Plusnet nightmare

I decided to swap from O2 to plusnet, what a mistake I made.

I ordered my fibre broadband to be fitted on the 5.4.13 and booked a day off. Plusnet cancelled this appointment. They rebooked for the 10.4.13.

The engineer came today said he would be twenty minutes. An hour later he returned saying it was not being done, and he was going to kick it back.

I had a update later by email saying my order had been cancelled. Someone called me after and said it was due to a conflict on my line, however my mobile signal gave out. I called back and spoke to someone called Abdullah.

He said there was a conflicting order on my line, I asked how that could be as I had only dealt with plusnet. He said it was nothing to do with plusnet and I should be telling him about the other order. I repeated I had only dealt with plusnet, he was not bothered, just insisted it was my fault.

Now all I wanted was to swap my home phone and broadband to another provider, yet I have two days sat at home. Still I do not have broadband £150-£200 out of pocket by not working. Now plusnet have blame me.

I wish I had never bothered

My commiserations to you:
Sadly, you are learning that in life and business there is always a "cost" to swapping suppliers.
This "cost" in your lost time and the rest may end up costing you more than the savings envisaged from the swap.

In business indeed a lot of time is spent evaluating the likely trouble and other mess up which are likely to occur if a sub-supplier for a component is changed. Often the decison is not to swap.

Now you know why so few people change their energy supplier/broadband/bank whatever...they know the likely aggravation factor is going to be high.

Is/was your line rental with O2? Have they put a Cease order on it? If they have you're stuffed.

Hi Bacardii,

Really sorry to hear you had a call like that. Is there any chance you could post a ticket ID in here, or drop me a PM with your Plusnet username? I'd like to look into this for you and see if I can explain what's going on, though I suspect RobertoS may be right.

I'd also like to check who it was you talked to and give some feedback on that, certainly sounds like it's required. Sorry that happened.

My line rental was with O2. I asked them for a mac key as I did not to swap to sky. Why would they put a cease order on my line. How would I find out should I ring 02? If O2 have put a cease order on it what do need to do?

Thanks

Sorry to hear about your problems Barcardi, I'm due to migrate from o2 to plus.net on Tuesday, am now a little nervous. To RobertoS and all, is this sort of thing common and wouldn't o2 be obliged to resolve ?

Did you wait for 7 days after the Mac key was given to you ? I used mine as soon as I got it, happy to pay the £15.32 charge. Be interested to know if you waited.

You can't have O2 or Be line rental if you don't have broadband with them. I get the impression that Be adhere very strictly to that and the only safe move is line first then broadband, or better still a "SIM" (simultaneous) provide. I think you can only do a SIM provide with most ISPs over the phone rather than online, and if you do a two-stage move yourself you don't get the "bundle" free connection deals and suchlike.

O2 seem to give you a week or so grace but if you've given notice for a given date then a cease order would need to go from them to Openreach well in advance of that date.

A mess. One of the reasons I am unlikely ever to move my line away from BT Retail, even though I do lose out on bundle deals. At least, touch wood, I've never had a migration problem. It doesn't help either of you at this point in time though .

There do seem to be more hitch-free moves than problem ones. Orbrey and his cohorts also seem good at sorting things out if there is a problem like Bacardii's - and remember Greg, it's only a thought from me that a line cease is what has happened there. Orbrey hasn't had time to look into the issue properly yet.

In reply to a post by Greg:

Did you wait for 7 days after the Mac key was given to you ? I used mine as soon as I got it, happy to pay the £15.32 charge. Be interested to know if you waited.

Just as a matter of detail, since I've just changed out from O2, the "7 days" requirement is NOT between receipt of MAC & using it - it is between receipt of MAC & the actual change-over date.

In other words, using the MAC immediately is NOT a problem, providing the change-over does not occur within the 7 days.

Thanks for the info John. That'll save me £15 which I'll put towards a new router

Edited by deleted (Fri 12-Apr-13 06:55:19)

I got an order ceased question posted at 2am only 12hrs after I ordered. I rang and asked them why and the helper overrode it. He said it sometimes happens when they check the line and want to find out more. Since then it all went well except the speed is set at 40/2 and I'm about to ring them.

I found keeping on top of the on-line question status very useful to watch that progress was happening.