Service gone horribly downwards

[#1]

For the past week my connection has been very slow, pages hanging and failing to load. Yesterday afternoon I posted a message in the forum but have not had a reply. This morning I received a billing notification which makes no sense at all. I pay my line rental annually and £6.49/month for unlimited BB plus calls. Today the bill is for £14.99/month line rental plus $9.99 BB plus calls. If my costs have changed I should have been notified in advance, surely? Now today my connection is dropping off every few minutes. Looks like service, billing and customer service are in the toilet. If I can retain a connection I will be looking for an alternative provider unless this lot is rectified asap.
Tried phoning but get auto message saying very high volume of calls and waiting time is at least 15 minutes - that says a lot about the service methinks!

[#2]

Morning Kati,
It looks like my colleague Chris has responded to both of the threads regarding the speeds and dropping connection and it looks as though there have been some potential issues spotted on the initial faults checks, we would need to have you follow the link he posted so we can raise a fault and investigate.
Regarding the billing, it looks as thought you signed up for this on the 2013-05-08 which means this has now expired which reverts back to the standard line rental. We do issue a reminder for the expiration of this service 3 months before it happens and this was sent to the email address on your account. If you wish to renew your Line Rental Saver, it can be done here once you log into the portal.
We apologise for the call wait times you mentioned, unfortunately we have been busy of late and the work we carried out on the DNS platform this morning has compounded this somewhat. We are working to combat our wait times though and now have a second call centre in place which is being staffed up as we speak so this should be getting better as time goes on.
Moving forward, if we could ask that you please keep your posting to a minimum of threads so that we can more effectively provide support to you.
Thanks
Adam C

[#3]

You have my deepest sympathy Kati. The best of luck getting your fault sorted, I'm still waiting for mine to be sorted after 3 ½ weeks. Customer service IS down the toilet.

[#4]

Accassim, Thank you for your reply. You say "Moving forward, if we could ask that you please keep your posting to a minimum of threads so that we can more effectively provide support to you." which I did initially but got no response so I sent you a bundle instead in the hope someone would take notice.
Confident - thanks for the sympathy. It is so frustrating dealing with Plusnet when a problem arises. I am looking at alternative providers as I don't think I can take much more of this. Just looked at reviews on the internet and customers are saying it is dire! Hope your problem is resolved soon.

[#5]

Thanks Kati, but I'm not holding my breath. Frustrating isn't even close - more like incandescent rage.

[#6]

Confident - read your posts and it sounds appalling. I have been with plusnet for years and they used to be good but lately have become really rubbish. Oversubscribed I think and still advertising for new customers when they can't even provide a reliable service for the ones they already have. Then they try and imply that the fault is with the customers equipment rather than their poor service. On two previous occasions when I have had to report problems they said it ws probably a fault with my kit and if they send an engineer it will cost me £60. Both times an engineer came and my equipment was fine. Things were ok again for a while then things got bad again. I am looking into changing to another provider.
Good luck!

[#7]

Thanks Kati, I've been with PN since Force 9 days, but not for much longer at this rate.
"Oversubscribed I think and still advertising for new customers when they can't even provide a reliable service for the ones they already have. "
Quite agree they used to be excellent, but not any longer. Don't talk to me about engineers visits, fed up looking at them, have had about 6 out I think, still haven't paid for one.
Good Luck

[#8]

Quote from: Kati

Things were ok again for a while then things got bad again. I am looking into changing to another provider.

If the fault is with the line, then changing ISP will deliver no benefit, indeed you could be in a worse position in having to deal with off-shore call centres.
If the fault is down to a poor line joint, then there is the possibility that when the BTOR engineer (or contractor) attends, the fault is not manifest, thus cannot be located and therefore cannot be fixed.  There is also the possibility that there is more than one fault with the wring.  The best that PN can do is to ask their supplier to investigate the issue and fix what they FIND.  If no fault is found, then they cannot deliver a fix on that occasion.
Is your problem related to bad weather?  Is you line noisy? Dial 17070 option 2.
From you other thread, delaying paying the LRS is likely to end up costing you more, as you'll be considered to be a new LRS user and will most likely end up paying the new higher price.

[#9]

Hi Kati,
It doesn't seem like you've completed the faults checker yet. Can you finish whatever questions remain so we can get this to our faults team?

[#10]

Townsman,
If the fault is with the line, then changing ISP will deliver no benefit, indeed you could be in a worse position in having to deal with off-shore call centres.
My connection has improved of its own accord, as it has done in the past when I have complained of poor speeds and disconnections. PN always assume the fault is at the customer end before checking for possible problems at theirs. I read on the forums about some kind of DNS (?) fault at the time I was having my problem. The fault was not with my line as I checked it and it was clear with no noise. As for dealing with off shore call centres, I have yet to see the benefit of dealing with PN's UK call centre as they take an age to reply and respond and when they do they talk techy gobbledygook so what's the difference?
If the fault is down to a poor line joint, then there is the possibility that when the BTOR engineer (or contractor) attends, the fault is not manifest, thus cannot be located and therefore cannot be fixed.  There is also the possibility that there is more than one fault with the wring.  The best that PN can do is to ask their supplier to investigate the issue and fix what they FIND.  If no fault is found, then they cannot deliver a fix on that occasion.

Less than a year ago I had to have an engineer callout and had my rewiring done at the same time. The problem was not with my wiring.
Is your problem related to bad weather?  Is you line noisy? Dial 17070 option 2.
Don't know where you are but the weather has been ok here in London. Nothing dramatic. Apart from a few showers it has been warm and quite sunny.
[font=Verdana]From you other thread, delaying paying the LRS is likely to end up costing you more, as you'll be considered to be a new LRS user and will most likely end up paying the new higher price.[/font]
I enquired on Saturday about the cost of renewing the LRS and apart from receiving an automatic message with a ticket number, am still waiting for a reply. As for costing more, renewing for a further 12 months for poor service is not a saving as far as I am concerned as the cost to my health with the stress is greater than the monetary value. I would rather keep my options open and look around at other isp's. Even if they cost more, if they are reliable and helpful when needed it would be worth it.

[#11]

Hi Chris,
As my problem was to do with slowdowns and diconnections the faults checker was not much help. As long as I could get a connection all the checks were ok and it concluded that my problem had been solved even though the problem was still ongoing.
Since the weekend my connections have improved somewhat, though images are slow to load or remain blank. Just did the BT speedtest thing again and got the following :
Download 3.68
Upload 0.38
Ping latency 52.00
The upload and ping latency are only marginally different from before but the downlaod speed is significantly different as previously when I first reported a problem it was 0.61
I do not understand the significance of these numbers or if they are good, bad or normal. Can you enlighten me further please?
Thanks,
Kati

PS : Please also could PN bear in mind that not all of their customers (I am almost a pensioner!) are familiar with jargon so rattling off various phrases in explanation as I have seen on the forums when trying to find useful answers to my own problem is not helpful.

[#12]

"PS : Please also could PN bear in mind that not all of their customers (I am almost a pensioner!) are familiar with jargon so rattling off various phrases in explanation as I have seen on the forums when trying to find useful answers to my own problem is not helpful. "
Be careful what you say in this respect Kati.
In a post I made, I said "Unfortunately I don't do tech speak" and was pounced on by the forum police! I'm more than "almost a pensioner", I already am.
I too have a speed problem, definitely not my side of the master socket, for which there seems to be no desire/will to do anything about. So I've just given up on it.

[#13]

Quote

PS : Please also could PN bear in mind that not all of their customers (I am almost a pensioner!) are familiar with jargon so rattling off various phrases in explanation as I have seen on the forums when trying to find useful answers to my own problem is not helpful.

I understand where you're coming from Kati. We certainly don't expect everyone to understand any jargon so if there's anything that isn't clear please do ask and we'll do our best to explain it.
The reason Chris asked you to complete the fault checker is so that this can be raised to our Faults team to investigate. Without the fault checker being completed they won't have the information they need to investigate the problem. If you don't feel comfortable raising it via the fault checker online then you can give our Technical Support team a call and they can talk you through it - 0800 432 0200.

[#14]

Hi Newagetraveller,
Thanks for the warning but so far the forum police haven't come after me! I would be surprised if I was taken to task over not being able to understand all the terminology though - these bright young things must surely make allowances for the older generation!
See the reply below yours from PN who said they understood my discomfort with some of the jargon and offered a suggestion that I do it by phone if I prefer. I took up their suggestion and called the freephone 0800 number and spoke to a member of the support team who gave me very clear instructions on what to do to try an alternative filter in the test socket. He called me back on my mobile and talked me through it step by step and then he did a few tweaks at his end and ran speed tests and the speed has almost doubled! He was incredibly helpful and did not make me feel at all stu[pid for my lack of knowledge.
I would recommend you try calling them and sorting out your speed issues over the phone rather than via the forums/online support. You should not have to live with poor speeds so don't give up.
Altogether it took an hour of my time but well worth it (and a lot quicker than using online tickets!) Have a screwdriver and a spare filter handy as you will need those but it was not too complicated with the phone help.
Best of luck!

[#15]

Hi Linn K,
Thanks for your understanding about the jargon and the suggestion I try the phone support. I took up your suggestion and got a very helpful fellow who talked me through the test process, did something at his end, ran some speed tests and had me do the same from my end and my speed has now incresed substantially.
Thanks for the advice!
Kati