Transfer of service from BT, no service for 3 weeks

[#1]

So. Still no sign of broadband. Six weeks in.

I hassled and got the case escalated again (apparently it doesn't stay escalated, but gets downgraded to regular each time things are updated, which keeps me angry and busy). An engineer came out last Thursday, and I had a planned activation date of Friday!! I was almost in tears!

But no. There is a fault in the connection. Have to wait until the 3rd Sept for update.

Over the weekend we lost the phoneline.  Coincidence? Plusnet says no external fault and that I need to test with a corded phone. Which I don't have. Minor issue. I must expose a test line and plug 2 phones in to be sure.

Any broadband update, as it is the 3rd?

Yes. I have to wait until the 30th September for next update. But they are attempting to escalate it. Again.

Husband wants me to just go with another supplier. Anyone done this, mid issue?

So very upset about it all. Been on this since 23rd July.

[#2]

Hello @SJK

I can see my colleague @Gandalf has updated your ticket today in regards to your on-going query.

I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience caused throughout this process and the continuous delay.

What I would advise is all suppliers operate on the BT Network line and carry the installation through Openreach. We also process our Broadband order with BT Wholesale, with the issue lies with the supplier there is a very likely chance another supplier will also face the same issue we are experiencing. The only provider who works outside this system is Virgin Media.

My colleague will continue to support you with the query, please rest assured we are doing all we can for you to rectify this matter.

Kind regards.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Edited for typo.

[#3]

@Dumbledore 

No, you are really not. This is why:-

1. You managed to give BT the go ahead to disconnect me and lost my order on the system

2. You took 4 weeks before spotting that I was in an error loop (I pointed this out) and trying something else

3. You do not make sure I stay at an escalated status with openreach, I have to remind you to remind them that they promised this

4. You keep sending emails when I have no internet

5. Despite me having plusnet mobile, you ignore my request to supply me with additional data so I can deal with you. I have bought some, but made a point of not buying from you.

6. You claim to want to join the Ofcom scheme for compensation for delays in set up, but can offer me no financial support until the issue is fixed, which is no use, as I am incurring costs in time and money now. The time I more important.

This is in no way doing the best, this is pretty much one step up from doing f all. The only plus is I have not yet been charged, other than the initial £32, but in time and effort I am spending way more than this.

Please send me details of next layer up for complaints, is it ofcom?

Ps I realise virgin is the only option.

[#4]

Thanks for getting back to us @SJK 

I'm sorry to see you feel that way. Ever since I've taken ownership of this since the 16th August I've been proactively chasing this up with our suppliers and I've been updating you via text message as well as by phone once I was aware that you've been struggling to access the internet to read your emails.

For example the review date on the LLUMS case to repair or replace the faulty ports at the cabinet was today so I chased this up and was advised of a new review date of the 30th September. Naturally I felt this wasn't acceptable so I escalated this to a team manager within our suppliers escalation team and I'm expecting a response back tomorrow. The next layer of escalation beyond that is to the operations manager that I'm happy to escalate to should that be necessary.

As I've said a while ago I'm happy to discuss a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience this has caused you which would likely be some form of payment either a credit or refund that can be used towards the costs you've incurred. We'll normally discuss that once you're up and running so we can assess what is both fair and proportionate.

I'm sorry if you've mentioned this previously however I was unaware until now that you've got a Plusnet Mobile account with us. As this is the case I'd be happy to look to providing you with additional data for free as an early goodwill gesture. Let me know if this is something you'd want and I'd be happy to call you back tomorrow when I am back in the office.

With regards to your phone service not working, as discussed earlier today line tests aren't showing any issues so the only way we can progress that as a fault with our suppliers is by arranging an engineer visit however since that may incur a potential call out charge we'd like to avoid, I'd ideally want to cover all bases and ensure there's no coincidence by making sure that there's absolutely no chance that the fault lies with your internal wiring or equipment.

If you're confident the fault does not lie within your property then I am happy to arrange an engineer visit for you to investigate this further however I'm simply taking precautions with asking you to carry out the above checks.

If you want to escalate your complaint with Plusnet then you'll need to follow the complaints process which is the ADR(Alternative Dispute Resolution) by going through the Ombudsman as OFCOM don't deal with individual complaints however I'd like to note that the Ombudsman don't have any influence over our suppliers.

Finally and I understand the frustration that the experience of your transfer has caused however I feel that as part of our Customer Advocates department I'm in the best position to get this resolved for you as soon as possible.

[#5]

@skj

Clearly the issues here lie with the shambles called BT Openreach.

Their customers (the ISPs) can only follow the process they dictate which slows things down. I have my own experiences with Plusnet trying to resolve complex issues. This one needs to go to BT’s DSO team, but the ISP is only allowed to escalate each issue one step at a time.

YOU writing to the CEOs of BT and BT Openreach will be like sending a hand grenade without the safety pin.

You ought not need to do this, but on poor supplier issues such as this, it’s the only way to break out of BT’s civil service nationalised industry not today behaviours.

Gandalf is one of PlusNET’s best trouble shooters, however if BT says 30th September, unless he can make direct contact with someone willing to help, BTs cigs will just grind until they are ready to act.

That said if the infrastructure is broken .... I wonder what happened to the assets used to deliver your service when you were with BT? They ought to have just been transferred by BT Openreach!!

[#6]

Cannot edit the post above...

@SJK 

BTs cigs cogs will just grind until they are ready to act.

[#7]

@Gandalf 

Dont get me wrong, I appreciate that you have been the only person recently to contact me by phone and text, but one person's very recent efforts do not make up for the speed that actions have occurred over the last nearly 7 weeks. Which is what I have to judge the *company's* comment that "we are doing our very best".
I suggest you read the complaint history and ask yourself whether *you* consider the *best* has been done so far. Because in my mind it hasn't.
Maybe you yourself are doing the best now, but unfortunately for you, I have been on the other end for 44 days now, with a number of people saying they were on the case, only to be replaced by another person who treats my case with the same level of urgency expected from an entirely new complaint.

Re phone line:-
I personally believe it is an external fault. I could be wrong.
To test the box, I need to get screwdriver access to the port, which will require me to move a 1.5m solid wood tv cabinet, filled with not only tv and games equipment, but also sewing machine and large containers of lego. So, you can understand my reluctance to be straight on that task when I get in from work with two smallish children. My conclusion, as we discussed, is that I am going to leave this until I get the broadband fixed, when hopefully I will feel my efforts might actually be worth it!

I look forward to hearing what you can achieve. To me, the openreach information about not having any spare parts in the UK, and having to get one shipped in from Europe, sound like a load of balls, but guess what? I can't contact them directly, so unfortunately, you have to take the brunt of that too.

Customer complaints can't be much of a fun job, but I assure you, I am enjoying this even less with what I need to do here, and can't. I could elaborate, but I realise that won't move things any faster.

@town man

How do I do this? I messaged bt twice to ask for bT GROUP contact, but either they are dumb, or acting it, as they just avoided answering (twice). Same with openreach, how do i contact them, as it says as an end user, you can't?

[#8]

Hello @SJK I will apologise for my response as by saying 'we are doing all we can for you to rectify this matter'.

If I were to word this better, I should point out my colleague @Gandalf is doing all he can to help you with this matter and has assigned himself as your case handler. He has continued to keep you up to date on this matter since he had taken on the query and has been in touch with yourself liasoning this information. I do apologise for the previous dis-satisfactory experience, but I assure you my colleague Gandalf has a vast ton of experience and knowledge with provisioning matters, this is the best individual we have on our Community Forum to help you with this matter.

As your service provider, we will manage the complaint, whilst the issue does lie externally and we are depending on our suppliers to rectify the matter, we understand you are not able to contact them directly and have your query dealt by them. It is not within our intention to cause these problems to occur, however, when this happens like all providers we will follow a process in getting in touch with Openreach and BT Wholesale, in a short any updates our suppliers have we relay this across to yourself. Unfortunately, these matters are extremely difficult to rectify quickly, from experience there's always a delay as a result of this matter.

Kind regards.

[#9]

Hi @SJK Thanks for getting back to us.

Just in addition to my colleagues response, as I'm handling your case I thought I'd post back to go into a little more detail.

Firstly I do sincerely apologise again for the experience you've had, however realistically all we can do is move forward and ensure that feedback is passed on to the previous advisers if I feel they could've handled this better given the situation, even and especially in the occasional instances when things go horribly wrong like they have with your order unfortunately.

With regards to your phone service, I agree that given the circumstances it looks like the problem is external however there is no way we can progress the fault without arranging an engineer visit which will incur a call-out charge if we're wrong and it's just co-incidence/the problem lies with your equipment or internal wiring.

This is because line tests aren't showing an external fault. When we report a fault to our suppliers, the result of a line test dictates how the fault is raised. I think part of the reason might be because if a line test doesn't detect the location of the fault then for an engineer to investigate they'd generally test from your master socket to help determine where the fault lies.

I completely understand the inconvenience that the troubleshooting steps will cause you and if you'd like to wait to see if your phone line fixes itself once your broadband is back up and running, that's fine and I do hope it does. 

I'm also still happy to arrange an engineer visit to investigate the fault further regardless of whether you've carried out the troubleshooting steps however I wouldn't be able to waive the call-out charge should the fault be co-incidental. 

Moving on to your fibre order, I think there may have been a bit of confusion or misunderstanding when I mentioned that our suppliers may need to import parts from abroad, as that was purely a possible outcome based on my own experience for these type of issues and wasn't information received from our suppliers regarding your order specifically.

Today this has been escalated to operations manager level of our suppliers escalation team. After some back and forth, the latest update is that while they've taken onboard the history of what has happened that ideally your service should've simply been transferred from your previous provider, ultimately it went wrong and when reprovisioning your fibre service all the spare ports are now faulty, so they've escalated the LLUMS case to the team who manage them highlighting this. 

At the moment I've been advised that the ports may not need to be replaced as they may be able to repair them however at this stage our suppliers escalation team have been unable to confirm this. I've also been advised to allow a further 24 hours in order to provide time for them to chase this and provide us with an update on the progress.

I'm not in the office tomorrow however our suppliers will still be progressing this. I'd expect an update upon my return on Friday because a lead time of 24 hours from today brings us to a review date of Friday as it allows 1 full working day.

I hope this helps.

[#10]

IIRC it is against the forum rules to give CEO email addresses here, however doing a Google search for "BT Openreach CEO" (and ant other any personnel) readily delivers links such as this - https://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-9593

I wrote to the then BTOR CEO (and BT CEO) simply spell out the story and that my ISP was working their socks off to help but the BTOR problem grinders were not delivering meaningful solutions within a realistic time frame to Plusnet.  You will need to find order numbers and other information to enable BTOR to find the orders.

This got things sorted for me...

To:

BT Group CEO: 

BT Openreach CEO:

BT Openreach Service Delivery COO/MD: 

PlusNet CEO: 

PlusNet Escalation Manager: 

I am writing to you collectively in the hope that TOGETHER you might have some influence over the “on the ground” BT Openreach (BTOR) teams to bring some resemblance of sense and proficiency in providing a new telephone line to my client’s (redacted.) semi-rural property.

The retail CP/ISP is PlusNet a member of the BT Group.  I have already written four times to redacted (PlusNet CEO) asking what (if any influence) he has on behalf of his customers over sorting out the poor performance of BT Openreach in addressing their abysmal service delivery, both in general and in this specific case.  I have received just one reply citing “commercial sensitivity” ‘non-answers’.  In the meantime we still have no service, despite the excellent work of Plusnet escalation manager attempting to resolve matters with BTOR.

I have now reached the conclusion that the only way of progressing this promptly is to personally bring the issues to the attention of the responsible CEOs of each of BTOR and BT plc.

For reference, the user’s PlusNet identity is ‘redacted' (order ticket reference is ticket no) and the BTOR line order references are OR0000004****** / 5-7-69143****** / OR00000047******.

The requirement is to provide a new business telephone line and fibre broadband into an out building (“The Barn”) adjacent to the Client’s residential property (already served by BTOR).

Clearly put in your own details, specifically an outline of the issues, the duration and BTOR's latest - come back at the end of September.  State clearly what you now want to have happen - essentially an immediate escalation direct to DSO with a named person taking full end to end ownership of sorting out BT's internal issues which are hampering Plusnet from supplying the requested service.  It is one foul-up after another, coupled with a failure to maintain the cabinet equipment "all the spare ports are now faulty" which is gross incompetence.

Note - your understandable reluctance to move furniture to check the phone line until AFTER BB has been delivered might hamper rather than help your journey.  If there is a POTS fault on the line, delivering a functional BB service might not be practical.

[#11]

Hi @SJK To echo over here the update I’ve received today and relayed onto yourself via text message. Our suppliers escalation team at operations manager level have had confirmation that the priority on your order has been raised which means that their work allocation team can assign an engineer at a priority. 

They’re still continuing to chase with regards to when this might happen and what specifically needs to be done to resolve this. I’m to expect an update on Monday regarding the progress. 

[#12]

@Gandalf 

Hiya! Thank you for the text! Unfortunately when I replied, it had shut the complaint so bounced back.

I had a kid's party on the weekend, after birthday Friday, then not in Monday, so no chance to reply before!

Can you call after 5pm, any day this week I think?

Thank you for sorting the engineer to come out and fix their mistake so I didn't have to sit in waiting!

Sarah

[#13]

Hi Sarah,

No problem. It's odd that you're unable to successfully reply to the text as the ticket is still open.

Happy to call you back though after 5pm, I'll try tomorrow.

P.S. Hope the kids enjoyed their day!