Does the left hand know what the right hands doing @ PlusNet

I'm beginning to wonder if I've made the right move. I placed an order on the 15th April for Fibre & phone to be migrated over, first nothing seemed to be moving with the order so asked the question if everything was ok with my order, reply received all's fine. Asked again the next day, reply received "It seems that the bridge between ourselves and BT Openreach's ordering system has failed" order had to be put through manually. So all seems good, had an activation date of the 30th.

Received txt message 2 days later stating a BT engineer will visit my home between 1pm & 6pm on the 29th April. Gets home checks email, this one states BT engineer will visit my home between 8am & 1pm on the 29th. raised tick to get right time of the engineer visit.

Received txt message today stating my Broadband will now be activated on the 4th May, yet the BT engineer is supposedly still coming out Monday 29th?

I've taken time off work to make sure someone's in, if he doesn't turn up can I charge PlusNet £50 for wasting my time, as they will me If the engineer cannot gain access, or missed appointment .

Edited by deleted (Fri 26-Apr-13 23:11:26)

Plusnet staff do visit here, but it is sporadic visits during business hours, weekdays. You're not likely to get an answer here before Monday daytime.

They work on their own forum more regularly, but still only in the same business hours of weekdays. However, some staff do attend out-of-hours, but no guarantee.

Tickets can take up to 3 days to be answered.

If you want to know the status before Monday, you're best phoning them.

You can't claim a flat £50, but if they can't rearrange the appointment at a time that incurs you no cost (e.g. a Saturday appointment), you should be entitled to claim the full cost of the day or half day unpaid leave. I've yet to see a report from someone who has actually done that - I bet if someone is heading to the small claims court Plusnet will quickly come to an arrangement to stop that happening.

Have a read of http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/delivery-r...

I'd also like to see someone with legal knowledge comment on the one sided contract whereby if the engineer can't get access you will automatically be stung for £60, but if the engineer fails to meet the appointment there is no automatic compensation. My suspicion is that it might be deemed an unfair contract.

I gave them a call. After difficulty's of him finding my account, was told my activation date was the 4th and I will receive the router soon (which I've actually had for over a week now). Explained that an engineer is supposedly book for 29th, after a few checks " how yes, it's still booked for Monday, after he's done, plug the router in and it may sync, if not give us a call". Somehow I'm not being filled with much confidence.

Make sure you read the instruction booklet that came with the router . Particularly the bit about going for a 15-minute tea/coffee break.

It really does take that long to set everything up, as it does an auto-discovery of the settings. Even though it all looks as though it is "on".

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Make sure you read the instruction booklet that came with the router . Particularly the bit about going for a 15-minute tea/coffee break.

It really does take that long to set everything up, as it does an auto-discovery of the settings. Even though it all looks as though it is "on".

I've got an Asus RT-N66U that I'll be using but don't know whether to plug in the PlusNet router first until it's made connection then swap them over.

Edited by deleted (Sat 27-Apr-13 13:55:43)

That's what I did, though nothing like as elevated as an ASUS . The 582n uses TR-069 to set the link up, and I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't also trigger the account activation. Nothing else would explain the 15 minutes as far as I can see.

For an easy life if you have to call support start with supplied kit and then swap once running. This gives you two known working lots of hardwareto test

In reply to a post by Edge_Effect:

I gave them a call. After difficulty's of him finding my account, was told my activation date was the 4th and I will receive the router soon (which I've actually had for over a week now). Explained that an engineer is supposedly book for 29th, after a few checks " how yes, it's still booked for Monday, after he's done, plug the router in and it may sync, if not give us a call". Somehow I'm not being filled with much confidence.

I'm guessing there is a distinction between "install" and "activation" that is important here.

I suspect that "activation" is really just switching your account 'on' at Plusnet, and affects the point at which the router will start being allowed to authenticate the PPP layer, and that your billing starts.

If, when your get installed on the 29th (so the modem syncs), and you've had your 15-minute tea break but still have no router connection to the internet, you might need to give them a call back to get the to activate the account there and then.

That's my guess - others can comment to let you know if I'm close to the mark.

That's exactly what I experienced. The modem synched whilst the engineer was here, the red light on the 582n router stayed on & I expected it to come on after 15 minutes. We both waited.....and waited for 20 minutes, then rang Plusnet who connected me their end (they asked me to wait one hour!). The red light went to green and all was fine.