet and other ISPs alike.

I suggest that pointing all of the fingers at Plusnet is somewhat unreasonable - they have had this case accepted as a priority welfare case, yet BT OR have still not attended to the issue.  I do hope that your son's complaint to Ofcom also included BT OR and their worker's striking unions as contributors to this deplorable situation.

[#8]

@Townman  Yes I do realise it is Openreach holding things up and have expressed this to my son but his only contact is with Plusnet as their customer so can only complain to them.

He would have made clear the situation to Ofcom which would include Openreach as well as PN.

I think he is just frustrated why what seemed like a simple thing to do has left his 85 year old mother in law very vulnerable without a care alarm.

As I recommended PN it hasn't gone down well, I did try to explain to him if it is Openreach then same problem would probably apply to whichever ISP he switched to.