Total lack of service

[#1]

My son moved into a flat in Edinburgh at beginning of September, signed up to plus net for broadband and is being constantly fobbed off with excuses. Now being told it will be January before he gets connected. Someone is playing games here as I know the previous tenants had broadband from plus net so you would think it would be simple to switch on a previously supplied address. I can't believe BT & Plusnet are trying their best to fix it as there have been several occasions where an engineer was visiting and the never bothered to turn up. I suspect other broadband providers will claim against BT if they don't provide a line within a set time so they take priority over their own customers (as they are the same company group); could this be the case? I think Plusnet & BT need some damaging publicity about how bad they are so they get the jolt they need in order to improve. I think I'll be writing to the newspapers & TV next if the situation doesn't improve.

Anyone else having similar problems?

[#2]

Hi Fobbedoff,

Sorry to see this. Unfortunately the previous tenant having a Plusnet service doesn't mean we're able to switch it over to a new owner, this boils down to legislation relating to account ownership due to data protection and means that the previous service needs to be ceased before a new one can be provided on to the same line.

Please feel free to send me a private message for the account in question and I'll chase things up for you and make sure everything is followed up as quickly as possible.

[#3]

Something similar happened to me about 5 years ago, when I applied for an ADSL service (from another ISP) in a rented house.

The previous tenant had absconded with enormous debts. (Bailiffs would turn up from time to time.) Month after month went by with no broadband. Nobody told me why. Eventually, I posted a plaintive wail in a thinkbroadband forum, and someone senior there took pity on me and did something (asked a chum in openreach?) and not long after I eventually got a service. 

I think there is a pretty nasty black-hole here in the provision of broadband services. The worst thing is that for some reason nobody will tell you anything, even though you are paying line rental in your own name, and the phone service works.

[#4]

I think there is a pretty nasty black-hole here in the provision of broadband services. The worst thing is that for some reason nobody will tell you anything, even though you are paying line rental in your own name, and the phone service works.

It's something that we have to be pretty militant about in terms of data protection unfortunately. We do eventually cease the line if someone has left without paying their bill, but it is a pretty lengthy process.

Matty

[#5]

So is the only hope for someone in this situation to order the installation of a totally new line?

[#6]

That genuinely is one (expensive) way that we've gotten round the issue in the past. This is only when our takeover orders are constantly rejected by the current provider of the line with the customers that haven't paid their bill.

In any other instance, a working line takeover usually suffices.

[#7]

The exact same thing happened to me, previous tennant (my landlady) had plus.net BB, I moved in thought keeping plus.net was the logical option, over a month with no broadband due to continuous [-Censored-] ups and excuses.

My parents moved from sky to BT and had an entire 30 minutes of downtime with their internet.