New plusnet Customer for fibre - waiting, canclations and excuses!!

[#1]

So I ordered Fibre from plusnet on the 03/08/2015 and received the welcome emails and confirmation of direct debit and installation date of 17th. Took day of work on 17th as a engineer was supposed to arrive but again the usual story with plusnet...no show. When i phoned the same day at around 3pm, i was told that the appointment was "cancelled". Thanks for letting me know, i only wasted a days holiday from work because of your incompetence!!!! I was then told that they will place another order and let me know same day. No surprises with Plusnet customer service, i received no call. In the morning the next day (18th)  I again contacted Plusnet and was told that no order had been placed the previous day even though they said they would. So they said they will place a order and let me know...again no surprise, they didnt call. So i called in the evening to find out what was happening and to reiterate the importance of having it asap as my previous provider had now terminated the connection..so no internet. I need the internet as i work from home in the evenings and this is now not possible as i have no internet. I was told that a order was pending it will be next week on the 25th and i would receive a call in the morning to confirm...a whole another week without access. This morning i recieve no call, however i just recieved a text message to stated that my line will be active on the 03/09/2015...two weeks from now.
I am now left with no internet after conatcting Plusnet 3 times so far, a day lost in holiday and can no longer work from home in the evening hence loss of salary. I am now tempted to cancel my order, reclaim my installation fee if it means taking legal action against Plusnet and claim compensation for loss of salary and holiday.
Plusnet's service toward customers is appalling and i had now wished i had stayed with my previous provider and upgraded to fibre, even if it  cost more. I cannot believe they treat their new customer in this manner, it is not acceptable. All i want is a internet connection...is that too much to ask for?? Like i said i have no expectations to be connected any time soon or be contacted by plusnet based on previous promises that were not fulfilled.
I will keep the thread updated on my progress or lack of.
Also, forgot to add.. I still have not received my router!

[#2]

Sorry to hear your story, yet another order cock-up. But why did your previous provider cease the service, that should not have happened under the new system (or the old come to that) - it should only stop on the day of transfer. I should complain to them as well.

[#3]

HI Anotherone, yep that was my mistake expecting a seemless transfer. After ordering and getting a appointment, i phoned up my previous provider to let them know that i will be switching and cancelling. They gave me a date when the service would stop which was within the period i was supposed to be switched to plusnet. Howevr as you know that didnt happen. However i have a appointmnet on the 03/09/2015 for a engineer to visit. Fingers crossed!!

[#4]

My advice would be keep checking to make sure the appointment isn't cancelled. A bit of a pain, I know, and the best of luck.

[#5]

Hi Ron
I applied for fibre broadband on 25th July & have got nowhere - had an appointment for fibre install which was not kept. Been asking then for the last 10 days for some action but it just goes around in circles of excuses. Wish I never had anything to do with plusnet. You would think if somebody was so unhappy like me they would get it sorted but it seems beyond them.

[#6]

Hi Ron and Mr Grumpy,
A warm welcome to the forums to both of you.
Whilst your frustration with PlusNET is very understandable, the real culprits here are BT Openreach.  They have a massive shortage of engineers - making them redundant has not exactly been helpful.  If for whatever reason they do not show on the day (previous job took too long) then their attendance needs to be rescheduled.  It is holiday season so the number of available engineers is even lower than normal, so the next available BTOR slot after a failed visit can be weeks away.  Sadly to make BTOR stats look better after failed appointments (or sometimes shortly before them - I've heard it happen at 23:00 the day before) BTOR are cancelling orders so that their failed appointment stats do not look so bad.
This case is an excellent example illustrating why a migrating user should never directly advise the present supplier of a termination date.  That should be left to the migration process.
When things go wrong to the extent it has with Ron's order, picking up the debris is a messy task.  Note though if your work is so dependent upon your internet connection, you ought to be ordering a business grade service and not a residential one.  See PlusNet's T&Cs on business use of residential services.

[#7]

Townman, the culprit here is not solely Openreach. Whilst what you say about shortage of engineers etc. is correct, the problem with both these and the majority of those we see here is Cancelled orders. For whatever reason that the OR system cancels the order (there are many - a number of which are quite technical), Plusnet are not picking these up and notifying the customer in a timely manner

[#8]

Indeed it is evident that PlusNET is not responding quickly enough to the symptoms of BTOR's failure to deliver / attend appointments.  Talking to both PlusNet's support staff and on the ground BTOR engineers, is it also evident that BTOR is significantly incapable of delivering the service on time.
You know the details of service provision better than most, so I am sure you'll realise that SIM2 provides are split between BTOR (POTS) and BTw (broadband), requiring both line and frame resources.  The latter if these are in dire shortage, which is why we see so many SIM provides failing, requiring the broadband to be reordered.
There is no point shouting at those trying to deal with the symptoms of failure - improvement can only be attained by shouting at those responsible for failure - BTOR.  That said, as I am finding out, if PlusNET are involved, BT Plc goes in to Teflon shoulder mode and passes the complaint straight back to Andy Baker.  Sad as this might seem, I'm starting to feel sorry for the guy, as not even after repeated complaints to BT Plc & BTOR CEOs are matters improving - without any acknowledgement, they simply pass their problems back to PlusNET to manage, but offer no effective esclation routes.
Will update my personal experience elsewhere.
Constantly blaming PlusNET for failing to catch all of BTOR's foul-ups does not help anyone understand the magnitude of the issues.  As you have suggested before, complaints about BTOR to (the equally incompetent) Ofcom, does at least get another black mark recorded against them.  Such reports ought to start to ask question how BTOR appear to be hitting all of Ofcom's targets, yet in reality are perceived to be doing so bad?  May be someone will realise that the targets are looking at the wrong measures or are being fudged, largely by cancelling orders they cannot fulfil on time.

[#9]

If the OP's order was a migration, why would he expect an engineer anyway? 
Again - you need to wait to see what the Plusnet CRT guys say happened.

[#10]

Why would he expect an engineer.....because no-one told him any different. This does not detract from PN's failure to communicate whatever the circumstances. And even if it is a migration why is he left with no service. He does need to complain to OFCOM because clearly their "new rules" haven't solved a damned thing.

Quote from: ron060984

.............When i phoned the same day at around 3pm, i was told that the appointment was "cancelled". Thanks for letting me know, i only wasted a days holiday from work because of your incompetence!!!! .............. This morning i recieve no call, however i just recieved a text message to stated that my line will be active on the 03/09/2015...two weeks from now. I am now left with no internet after conatcting Plusnet 3 times so far, ...............Also, forgot to add.. I still have not received my router!

Quote from: Townman

Constantly blaming PlusNET for failing to catch all of BTOR's foul-ups does not help anyone understand the magnitude of the issues.  As you have suggested before, complaints about BTOR to (the equally incompetent) Ofcom, does at least get another black mark recorded against them.  Such reports ought to start to ask question how BTOR appear to be hitting all of Ofcom's targets, yet in reality are perceived to be doing so bad?  May be someone will realise that the targets are looking at the wrong measures or are being fudged, largely by cancelling orders they cannot fulfil on time.

Totally agree with that.
However on one of your previous points, why should anyone feel sorry for the CEO. That's what he's paid one hell of a lot of money for. Yet there is no evidence, feedback from anywhere in the system or anyone, that he's doing a damn thing about it.

[#11]

Hi Andy,
Migration and upgrade to fibre, so an engineer visit needed is quite likely.  No mention of who the previous provider was, but if it's LLU then frames work is also required.
As ever you are correct that we do need the facts, however the user's situation fits a clearly defined profile...
Order a migration, then tell loosing supplier the migration date ... Possible play out scenarios...
1. Loosing supplier places cease order on line - no one else can place provide orders on line until cease tphas been fulfilled, any order placed will be cancelled by BTOR / BTw - also some risk of loosing phone number
2. PlusNET places migration order - for whatever reason loosing supplier rejects migration - order is cancelled
3. None of the above happens, orders go through OK, but on the day one of the several engineering resources require to the migration and upgrade are not available - BT* cancels the orders so that they can be rescheduled
Yes there are lots of opportunities (symptoms) created for PlusNET to drop balls / miss cancellations, however, I suggest that the cause of such issues is less frequently in PlusNet's court than many prefer to believe.
In my personal experience, BTOR are unbelievably incompetent, even with the benefit of PlusNET's business support team, sorting BTOR has been a real struggle.  May be that is just down to my locality?

[#12]

I'm looking into this now.
[EDIT]
From reviewing the account it appears the initial order failed due to another one being in place. That could have been a order for phone or broadband but we can't see any details of that as it won't have been our order.
This then kicked a ticket to our Provisioning team however due to a high backlog it didn't get picked up until the 17th. I can see the new order is committed for the 2nd.
Really sorry for any inconvenience caused.

[#13]

So let me try and understand perhaps the more obvious scenario, if someone places an order with Plusnet (I assume it was for Fibre Broadband and Phone), and the customer then tells their previous provider that they are switching and cancelling and that provider then (wrongly IMHO) puts a cease on the line, the Plusnet order will fail? - Despite the fact that it's for Phone and Broadband?
Ron, I think it would be a good idea if you checked with your previous provider whether they did wrongly put a cease on the Line, and because you can't guarantee a truthful answer, Plusnet must also find out exactly what caused the order fail - was it an incorrect cease on the line.

[#14]

Hi Guys, Sorry i haven't checked this thread for couple of week as firstly i didn't have a connection and secondly I didn't want to think about it until my next appointment, which was today. I am happy to say that a lovely BT engineer actually turned up today and she was very helpful as she also sorted out a noisy line i have had since Monday. More importantly, i'm back online and have to say so far plusnet fibre is very good with speeds of 35mb/s on a 38mb connection. So it looks like in the end its just very frustrating getting set up which is a shame as the actual service provided by Plusnet is actually very good.

Quote from: Townman

Note though if your work is so dependent upon your internet connection, you ought to be ordering a business grade service and not a residential one.  See PlusNet's T&Cs on business use of residential services.

HI Townman, i would just like to clarify as per my original post, i need the a internet connection to work from home on occasions connecting to my office (its one of the perks of the job). I do not have a business or run a business out of my home lol

Quote from: MrGrumpy

Hi Ron I applied for fibre broadband on 25th July & have got nowhere - had an appointment for fibre install which was not kept. Been asking then for the last 10 days for some action but it just goes around in circles of excuses. Wish I never had anything to do with plusnet. You would think if somebody was so unhappy like me they would get it sorted but it seems beyond them.

Hi MrGrumpy I hope all is well and your fibre has been installed by now. As i mentioned the service is very good but its a headache getting a bt engineer to set it up.

[#15]

Quote from: Townman

There is no point shouting at those trying to deal with the symptoms of failure - improvement can only be attained by shouting at those responsible for failure - BTOR.  That said, as I am finding out, if PlusNET are involved, BT Plc goes in to Teflon shoulder mode and passes the complaint straight back to Andy Baker.  Sad as this might seem, I'm starting to feel sorry for the guy, as not even after repeated complaints to BT Plc & BTOR CEOs are matters improving - without any acknowledgement, they simply pass their problems back to PlusNET to manage, but offer no effective esclation routes.

If you have any evidence that Andy Baker is actually making any noise about the shoddy service being provided by BTOR please could you post it. The evidence points to Andy being a BT man through and through and not doing anything to upset his superiors.