Feeling undervalued and a little used!

[#1]

Hi
Been a Plusnet broadband customer for a lot of years, both in business and domestic.
Thought I would cap costs last year and opted to move my home line from BT to Plusnet so they were now providing my Broadband and Voice service. The move was prompted by the convoluted structure of the BT service provision and billing for voice. I was a little sceptical at first, with plusnet, but they assured me it was all straightforward and there are no traps.
Turns out that wasn't quite true.
After a year, my bill has suddenly doubled. This is apparently my fault as I didn't look closely enough at the line saver deal I was given (Gosh, doesn't that remind me of BT!!!).
Turns out that I needed to renew an upfront payment (for which I have no details) halfway through the contract term for the Line and Broadband contract.
Apparently I missed an email from them. Now I have checked. I have every single email from Plusnet going back to June 2008. It does seem odd that the only one missing is the one that cost me money!!!!!!
Apparently I could have accessed it through the Plusnet email they provide. This is the only place I cannot enter because, there is a password mismatch. I can log into the member centre at will but if I try the email it fails and when I ring them it is always a fail, on characters from my password, on the security check. We then have to identify from other details.
So from this I can reasonably assume that Plusnet is fallible. However that is not the case as far as customer service is concerned.
In trying to sort this out, my biggest gripe is that they are somewhat disinterested in correcting the overcharge. Very happy to sign me into an 18 month extension, take some more money to lower the cost over 12 months (gosh, will I be screwed again 12 months from now) or even take a bunch of money to leave the contract and go to someone who wants to offer a service.
Whatever happened to simply sorting out an issue, doing the right thing and moving forward. Are Plusnets finances so shaky that they have to rely on any pennies they can get?
It would be nice if customer service could come up with a viable solution and perhaps come back to me.
With hope (but not too much).
Chris

[#2]

Hi,
I'm sorry to hear about this. LRS doesn't renew automatically I'm afraid.
Are you certain we have a valid and up to date email address for you and when did you receive the last email from us?
Regarding your password if the email we have on file is relevant you can use the "forgotten password" link on the member centre login page to reclaim that.

[#3]

Quote from: ChrisJMW

I can log into the member centre at will but if I try the email it fails and when I ring them it is always a fail, on characters from my password, on the security check.

It is possible to set-up another email address (of the form anything@yourusername.plus.com) but your primary email address should have the same password as your account and the password you use to access the member centre is the same password that you are asked to give characters from when you call.  There is some deeper confusion here that you need to resolve.  Sometimes a faulty keyboard or one with the caps lock or num lock stuck on can mean that what you type when you enter a password isn't what you think you type.  Try typing your password into Notepad and check that it appears as intended. 

[#4]

Hi Adam
Sorry for replying late but I have been travelling.
As I said, I have every email to my originally registered email address and this includes emails up to 19 June 2014.
Let's go back round the circle again. I can log in to the member centre with ease. I cannot log into my email (ie the one provided by plusnet when I started the account) as it does not recognise it. Are you suggesting that I need to reset the Portal login so that it will sort out the email login failure? This would appear to be perverse if the login and webmaail are linked to a common password database!
Regards
Chris

[#5]

Hi ChrisJMW,
Sorry for any confusion caused. I think you've misunderstood what Adam stated - he seemed to be under the impression that you couldn't log into the member centre -

Quote

when I ring them it is always a fail, on characters from my password, on the security check. We then have to identify from other details.

If this was the case you would be able to request a password reminder using the Forgotten Password tool as long as the email address we have on your account is the right one for you, otherwise you wouldn't receive the email 
The email to remind you to renew your Line Rental Saver was sent on 17/02/14 18:00. Adam was asking if the email address that we have on your account is the right one for you because it was sent to this email address.

[#6]

Hello Linn K
As mentioned before, I have every email, including three on the 19th June 2014, that have been sent to the email address that I registered with. So yes, you do have my correct and current email address.
I have looked for the email that you say was sent on the 17/02/14 18:00
It does not exist in any of the folders, it is not in any junk folder nor has it landed in any of the other accounts on that domain. There is no record of it in any of the server logs that carry out the mail transactions.
Perhaps the best course of action here is for you to send me a link, to my registered email address (where I receive all my billing and discount notifications), and include the details of the system email address that you use as well. Once I am able to gain access to this, it might help resolve the issue.
In the mean time I am no less frustrated and disillusioned than I was when this thread started.
Regards
Chris

[#7]

Quote from: ChrisJMW

There is no record of it in any of the server logs that carry out the mail transactions.

Are you having mail delivered by SMTP to your own mail server?

[#8]

Hi Chris,
You should be able to access your email in the member centre. I've created Ticket: 88203590 on your account as well to state which email addresses we have for you.

[#9]

Hi Linn K
Ok. That checks with the email address I have been trying to access and no, I still cannot get in to it.
CAN I MAKE THE FOLLOWING CLEAR -
I type my user name and password in, every time, to enter the member centre. I can manage to read and write my credentials for this with ease and it gets me in. Can we please assume from this that:
1. I am not stupid enough to type a different user name and password for the email retrieval.
2. My keyboard does not mysteriously break, get confused or select Caps Lock, when I go to the webmail login.
3. I am computer literate.
So my original problem still exists. I can now add further information for you.
When I go to the member centre and attempt to change my password, the following message appears
"Sorry, but this is not your current password"
When I attempt to login to email I get
"Login failed"
When I go to logout, I get
"Couldn't remove db entry"  appearing on an otherwise blank page.
I have attempted this with IE, Firefox and Chrome.
I have attempted this from three different locations and four different PC's
WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO TICKET IN A QUESTION WITH THE PASSWORD AND THEN YOU CAN TRY IT FOR YOURSELF?
Regards
Chris Ward

[#10]

Hi ChrisJMW,
If you're happy for us to test this and log into your mailbox and you can confirm you authorise it we can test this for you on our side. We shouldn't need you to pass the password over to us as we can retrieve this from the account and test this on your behalf.
If you can confirm it here I'll test it for you within the next few minutes.

[#11]

If you go to Manage My Mail, how many mailboxes are shown? Whichever is the default mailbox can accessed using your account user name and password. For the others the user name is "username+mailboxname" (if your username is bloggs and the mailbox name shown by Manage My Mail is fred you log in to webmail using bloggs+fred. You set the password for mailboxes using the username+mailboxname style login using Manage My Mail.
The user name and password you use in your email client will be the same as you use to log in to webmail.

[#12]

Hi Adam C
That would appear to be the best way to proceed.
Please go ahead and log in to my account using the stored details you have.
Regards
Chris
PS. I am heading for home, but will check this later.

[#13]

Thanks for the update ChrisJMW,
I can confirm that the test for logging into your mailbox has been successful. Can we just check that you're selecting the free-online option from the drop down menu when logging in?
Aside from this there is little I can think of that would be stopping you from logging into the mailbox we have on file.

[#14]

Hi Adam C
Still no good from my home location. I can login to member centre but login fails on email. Yes, I am using the free-online drop down option.
I have submitted a support question 88247816  with my details on.
Please confirm this is what you used.
If these are correct with you, could the issue, for me, exist because I am not accessing from Server side as I presume you are.
Regards
Chris

[#15]

They'll have tried using http://webmail.plus.net, so no not server side.
You could try the alternative (old) webmail: https://webmail.plus.net/squirrelmail/src/login.php