Wrongly charged an installation fee

[#1]

When I made my application for a broadband service, I was advised that I needed to pay a £49 installation fee. I would need to be at home for an engineer to visit on the given day (2 weeks hence) and would be charged if I was not in.

A few days later I was told the good news that I did not need to be in on the installation day as all the work could be done outside of my property.

On go-live day, I received an email at 8:30 saying my phone service was live and at 11:30 saying my broadband service was live.  When I plugged my router in, the broadband light was flashing. I spent an hour on the phone to the Helpdesk, but to no avail. I'm not completely sure me having to crawl round on my hands and knees to pull off socket covers was absolutely necessary, but anyway. The Helpdesk technician advised that an engineer would need to visit and an appointment was made for the next day.

Openreach arrived ahead of time, carried out the necessary checks and found that the problem lay in the exchange. He duly carried out the necessary work and my broadband was activated.

My complaint lies in the fact the Plusnet immediately knew that work would need to be carried out, charged me for it, but did not commission the necessary work until I called the technical support desk. Whilst only a short delay, it was an inconvenience to me and disrupted me at work.

[#2]

Hi @paulmiller, sorry to hear about the inconvenience caused to you by this situation. I have created a support ticket on your account in response to your comments here

Please get back to me if you have any questions.

Kind Regards.

[#3]

Hi @paulmiller 

A warm welcome to the forums.  There are a number of possibilities which you have not identified and the Plusnet response has been hidden away for public view.

Was this  a migration of a working service away from a LLU provider (Sky or Talk Talk) or a brand new line installation?  In either case BT Openreach could well have made an error in the exchange.  A move from a LLU provider requires work in the exchange for which there have been a few reports that BTOR got it wrong - which them need to be treated as a fault.

If this was a migration on an existing working non-LLU line, then I do not believe that the new line charge applies.

[#4]

Hi @Townman 

Thanks for the welcome.

When I moved into the property, there was an existing Plusnet router plugged into the hall socket, so I was surprised when I was told I needed to pay an installation fee.

The message from PlusNet is as follows (I've taken out the platitudes before and after).

Upon sign up it was confirmed that there weren't any working lines or stopped lines in your property and therefore you would need a new line installation that would be charged at £49.99. Upon submitting your orders we discovered that there was a 'spare pair' that could be used to fulfill your line installation which meant that we no longer required an engineer to visit your property internally. The installation of your line and also your broadband order successfully completed on 11/06/19. However, after you called us reporting issues, we carried out internal tests which determined there was a fault with your broadband. The fault was not reflective of the way in which your order was provisioned, this is because although we did not send an engineer to complete work internally all the external work required for the order was completed. Unfortunately, once the service was live we discovered an external broadband fault, which required a fault engineer visit. Please note that a fault can only exist on an active service and we would not have been aware of this at the point of your service provision. 

Any advice would be welcome, as I do believe I'm being fobbed off at this point.

[#5]

Hello @paulmiller

I am sorry to hear you feel this way and that you are unsure why an installation fee was necessary.

I can confirm the installation fee was required, and I sent a ticket highlighting the reason for this. You can view this by Clicking Here

Should you require any further assistance, please feel free to get back in touch with us.

Kind regards.

[#6]

Hi @Townman 

I've had a further response. I have asked of course for the evidence, but your observations would be welcome!

In response to your query, the £49.99 installation fee does stand as additional work was carried out at your local cabinet box by Openreach in order to connect you onto our services. The Engineer had placed an active 'Tie-Pair' component in the Spare Pair slot at your local cabinet box, the installation fee that is charged by Openreach covers the costs of carrying out this work which was necessary in order to connect an active service into our premises. We can send screenshots of the work that Openreach have recorded on their system to further support this case. Openreach have charged for the installation and therefore the payment has been made to the suppliers. I understand you have addressed there was a master socket within your premises, so no internal fitting was required. Having further checked your premises and looked into the line installation, there was a line connected at the address, however, this was a single line only and therefore unable to support a broadband connection. 

[#7]

Hi Paul

There are basically 4 paths that an installation could follow (as far as I can think of):

1. There is already a line with a working service (ie one that you can make and receive calls on) at the property, and that line is used.  That is a Working Line Takeover.  That wouldn't have a charge.
2. There is already a line at the property with a dialling tone, but no working service (you can do a quiet line test on it and it will tell you a phone number, but that is about all there is).  Restarting that line wouldn't have a charge, which is essentially just a configuration change in the software.
3. There is a suitable line into the property, but there isn't a dialling tone.  That would most likely be because the line has been disconnected somewhere (pole, underground chamber, cabinet, exchange), and part of the line might have even been used for someone else's line. This would have a charge as an engineer would need to visit the where ever it is disconnected and connect it up so there is a line connected from the property all the way back to the exchange.  It sounds like this is what yours was.
4. There isn't a suitable line into the property showing on the system.  This might be because there hasn't ever been a phone service there, the previous one is extremely old and not in any condition to be used again or has been damaged.  This would have a charge as an engineer would need to visit the property to install the socket in the property and then cable it back to an appropriate place to connect into the network (likely a pole or an underground chamber).

I sounds to me from what you have posted that Plusnet weren't able to find a line at your property on the Openreach system, so had to create the order as number 4 above.  When Openreach have received the order they have found your line on the system and determined that it would need an installation as per number 3 above.  Plusnet's charges for both of those are the same, it just meant that an engineer didn't need to visit your property to complete the installation.

The engineer has been along and done all of the work s/he needed to do for the installation and completed that job, but there was an issue elsewhere that they hadn't picked up.  When you raised the fault with Plusnet, they ran a set of tests on the line which found a fault, which is where that came in.

[#8]

My fellow SU has answered along the lines I was thinking.

Initially no working line could be identified (therefore a new line fee is chargeable). Then in placing the order it appeared from BT records that an out of service line was available, leading to no charge and external work only.

The problem with out of service lines is that the resources get robbed. It would seem that by the time the engineer hit the ground the circuit had become unserviceable.

[#9]

This part confuses me:-

there was a line connected at the address, however, this was a single line only and therefore unable to support a broadband connection.

[#10]

I'm also confuddled on the point that @Browni  has highlighted.  For my education can this point be expanded please.

I also note that the message timestamp on the last two messages are in advance of reality?  i.e.  currently it is 09:15 on 14/06/2019 - is one of the Khouros servers out of sync as recorded in other posts yesterday?

[#11]

@MauriceC  The answer to your final question is a definate YES - I spotted this anomaly a few days back in a thread which I'll try and find.

EDIT: This one : https://community.plus.net/t5/Tech-Help-Software-Hardware-etc/Phone-amp-Motherboard-speeds/td-p/1646...

[#12]

This part confuses me:-

there was a line connected at the address, however, this was a single line only and therefore unable to support a broadband connection.

I'm also confuddled on the point that @Browni  has highlighted.  For my education can this point be expanded please.

To try and add some clarification to that statement I think it's been worded wrong. Instead of reading single line it should reading single pair. The engineer goes out and looks to have assigned a brand new set of pairs (one for PSTN and one for BB) to ensure a service. @paulmiller this is also the reason who the initial telephone number you were assigned changed during the process of provision. 

[#13]

That makes even less sense.

Unless the user is having two lines installed (two broadband circuits as Plusnet does not do phone only) the user only requires a single pair to the property (d-side pair) connected at the cabinet to a pair to the exchange (e-side pair).

Where does the engineer get assigning two pairs from?  Is this BTOR trying to print money at PlusNet's customer's expense?

[#14]

@JOLO   This response doesn't make sense?  Provision of a broadband service (ADSL or FTTC) only requires a single pair to deliver both PSTN and broadband.  Indeed broadband may continue to function with only a single leg of the pair connected.

For operational reasons BTOR have for some time delivered the service over a multi-pair cable to facilitate maintenance / repair - is there some confusion here?

EDIT:  @Townman  beat me to it.

[#15]

@Townman (eta & @MauriceC:)) beat me to it, makes even less sense now.