Plusnet against pensioners?.

[#1]

Quote from: AndyH

I have a suspicion (that someone from Plusnet might be able to confirm), but once a cease order is placed on a line it cannot be undone and a new provision needs to be made.

If we place an order to cease a service, we need to give two working days to cancel. If we want to do it straight away, then we can't really cancel, once placed. In this circumstance, the latter happened.
David W has it pretty accurate. Engineer no show as it was fibre to fibre, so both assets technically went live. I'm am also in agreement of where I feel that we are to blame:

Quote from: David

From my point of view, it just looks like severe lack of information progressed towards the client, along with incorrect emails being sent to the client which further initiated worry on the clients side, the client was informed in emails about cancellation etc. which made the client question if their service would go live on the required date, the failure of the phone line and/or broadband on the 6th, along with the incorrect emails would have made the client more prone to believing there was a monumental mess up on PN's side and their service had indeed been cancelled, something which seems to have not been corrected when OP phoned PlusNet on the 6th and cancelled.

Matty

[#2]

Please!!!  a bit of light relief;  CP,  ISP,  CRT,  BTw,  BTOR,  OP,  TT,  PN,  TFM,  DFM,  HP  ???????.
Just as a matter of interest, we had a family friend to our house yesterday, a "Tech guy" I believe they are called, with the letter of acceptance of my account from PlusNet, the emails and texts received since that time, he counted five differing email addresses. To clear the confusion I contacted PlusNet, keyboard to keyboard to find the correct one.
Thank you,
regards,
TheFlyingMouse.

[#3]

To clarify the 'offending' abbreviations used (if required):
OP = Original Poster (that's your good self , also seems to have been shortened to DFM and TFM on occasion)
ISP = Internet Service Provider (That's Plusnet (PN) currently, was Talk-Talk (TT))
CRT = Customer Relations Team (MattyC and colleagues)
BTw = British Telecom Wholesale
BTOR = British Telecom OpenReach
HP is another poster on this thread

It might be useful to have a simple 'Glossary' for the commonly used abbreviations / acronyms regularly used here to assist newcomers who are unfamiliar.

[#4]

To avoid further frustration, PlusNET do not accept communication via email from users.  You need to "ask a question" however at present that's hard to find on the portal.  The "PlusNET Tickets" link in my signature is the way to go.

Quote from: TheFlyingMouse

Please!!!   a bit of light relief;   CP,  ISP,  CRT,  BTw,  BTOR,  OP,  TT,  PN,  TFM,   DFM,   HP   ???????.

CP - Communication Provider - Retail seller of voice (phone) services
ISP - Internet Services Orovider - Retail seller of broadband services
CRT - Customer Relations Team - The PlusNET staff who lurk in these forums fixing problems
BTw - BT Wholesale - The division of BT who sell access to voice and Internet services to CPs and ISPs
BTOR - BT OPENREACH - The BT division who provide and maintain the network over which voice and broadband services are delivered
OP - Original Poster - The person who starts a thread on the forums, in this case YOU!
TT - Talk Talk
PN - PlusNET
TFM / DFM - you
HP ?
As I've tried to suggest, this is all much more complicated to manage and deliver than many recognise or wish it were.
I see W23 types faster than do I.

[#5]

Quote from: Townman

I see W23 types faster than do I.

Or maybe just types less    Yours does contain extra info compared to mine.

[#6]

One correction
CP - Communications Provider - Normally a Retail seller of Phone and Internet services.
Oh, and not forgetting AO - Anotherone 

[#7]

This afternoon, I was telephoned by a gentleman from PlusNet, what was said was private. Within a few minutes of that phone call I get a text from PlusNet;  "your Home phone service is ready to use. Your phone number is ***********"  For goodness sake does the right hand not know what the left hand is doing. This is a glaring example of incompetence of certain PlusNet personnel, this gentleman has gone out of his way to smooth over the situation, only for some other person to inflame the situation beyond compare. It really beggars belief.
Thank you,
regards,
TheFlyingMouse.

[#8]

mod:note
I've binned a load of posts that appeared after this one, didn't seem to be anything of great relevance in them and were going way off topic.
please lets try and stick to the topic at hand.

[#9]

Quote from: Anotherone

Andy, he's back on line, has been for a while, that's no longer relevant.

I think it's very relevant because it shows the OP that it's not Plusnet being unhelpful or deliberately trying to cause problems when trying to re-provide on a line they have just ceased at the end user's request. Unfortunately, it not just a matter of pressing a button and a minute later everything is back live again.

Quote from: David

OP had an order placed which was due to switch on the 6th (phone and fibre), so spent the 6th awaiting a BT engineer to come along and plug in the fibre.  The fibre guy however was a no show BUT the phone line did get switched over (which would have the effect of also killing their broadband on TT?).  OP was unaware at the time that the phone was with PN on the 6th as the engineer didn't call, so the no show by the engineer made OP think the service wasn't live, so phoned PN and cancelled, PN cancelled the line as requested.

Openreach do not send out engineers for FTTC migrations (and they make this very clear), however Plusnet's emails do not make this clear at all. This has led to people waiting in and expecting an engineer to turn up, when in fact all that is done is the remote transfer of the service. I would imagine this issue will not be resolved by Plusnet before they introduce their own self-install FTTC, but it really should have been addressed from the moment Openreach made it clear about FTTC - FTTC migrations.

Quote from: Townman

This is something needing attention from Ofcom - it ought to be possible to implement re-provides / re-connects in the same time scales that BTw / BTOR can disconnect a line.

Kevin
I think that the situation where an end user cancels, the line is ceased and then the end user suddenly changes their mind, is a pretty rare scenario. Depending on whether the line is physically disconnected at the exchange or not, lines can sometimes be reactivated fairly quickly. Obviously the copper line needs to be active before the broadband service can be ordered or activated (I think it's quicker to do it this way rather than placing a simultaneous order).
At the end of the next month, there are major changes to the migration process which are designed to make service transfers more simple. Perhaps this process (and the fact that a letter is sent out to the customer about the full details of the transfer) would have made things easier for the OP.

Quote from: MattyC

If we place an order to cease a service, we need to give two working days to cancel. If we want to do it straight away, then we can't really cancel, once placed. In this circumstance, the latter happened.

Thanks for confirming Matty.

[#10]

Quote from: AndyH

Quote from: MattyC If we place an order to cease a service, we need to give two working days to cancel. If we want to do it straight away, then we can't really cancel, once placed. In this circumstance, the latter happened. Thanks for confirming Matty.

That doesn't explain what happened after the unfortunate phone call when a cancellation was asked for though; didn't The Flying Mouse say that they were cut off later that same evening?
Or does "the latter happened" have some meaning that isn't obvious?

[#11]

We placed a cease request which was actioned pretty much instantly.

[#12]

OK, thanks, I think the original wording was unclear (at least to me) as to what required 2 days notice.
Sounds like another asymmetric BT process that doesn't help anyone. 

[#13]

So Matty, what about my suggestion that Plusnet change things to have a cooling-off period as I suggested here -

Quote from: Anotherone

As you've mentioned it, my suggestion would be that when a customer cancels in similar circumstances, Plusnet should apply a cooling-off period before applying a cease. We've seen it happen here before where ceases have been applied within a couple of hours and then the problems with the re-provide start.

It was clear to me what you said happened, but what's not clear is what circumstances this "2 day notice" applies to.
So maybe it should be a 2 day cooling-off period, 2 day notice, whatever the situation if a customer calls to cancel.

[#14]

Going to be a bit robotic here and refer to a couple of bits in our cancellation terms:

Quote

We require notice in order to close any account. The notice period is 14 days for Residential accounts and 30 days for Business accounts. When a cancellation (as opposed to a MAC Key) is requested, we will schedule this to take place at the end of the notice period.

Quote

If requested, we can close an account sooner than the notice period.

Those are the terms, but in honesty we really treat this on a case by case basis. Imagine a Plusnet customer moving out from their property, so cancelling with COT. The new tenant wants service with their chosen provider ASAP. Would it be fair if we held on to the line an extra couple of days due to our cooling off period?
This is what happens when customers post on here complaining that there is a "pending cease" on the line stopping Plusnet from placing any orders.
I have just listened to the call to COT, and both OP and the agent treated the call like it was still an open order that just needed cancelling. I'm not really sure why that was the case other than training, but I've added the information to my file on this account.
Hope this gives a bit of an insight.

[#15]

Thanks Matty, but the implication of my suggestion is that the Terms need changing.
At least you quoting the relevant bits saved me the need to go and dig them out. BUT the remark you've made about a new tenant moving in is just not relevant to the sort of situation we had here. And for the sake of clarity there is no reason why the terms could not explicitly address that situation - for example -

Quote

We can close an account sooner than the notice period if you are moving out of a property, but you must state that at the time for us to implement it. If you are cancelling within the 14 day cooling off period at the start of a contract because of some dissatisfaction with the service, there will be a 2 day cooling-off period before we implement a cease during which time you may change your mind, however you should be clear that you will be left without any services at all until you arrange provision with another provider if we implement the cease.

Now what's wrong with something like that, the legal team might want to tweak the words a touch.
The same words should also be stated in an email and text sent promptly after any such customer request.