At the beggining of August, after a conversation with Plusnet, who supply my ADSL broadband, I ordered their value fibre optic service at an additional cost of £5 a month. I was told that I need a new router, which would cost me £4.99 for P&P and an appointment was made for an engineer to visit me between 1-6pm on the 8th of August. The router arrived; the engineer did not.
During August I had a number of conversations about the failiure of the engineer to arrive and the whereabouts of the fibre optic broadband. I kept on being told a story about another order, which I had "placed", and which had to be completed before the fibre order could be placed. I kept on asking "what order?". And I kept on being told the same story. I was passed from customer services to provisioning to technical to customer services to.....Im sure you get it.... And the awsner was always the same: I'd placed another order, of which I knew nothing, and it had to be completed.
On the 28th of August I received my monthly bill, which included the additional charge for fibre optic. I didn't have fibre optic,. Icalled Plusnet and said that they were not to take the additional £5 but was told that the direct debit had been sent off and they couldnt stop it. They said they would credit me with the £5. I said they had no right to take my money in the first place and I wanted it back, in cash, on the day it was removed from my account. I was told they couldn,t do that, but I was promised I'd get it back. 5 days later I still haven't.
On the 1st of September my broadband was cut off. I called Plusnet and was told that they would "look into it" and that it could take upto 72 hours. I received a text message from plusnet promising me that within 48-72 hours a member of their team would contact me. 98 hours later I'm still waiting. I have spent most of ther morning on the telephone to get a straight awnser to a straghit question: where is my broadband? I have spoken to customer services who have passed me to provisioning who have passed me to technical who have passed me to customer services...I've spoken to Chris, I've spoken to Luke and I've spoken to Ross no 1 and Ross no 2 and I've given up writing down and recording the times of the telephone calls and the names of the people I've spoken to.
I have been promised call backs which never came. Every time I speak to someone, the first thing I'm asked is "what is the problem with the fibre optic?".
I DONT HAVE FIBRE OPTIC!!!
And then I get told about the order that has to go through before my fibre order can be placed. What order? All I get back is: we are looking into it.
I work from home and the internet is vital to me. I have now had to pay for BT Openworld to get some access.
I have been lied too. I have been given every story under the sun and a few more I hadnt heard of before. Ive had evasion and prevarication and obfuscation. Plusnet have broken their own SLAs (service level agreements) without hesitation. They have invoiced me for services they have not supplied and taken money from my account which I expressly forbade them to do (some might think that disshonest. I couldnt comment.) and failed to return it.
I have asked to speak to their senior management but senior management prefer not to have to face mere customers and i have been refused the telephone number of their head office. Fortunately the names of all the directors of plusnet are in the public domain and can be found for a fee of £1 at companys house. If any one is interested I can post a link to companys house.
Plusnet are not the friendly competent yorkshire company they pretend to be on their advertising and the question from me is: do I realy want to continue with them? Id be fascinated to know of any good reasons why I should.
