Extremely rude customer service agent - awful service

[#1]

@Lysen If you’ve asked for your services to be cancelled before your new provider takes over your line then the odds are they won’t be able to take over your line without any downtime because a cancellation request will put a cease on the line. 

[#2]

Downtime's not the problem. Paying further £ to PN, on principle, would have been the problem. It's only a week, anyway.

Being told abject lies -- that our new contract with another ISP would be terminated and incur additional charges -- is the problem.

Being consistently lied to by Plusnet is the problem.

[#3]

If your line gets ceased then the new provider’s transfer order will fail and they’ll have to replace the order which will lead to a delayed activation

[#4]

Also if that happens there are wholesale charges to reactivate a stopped line especially if the line’s going from BT to MPF or vice versa, which your new provider may or may not pass on to you.

I believe Plusnet charge £49.99 to reactivate a stopped MPF line to BT which may be what the agent was referring to as an example.

[#5]

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@Lysen wrote:

Being told abject lies -- that our new contract with another ISP would be terminated and incur additional charges -- is the problem.

Being consistently lied to by Plusnet is the problem.

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You really do need to get your facts right before making claims such as this.  What Plusnet told you is the truth.

When you want to transfer suppliers, you MUST leave the WHOLE PROCESS to the gaining supplier.  If you tell your existing supplier (whoever they are) to CANCEL the service, the following WILL happen...

1. They will place a service termination order on your line with BT Wholesale  and BT Openreach because that is how the industry is regulated by Ofcom
2. BT Wholesale / BT Openreach will cancel all other provider's orders on that line, because a current owner's termination order takes precedence
3. You will become liable for any early termination charges because you broke the contract early (note that the ETCs advised at the time of the request to cancel might not be the same as those payable at the end of the termination notice period)
4. On termination date, BT Openreach will cease the line
5. You could lose the current phone number
6. You then need to get a new ISP to initiate service (replace the cancelled orders) - that will take the Ofcom regulated lead-time to supply
7. You could find in the interim that BT Openreach has reused the circuit to your home and if on FTTC the fibre port in your local cabinet ... which will give rise to even more delays in being reconnected

[#6]

I rang our future supplier, and 2 separate suppliers, to ask them their policy on this. They all firmly stated there were no charges, no additional fees, and one of them found it hilarious that PN would make such a claim, and knew it as exactly the sort of behaviour PlusNet is known for. 

You need only check these forums, or sites like Trustpilot, MoneySavingExpert, or any other corner of the web to find that the "fact" of the matter is that PlusNet has a notorious reputation for this sort of service. Lies, false promises, shoddy hardware, long-broken firmware.

There's countless folk on these forums who have long since abandoned the place, with their signatures stating their disgust at the PlusNet of the past 10 years. Evidently you're one of the very few to still hang around these parts...

[#7]

Hmmm - it is so odd that we see exactly the same profile of issues with users migrating INTO Plusnet where they have told their existing supplier that they are departing - totally fouling up the provision of service with Plusnet.  As for what you've been told, please engage brain, of course other suppliers are going to trash another supplier's name, they want to agree with you (whatever you say) because they want you to like them and do business with you.  Wait until you get to the end of your relationship with them and see what happens.

Yes I've been with Plusnet a long time.  The service is fairly OK, contacting support can be a challenge, but when contact has been made I have always found them courteous and helpful.  May be that might partly be down to how I treat them when I contact them ... with the same respect as I expect to receive?  The only time I have ever had significant issue with the service has been when BT Openreach have been involved - on all three occasions the problem was protracted and messy and all the lies came direct from BTOR.

I have a few referrals and they have never encountered issues with support nor negotiating a new contract.  I guess that the majority for whom all is well do not go to complain in the places you note that all is as to be expected.  It is only the vociferous who make a lot of noise about something not going quite to plan who share a piece of their thinking with others.

[#8]

Hmmm, yes. Hmmm. That must be it.

Passive-aggression, the perfect way to demonstrate your superior opinion.

It's not like in this very thread there are no less than 3 instances of promises being made (one by PN forum staff) and absolutely nothing coming about from that. 

I worked in customer service for 2 years. I treat them with the same respect i'd expect to be treated with. I even give them the benefit of the doubt when they begin talking over me. But when they repeatedly talk over me, and repeatedly lie to me ("a VPN will cause your connection to drop", "a new supplier will charge you £60 if you don't pay up to the end of the month with us", or my favourite of all, telling me the line test would not cause the line to disconnect, while simultaneously telling me that he knew it would...

I was with TalkTalk 10 years ago. They sent out Powerline adaptors with our package that, when unplugged, would pull the casing open, exposing the live internals. Someone died in another country to that.

They were still far, far better on the customer service front -- and their staff were based in Asia, not pretend-up-Northia.