Making a Complaint

[#1]

I wish to make a complaint and can no longer spend another minute on the phone to Plusnet. Many of the online services seem to be closed (I spent a considerable time composing the below complaint and could not even submit it through the 'help desk'!). I am resorting to the forum in the hope that I will receive a response from Plusnet staff.

Since signing up to Plusnet broadband, the service has been highly unsatisfactory. The activation date and time was delayed by 5 days. This was highly detrimental as we just moved into a new property and relied on broadband to work from home, like many others. I am in a vulnerable group for COVID-19 and with the delay and having spent lots of money on additional mobile data, I was forced into the office and potentially risking my health. When I explained this to your customer advisor and asked if the activation date could be brought forwards, we were told “timescales can only be brought forward for vulnerable people”. Who is actually classified as ‘vulnerable’ for your services? We were promised to be contacted regarding compensation and never were.

We have been getting just 35mb after the service was finally activated, 15mb less than the minimum guaranteed 50mb speed promised by the package. I contacted Plusnet and an engineer visited the property. Following the engineer’s inspections, they explained that we are connected to a fibre box over 500m away via a copper line, which is why we were receiving the current speed. The engineer also explained that there is a fibre box right outside our house. I contacted Plusnet again and was told that the engineer may have got this wrong, “they sometimes say this because they don’t know what they’re doing”. This was a rather patronising and unfair statement given the length of time the engineer spent exploring the issue. We were advised that we should definitely be receiving the minimum guaranteed speed and this would be explored further.

We were called back and informed the promised speed could not be honoured. We questioned whether we could be connected to the fibre box right outside our house. The question was not answered and we were given two choices: downgrading our package or leaving. The downgrade option was offered at £23.99 per month, even though the package was openly advertised online at £22.99 per month. We were told we are not new customers and therefore could not benefit that deal. After arguing our point that we were in fact still new customers given the ongoing issues with the service we had received as of date, we were eventually honoured the new customer price. We requested for compensation for paying for a service that we never received and was transferred to another team. The call was cut.

Following much frustration, I gave up trying to contact Plusnet again after spending almost two hours on hold, waiting to be called back and speaking to multiple people. I am therefore requesting a refund or account credit for the initial upfront fee of £25.99, given the aforementioned that we were falsely sold a service that could not be fulfilled by yourselves. We welcome any alternative solutions that you may offer.

We also ask if our premises can be connected to the fibre box right outside our house. If not, then why?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your post @pusheena 

I'm really sorry for the poor experience you've had. We do aim to offer the best support we can for those who are vulnerable, including priority fault repair (for a home phone line) or expedited installations, the latter though would be on a case by case basis as there's certain criteria we'd need to meet for Openreach to accept an emergency welfare case. 

I'd recommend filling out our additional support form here Here to put a record on your account of any vulnerabilities or disabilities you may have, so we can make sure we're offering the best support we can moving forward.

Personally we should absolutely price match the new customer offer for basic fibre or allow you to leave without penalty, because line tests are showing your router's getting a speed of 41.1mbps, which is below the minimum guaranteed speed of 50.8mbps we promised and an engineer's confirmed unless the infrastructure changes (i.e. your line's moved to a closer cabinet or you get full fibre [FTTP] to your property) we can't improve your speed further.

The engineer may very well be correct, we've no reason not to believe them and apologies if you were given that advice from us. Unfortunately though we can't arrange for a working fibre service to be moved from one cabinet to another. 

It's not uncommon for Openreach to arrange what's known as 'live to live migrations' which is the process of moving fibre lines in bulk between cabinets but this is a massive endeavour as it generally involves re-arranging their network and liaising with all internet service providers of the cabinet(s) that buy the services from Openreach.

This isn't a process we can begin or request though. It'd be something Openreach would arrange if deemed appropriate. If you'd want to contact Openreach to query this further, I'd recommend filling out the formwize Here and their fibre enquiries team will get back to you although the answer they'll give may be similar to mine. 

As a goodwill gesture I've refunded your initial fee you'll receive in your bank account within 5 to 10 working days. I'm taking personal ownership of your complaint, so if you've got any further concerns or queries, feel free to post back and/or respond to the support ticket Here and I'll be happy to get back to you as soon as I can.

[#3]

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, providing clear explanations to my enquiries and responding very fast. Your gesture of goodwill is very kind, and thank you again.

[#4]

Thanks for getting back to me @pusheena 

No problem at all. Apologies again for the experience you've had.

Let me know if there's anything else you'd need help with. Cheers

[#5]

As since I joined having issue getting connected I pay too much while I can use service properly. Please help me or get disconnected without any termination charges. As when connected via phone you can solve my query as saying username is wrong

[#6]

@lucylawrence30 This is an old closed topic - I will make suggestions on your other post to try and help you - in a while.

[#7]

Thread locked and @lucylawrence30 other post is here.