Beware !! A sorry tale of lousy Plusnet service

[#1]

Afer 12 years of being a Plusnet customer I decided to transfer to a cable ISP to be able to get their TV service. I thought that this would be a simple matter but how wrong I was!!
I telephoned Plusnet cancellation department on the 20th November. I spoke with Sarah, cancelled my account and paid all outstanding bills in full by debit card. Sarah confirmed that my account was closed and that there would be no further contact from Plusnet. A day or so later I cancelled my Direct Debit at my bank.
Sarah's comment was far from correct.  Within a few days a received notification from Plusnet that they were to take my monthly payment by Direct Debit. I posted a comment in the Support area of the Plusnet and in a telephone call was told that the matter would be corrected.
Wrong !!  I then received a barrage of texts and emails complaining that they hadn't received  my monthly payment. Each time, I posted on the Support pages and telephoned, pointing out that my account was cancelled and I owed no money. Obviously, no one at Plusnet read these comments or took any action to deal with what was happening.
The final straw was when I received a further email threatening me with the news that Plusnet would involve a Debt Collection Agency if my bill was not paid immediately.
So, I telephoned Plusnet again and after hanging on the phone for 32 minutes my call was eventually answered and I was put though to Sam in 'cancellations'.  Sam was totally laid back about the situation; descibing it as 'a bit of confusion in Plusnet'.  He also totally dismissed my suggestion that Plusnet should pay me any compensation in recompense for all the trouble I had had.
He agreed that he would confirm in an email that my account was closed , that no money was outstanding and that there would be no further contact from Plusnet. Not, surprisingly, I have not received an email which includes these points.
So, there's my tale of my service experience from Plusnet - as far as I am concerned, I am very pleased to have discontinued my custom of a business that treats its customers in such a shabby way.

[#2]

Did you pay for the notice period and the disconnection fee when you phoned to cancel? If not, you still owe for these.

[#3]

And of course phone call charges not yet processed at the time of cancelation.
There is no indication of how close to the normal billing date the cancelation was made.  It is entirely possible that the billing cycle had commenced when the service was cancelled and would therefore rattle on.
There can though be no excuse for the reported disinterested service and a lack of (timely) response to support tickets.

[#4]

Hi there,
I'm sorry to hear of your story, it makes for poor reading from my side.
When the notification came through that you had switched to another provider, there was a Direct Debit in pending, and halfway through the process of being taken out of the bank. That being said, the time it took us to respond to this ticket was not good enough and I do appreciate this. I'll get this reported back to our billing department to try and allow a little more priority to account cessations.
I see that we have agreed to write of the cessation charge from your account and any outstanding charges there may have been.
Again, allow me to apologise for the inconvenience, and I do wish you all the best with your new provider.
Matty

[#5]

As I mentioned in my original post, I paid all my outstanding charges, including the notice period and a chunk of money (£30 i believe) because I was moving away from broadband over a BT line to a  cable service (I was not a Plusnet telephone customer so no call charges due). Also,
My main moan with Plusnet is the total lack of Plusnet response to my numerous Support tickets and telephone calls - but now that I've had time to read various review sites it seems that I am not alone with this complaint. It's obvious that Plusnet have totally insufficient Support staff and, as a result, service is suffering badly.

[#6]

No MattyC, I do not believe that you are correct.
I cancelled on the 20th November, well before my DD date. What happened was that my cancellation wasn't acted upon by Plusnet and, therefore, the DD process eventually started. Plusnet then failed to respond to my numerous requests to deal with the situation.
What do you mean that Plusnet " have agreed to wrie off the cessation charge and any outstanding charges there may have been". When I phoned to cancel, I paid all outstanding charges, including the cessation charge and any other charges.  I don't think that you should give the impression that Plusnet did me any favours - no charges were "written off" ! I paid all that was due.  In fact, Plusnet totally refused to make any recompense for the time and effort I had put into trying to resolve the issue.

[#7]

Thanks for your call this morning

Quote from: purplebus

When I phoned to cancel, I paid all outstanding charges, including the cessation charge and any other charges.

Sorry for the confusion again. Somebody sent you a ticket saying the polar opposite of this which is odd. Let me know if you have any further issues.
Matty

[#8]

Matty,
One presumes that appropriate feedback will be provided advising of the consequential embarrassment caused by that disinformation (or just confusing information)?
Being very generous, I suppose it is just possible that someone sought to resolve this issue by writing off any balance but had not understood that no balance was due or that the charges had already been paid.  Whatever, it is now an unfortunate case of not having checked out the detail before posting a ticket, the content of which you reasonably took to be "gospel" has been misused.

[#9]

Oh yes of course, I have fed back.
It made me look unprofessional, which is annoying. My bigger concern though is that I am wondering why it was written in the first place if it wasn't true. It was probably a mistake, but I'm in the process of finding out.

[#10]

Thank you for your call, MattyC. I am happy to accept your resolution of my 'complaint' and thank you for your prompt action.
For your information, in my original post, 3rd last and 2nd last paragraphs, I refer to a call to 'Cancellations'. During that conversation I was repeatedly told that I had an outstanding amount and I equally repeatedly said that I had paid all outstanding amounts (I got somewhat frustrated at that time and I must admit I raised my voice in emphasis). When I quoted my original conversation with Sarah, he eventually accepted that I had no outstanding amount.
I asked for email confirmation of that from him (see my 2nd last patargraph) but instead got an email which said that my outstandings would be written off and my account would be closed from 15 Jan '15.  Totally incorrect, but I decided not to respond to that email and wait and see what happened.
I think you will want to have a conversation with a certain gentleman in Cancellations.
.