Plusnet CSC people not reading ticket 34413907 & making anonymous calls

[#1]

I refer to ticket 34413907.
I am disappointed with Plusnet staff not reading the tickets properly.
I have said on several occasions I do not accept anonymous calls.
Plusnet staff keep phoning withholding their number. I even explained the reason why on 5th August.

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Your comment 11:43am, Thursday 29th July 2010 Thank you for your message. Sorry, I do not answer anonymous telephone calls. The ADSL router is the only device plugged into the test socket. Please perform your tests.

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C**** S****** BOT - DSL Logged Faults 3:44pm, Monday 2nd August 2010 +Internal+ Attempted call but land line doesn't accept withheld numbers and was cut off when phoned mobile. 1-5868556084 [Sms Message: I have attempted to call you but was hung up on. Your fault has been raised to our supplier. Please note that they can take between 48-72 hours to provide a response.]

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Your comment 6:21pm, Monday 2nd August 2010 Hello, At 11:43am, Thursday 29th July 2010 I wrote: "Sorry, I do not answer anonymous telephone calls." As a result I reluctantly rejected the anonymous call.

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J******** D****** BOT - DSL Logged Faults 11:03am, Thursday 5th August 2010 Dear Mr B******, I'm not sure, but I think you may have just answered my call stating "The person you are calling does not accept anonymous calls", then ended the call. I am sending you this txt so you will know who it is and hopefull answer the call. I am afraid I have no way of showing my number when calling. I will call you in 5 minutes. If you have any more questions please get in touch 24/7, either by our contact number 0845 1400 200 or through our assistant on our website. http://help.plus.net Kind regards, J****** D********* [Sms Message: Plusnet: I'm not sure, but I think you may have just answered my call stating "The person you are calling does not accept anonymous calls", then ended the call. I am sending you this txt so you know who it is and hopefully answer the call. Unfortunately have no way of showing my number. I will call you in 5 minute]

I disagree. Adam Walker wrote:

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_

If you prefer I can ask someone to give you a call, we do have lines here that do not withhold our number that we can use for that purpose.

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J*********** D************ BOT - DSL Logged Faults 11:13am, Thursday 5th August 2010 Dear Mr B********, I tried to call you but there was no answer on your mobile, I did send an SMS to warn of my call, but you may not have read this. [Sms Message: Plusnet: I have tried to call you again, but the call was rejected manually. We have no way of releasing our number. I politely request you try to screen the calls to your mobile rather than blanket rejecting them, as this will cause a delay in resolving the fault.]

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Your comment 11:15am, Thursday 5th August 2010 **Sorry, on the advice of the Police, I cannot accept anonymous calls.** Please can you put your question in this ticket? Thank you.

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Your comment 7:01pm, Saturday 7th August 2010 **I do not answer anonymous calls.** 1: You should unplug all devices from the line which will include but is not limited to the following devices: Done - I cannot now use the telephone. 2: Plug your current modem into the master socket to help establish if internal cabling may be to blame. Done - I cannot use the telephone. 3: Try an alternate filter with your modem to establish that the current one is not a source of the issues. Were at all possible, you can bypass filters by making us of a standard modem cable. Done - Micro filter bypassed with modem cable plugged into test socket. 4: Attempt the use of an alternate modem on your connection. Done - Zoom X6 substituted for Thomson ST716v5WL. I am available for an engineer visit any time on Monday 09 August, Tuesday 10 August or Wednesday 11 August. After that I will be at work. **I do not answer anonymous calls.** Please send an email and SMS with the appointment details. Thank you.

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L**** C******** CSC Analyst 7:11pm, Saturday 7th August 2010 Dear Mr B******* **INTERNAL** EU contacted to arrange engineer appointment. He has confirmed that all the checks have been done. EU also advised he doesn't answer anonymous calls so can we test him the confirmation of the appointment time.

So the young lady I spoke to after calling and paying the  0845 charges kindly added an instruction to Plusnet staff on the ticket -  please send a text message.

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R****** S***** BOT - DSL Logged Faults 4:30pm, Sunday 15th August 2010 Dear Mr B******** I tried to call you today but there was no answer L*** M******* BOT - DSL Logged Faults 11:28am, Tuesday 17th August 2010 Dear Mr B********, I tried to call you today but you disconnected the call after I informed you that I am calling from Plusnet about your broadband fault. To do anymore about your ongoing broadband issues we need to arrange an engineer's visit as previously notified to you in this ticket.

What do Plusnet managment have to say on this?

[#2]

Thanks for letting us know about this. Our Faults Team have recently re-focussed their work to ensure that customers are called on every ticket update. This is now ingrained into their work so they may have overlooked a note on your ticket. However, this obviously isn't acceptable so I have sent feedback to the managers of all agents who overlooked this fact. I'm very sorry if it has caused any inconvenience or hassle for you.
I have now placed a rather large note on your account that says SMS updates only to ensure we don't have any future occurrences.
With regards to your fault, we're ready to send out an engineer. If you update your ticket or reply to your SMS with potential appointment times we can get this arranged for you.

[#3]

Don't PN phone system allow 1470 to be dialled to release the number? Or will the released number be a geographical number and not the 0845 one? May be a lesson is needed from your parent compnay. When BT retail ring the 0800 number is shown.

[#4]

Our entire telephone system appears as a witheld number upon dialling out, then only way to get around this is to plug a telephone into one of our test lines (a normal telephone, not the ones we use day to day which can't be plugged straight into 'the wall'). We're aware that this is a major drawback and I'll speak to the right people to see whether or not anything can be done.

[#5]

Have you tried prefixing the number with 1470? Either the exchange (BT) has been programmed to withheld the number and therefore using 1470 should release it. Or your PBX system is prefixing 141 to everry outgoing call.

[#6]

Ben I have replied to the ticket.

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Your comment  1:19pm, Tuesday 17th August 2010 **I DO NOT ACCEPT ANONYMOUS CALLS** PLEASE REPLY BY SMS. I am working for the next 7 days. The only time I will be at home in the next fortnight will be on: Wednesday 25 August. **I DO NOT ACCEPT ANONYMOUS CALLS** PLEASE REPLY BY SMS. I will be available any time only on that date. **I DO NOT ACCEPT ANONYMOUS CALLS** PLEASE REPLY BY SMS. Thank you.

[#7]

I had the caller ID number changed on my Broadband Phone to my home telephone number for £5.
Is it not possible to display the 0845 1400 200 number on outbound calls?

[#8]

We use ISDN30 circuits which aren't the same as normal telephone lines so the normal override codes don't work. The reasoning behind us witholding our number is because we provide support for multiple branded vISP's (e.g. Plusnet, Madasafish) which have their own Support Teams for certain situations. We use different numbers for each vISP so that we can ensure the call is routed to the right Team at the right time. If customers were to note down the number that they receive calls from, this might not be the correct number for them to receive support from.

[#9]

ISDN30e lines allow you to choose which number you want to send as the caller ID.
This can be done a number of ways, but essentially you can send any number which you have the authority to use as your caller ID.
For example, all outgoing calls from our business send the switchboard number as the ID, regardless of which ISDN channels are used.
This can be overriden to show any other number we 'own', so I can call with my DDI as the callerID, or our DeptHuntGroup number, or another entirely different number.
@Ben - I appreciate you don't understand that *actual* issue, but pretending to follow the reasons does no good to the credibility of you or PN.
If you don't understand the reason, say so - this is the straight talking honest answers that people come here to read.
People do not expect FUD/incorrect/incomplete answers.

[#10]

FYI - Ben and I have had a conversation about this and it is something that we're looking into.
Ben does raise a perfectly valid point about the multiple vISP support that we do offer.  Without having knowledge of the actual technicalities of our phone system, I have no reason to doubt your knowledge of its functionality.  We soon to be rolling out a new telephone system internally, and this may or may not be something we could include.
Either way, it is being looked into.

[#11]

Please don't think that I ran into this thread and guessed answers! It was a business decision that was taken by CSC Management to withold our outbound CLI, not a technical reason. I only mentioned the fact that we use ISDN30's when itsme suggested that we prefix our calls with 1470.
As it happens, I've suggested that we incorporate the functionality to include our CLI on outbound calls as an option, for use in circumstances such as those the OP has flagged. This will be raised to our suppliers to see if it's a feasible option.

[#12]

I agree with everything James_G have stated on ISDN30e system but also I would add that ISDN30e systems that I have used can handle call centre calls without resorting to 3rd party 0845 systems.

[#13]

ISDN30e is *not* a /system/, its a physical connection.
That physical connection is capable of doing/supporting lots of neat tricks, but only if your telephone system supports sending the correct codes.
Lack of support for sending the correct details can be for a variety of reasons; typically related to configuration of systems and physical layouts.
If you dig deep into the PN history (right back towards the earliest of early days, before broadband was around!) you may start to get an understanding as to where the difficulties lie. (As I understand it, part of the problem still stems from right back then - happy to be corrected though.)
Clearly the new[ish] overlords have good reason to want to alter the setup, in particular the third party underpinning the current telephone system.
But! It is not easy to replace a telephone system as ingrained as the PN one, nor is it straightforward contractually.
My grouchiness was related to the technicality of the explanation, rather than the actual problem; which I agree is only easily surmountable outside of the system and with the application of a little imagination.

[#14]

I'm sorry, I thought I had made it clear that this wasn't a technical problem, but we withold CLI's on outbound calls by design?

Quote from: Ben

The reasoning behind us witholding our number is because we provide support for multiple branded vISP's... ...If customers were to note down the number that they receive calls from, this might not be the correct number for them to receive support from.

As it happens, we're in the middle of an overhaul of our telephone system (calls to Sales, Customer Options and Order Updates all go through the new system) and as I've advised, we're investigating to see if we can have an optional CLI on outbound calls.
I hope that clears things up, sorry if I've missed anything.

[#15]

when did this bad system come in as I did get several calls last year from a very helpful person that had the 0114 number displayed