Fibreoptic installation problem!!

[#1]

For those of you who have signed up and are on here having a look before your installation date this may be of use to you.
WATCH THE OPENREACH ENGINEER LIKE A HAWK AND MAKE SURE HE CHECKS THE DSL LIGHT IS ON BEFORE HE COMPLETELY DISAPPEARS FROM THE JOB.  IF HE COMES TO YOUR HOUSE FIRST THEN SAYS HE NEEDS TO GO TO THE JUNCTION BOX MAKE SURE HE IS GOING TO COME BACK.
I had my installation at the beginning of this week (26/3/12).  The person from Openreach turned up, replaced the mastersocket, plugged in an Openreach modem and plugeged in the supplied netgear router to that.  He then said he had to go down the road to the junction box.  He did not come back to my house to check the DSL light had illuminated on the modem and that the connection was up and running.  Plusnet could not locate him and I was told to ring back the next day if the light had not come on.
Obviously it didn't come on.  Plusnet are now treating this as a fault in an existing connection.  It isn't because it has never been connected and is a problem with the initial installation which wasn't done properly.  I have not received an apology and despite initial assurances to the contrary I am now expected to take a further half days (unpaid) leave to let an Openreach engineer into my house to do the job they should have done the first time round.  My job does not allow me to take leave at such short notice for something like this.  On top of this, apparently I will also be liable for a charge if they find fault with any of my equipment, which should have been checked on the first visit to ensure I could actually get fibre-optic. 
I am not happy at the moment.  I am curently waiting for plusnet customer services to get back to me and I will update this when I receive a response.

[#2]

I'm sorry to read about the problems you've had with this.
I'm going to ask one of our most experienced faults agents to pick this up now.

Quote

apparently I will also be liable for a charge if they find fault with any of my equipment,

It's the same for everybody that raises a fault, we always do what we can to help you eliminate your equipment first, even loaning out equipment in some cases. From what you mentioned at the start of this post I really can't imagine that would be a problem in this instance though.

[#3]

Thanks for your time on the phone just now, we're booking an engineer now and will update your ticket ASAP.

[#4]

Hi,
Thanks for the phone call last night to arrange a second engineer visit.  The second engineer came this morning as promised and sorted the problem.
It turns out the first engineer didn't make the correct connections at the junction box and also fitted the wrong modem. 
The second engineer rectified this, did a line check and then made sure I could get online (which took a bit of time to achieve as someone else's account name and password were entered into the router I was sent).
All credit to Adam Walker who effectively got this sorted (thanks again).  Incidentally he is also the only person from plusnet that has actually apologised for this so far. 
My initial point still stands though because the first Openreach engineer did not do the job properly in any way and made no effort to ensure that the job was actually complete before he marked it as done and disappeared.  If he had returned after going to the junction box he would have seen something was wrong and hopefully sorted it out. 
I hope plusnet is going to make note of my experience and feed it back to Openreach (who are acting on their behalf) in the hope that others don't have their time wasted in this way.  In all it has taken two afternoons of annual leave and one Saturday morning to get a connection which obviously is not good.

[#5]

Sorry for the late reply to your post, I really appreciate what you say.

Quote

I hope plusnet is going to make note of my experience and feed it back to Openreach

We certainly will, we do have channels to do that so I will make sure that gets one.

[#6]

Sadly this type of case will continue until the Government brings in legislation to force suppliers provide compensation to consumers for failures to attend or incompetent installations.
I realise there are situations where network faults will cause initial installations to fail, but the cost of follow-up visits should not fall on the consumer. Perhaps 5 x the average hourly salary for each failed visit.
If Openreach took more care in their work they would have a better success rate and their costs would fall. Given GPS technology and mobile communications, I also assert there is no reason when engineers and delivery firms cannot predict their arrival time to within one hour, and in the event of problems actually contact the consumer to warn of the delay/make alternative arrangements.
Having written the above I do realise the PlusNet (despite being part of BT) is rather "piggy in the middle" in the cases of BT Openreach installations, no doubt the PN's support costs would be reduced if Openreach did their job properly.

[#7]

Openreach will treat this as a failed installation and current compensation is approximately £120. In most cases the end user will not receive this compensation.

[#8]

Quote from: AlaricAdair

Sadly this type of case will continue until the Government brings in legislation to force suppliers provide compensation to consumers for failures to attend or incompetent installations. I realise there are situations where network faults will cause initial installations to fail, but the cost of follow-up visits should not fall on the consumer. Perhaps 5 x the average hourly salary for each failed visit.

Unless you know better than me, I'm fairly certain you can get compensation for that second day off. This slightly misnamed article explains much of the process:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/delivery-rights
I've had compensation from plus.net for failing to fix a fault due to repeatedly sending the wrong type of engineer for the work (which was actually the fault of some BT department as best I could tell, but plus.net is who are contract is with so they have to pay out any compensation). I basically did have to go to CISAS to get it though.