Hi there. This is going to be a long post about my experiences at Plusnet while trying to get fibre broadband at my new home. TLDR: after 6 engineer appointments I still don't have broadband. Half of the appointments were no-shows and there has only been 1 engineer who knew what they were doing and wanted to actually do the work. Meanwhile everything takes days, and customer support can't help because they need 24-48 hours to reach the suppliers -- absolutely ridiculous, this has to change!
So, I ordered the Plusnet broadband on 15/05/2014, actually here's the timeline of the engineer appointments:
- 3rd June: First appointment, the engineer did show up but said there was a problem with the phone cable and told us he was going to get someone with a hoist truck, or if he can't then someone will come the next day. He left without even attempting to fix anything.
- 4th June: No one came, and the guy from the previous day never contacted me again. I had to phone in to customer support and ask for another appointment. It turned out later that Plusnet was informed that there was a fault at the telephone exchange. There may have really been a fault there too but I'm afraid that it was just something made up or a result of some severe miscommunication.
- 18th June: This was the next appointment I got when I had phoned in earlier explaining the situation. This time the engineer came but he seemed to be totally clueless about the situation. Even I got informed by Plusnet that they will send a hoist truck and everything, and the guy didn't know, he had to get the truck himself. He changed the wall socket and they fiddled around on the pole with the hoist truck, then went to the exchange and tried something there, but he couldn't make it work. Said there was something wrong with the underground cable or something he can't fix, he'll get someone come out the next day.
- 19th June: To my greatest surprise someone did come and it took him like 30 seconds to realize that the cable that runs from the house to the pole (the distribution point) had a fault. Funny because the guy the other day did exactly the same measurements and he thought it was fine. He climbed the pole (couldn't get a hoist truck but he "didn't want to waste any more of my time") and changed the cable ALONE, while this could probably have been very easily done by the whole bloody team that was there the previous day if they had actually known what they were doing. He explained that the guys yesterday were contractors and he's been doing this for a while, either fixing their mess or doing jobs that they had failed to do, while management thinks that the contractors can finish more jobs in less time (while in fact they just generate MORE work). He tried the phone line and it now worked. I have his identification number but I can't recommend him or praise him at a superior because I don't have a direct contact to BT. I'm happy to share this info with anyone who has though, if all engineers were like this guy there would be no problems with the service at all. The only problem was that he wasn't there to install my broadband so I had to ask for another appointment.
- 25th June: This is the "expedited" appointment I got when I reported that the line fault got fixed. This one annoyed me the most because I had to take a day off to be at home and the engineer didn't show up. Well, actually an engineer had been doing work for about 4 hours next door, literally next door, I saw him from the window. I was hoping he'd come and does the 5 minutes of remaining work (connecting the modem) but when I asked him he said he didn't have my address and someone else would come. No one did. I was amazed how messed up this is. At this point I thought this couldn't be any worse, just a few more days perhaps, or maybe next Monday...
- 8th July: This is the next appointment I got after the engineer had failed to show up almost 2 weeks before. Originally it was the 10th but I asked customer support to bring it forward, this is what I got. No show again. I'm now waiting for the customer support to hear back from the supplier, which happens in 24-48 hours. Then I imagine I'll get an appointment 2 weeks from now when I still won't know if they will show up at all, for the 5 minutes of work of plugging in a modem (seriously, I have set up the PPoE on the router and everything, I don't even need an engineer, just basically a delivery guy who brings me a modem).
Something has to be done. I have paid 2 months now and it has cost me over £60 to have at least some internet (mobile broadband) in the meantime and a day's pay due to the missed appointment. Probably Plusnet is also getting billed by Openreach or whoever your suppliers are for work that has not actually been done. When I report this over customer support I get no feedback on why the appointment was missed or if the issue that caused this persists or not, I'm supposed to just wait and hope that the engineer shows up next time. Also, an "expedited" appointment comes at least in 1 week's time.
If there's a way for me to formally complain at the "supplier" please let me know, but I want this to be resolved promptly and I want to see an investigation to find out why is the level of service from BT/Openreach so appallingly low and why are they allowed to waste everyone's time and money without any repercussion.
