In reply to a post by jimbo1966:

Well, now it has just got worse. Really I think Plusnet service is looking like a disaster. Nobody seems to be able to sort anything out.

My father has returned from a long weekend away to find his existing ADSL service cut off, so now he has no internet at all.

After a long wait in a queue, I speak to somebody who confirms this has happened, but doesn't know why. He said he would put me through to "provisioning", but I'm stuck in a queue again. I suppose I've been on the phone for about an hour now, mostly on hold for "provisioning".

It was pretty simple. My elderly father was on an old Metronet tariff. We phoned up to transfer him to a fibre service and now he has nothing and I can't get hold of anyone to talk to who can help. At the same time he has been billed and debited in advance for the new service and feels cheated.

If any of the Plusnet reps can help... well, that would be great. You would make an old man very happy (and me too).

(Human League coming on again...)

As a footnote, I did eventually get through to somebody and he said that provisioning weren't available at that time of night. He dug around, spoke to a team leader and said that the ADSL service had been ceased and that it couldn't possibly be reprovided for 5 to 7 days. By then the fibre should have been installed anyway. He also said that it was usual for ADSL to be disconnected as part of the fibre ordering process. It appeared that the metronet service had been closed and the system even showed that the fibre service had been started. He suggested I call again in the morning and ask for provisioning to see if there was anything more that could be done. I asked if he could leave a message for someone to call me, but he said that that wouldn't be possible. He did seem very embarressed and offered a free month. Whilst I appreciated that, really my father just wanted his connection back. Whilst it was at all times friendly, I was on the phone for 1hr 50mins in total, the vast majority of which was on hold. 20 years ago I used to do IT telephone support, so I'm not unsympathetic to these blokes!

In reply to a post by LinnPlusnet:

Hi jimbo1966,

This should now been rectified and your father should be able to connect as normal using his Metronet account details. The FTTC is still scheduled to be installed on 24/06/2014 between 8AM and 1PM.

I'm not entirely sure what happened here - it seems the Metronet account had been cancelled ahead of schedule so I've gone ahead and re-activated it until the switchover date. I'll be feeding this back internally as this should not have happened.

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience caused by this!

If your father has any issues connecting please do let us know and we'll do our best to help.

Regards,

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread and especially to Linn who telephoned me first thing the following morning (either just before or after the above post).

Indeed from our conversation and the above it seems the ADSL service wasn't actually ceased, only the account was removed (or some such). So after Linn's intervention, my father was able to reconnect using the old details. (Just as well, else I would have had to make the 30 mile trip to Guildford because I doubt he could cope with programming the router.)

He is very happy now. During this process, I always found the Plusnet people friendly and professional on the phone, just it's a pity that until Linn's involvement they couldn't really fix what was probably a mistake in processing the order in the first place. I don't suppose they get many metronet quasi-migrations these days. Incidentally the MAC requests have now stopped. So I'm confident the fibre order will indeed go through smoothly.

Thanks again folks.

I've taken this on as a personal so I'm monitoring the order for FTTC to complete tomorrow at which point I'll make the necessary changes to both the accounts.

Pass on my apologies to your father regarding all the confusion and the time without a connection.

Fingers crossed for a smooth upgrade to FTTC tomorrow!

Regards,

We might not be there yet....

The fibre install is scheduled for today. The transfer of phone services was scheduled for 2nd July. My father got the standard "goodbye" letter from BT and I suggested he phoned them to double check he wasn't on the hook for contract cancellation fees etc. (He was pretty sure he was out of contract, but the letter was vague.)

But on phoning BT, they said that Plusnet had cancelled the phone service handover and that he would now be staying with BT.

Linn... could you double check? Perhaps it got cancelled and reinstated as another job that the BT rep didn't see?

Hi Jim,

I've checked the Fibre order and can confirm that it is scheduled for today. I don't know if you remember when we spoke on the phone I explained that I would need to cancel the phone transfer order that had been triggered by our systems incorrectly. This order will be replaced later today or tomorrow depending on when the Fibre order is completed. This is due to the way the ordering system works and the fact that we can't have an order to modify a broadband service to Fibre and a phone transfer order in place at the same time as they'll cancel each other out.

I'm personally monitoring your father's account and I'll be the one replacing the phone transfer order as soon as the Fibre order reflects as complete on our systems.

Sorry for any confusion caused by this.

Ah yes, I do remember now. You did tell me that. I'll let him know.

The install went smoothly this morning, thank you. My father is now happily on fibre. (Pity I can't get it either at home or in the office!)

Thanks for taking care of this.

Jim

That's all been sorted now, Jim.

The phone transfer order has been re-placed and I can see that your father's had a connection since 10 this morning

Regards,