Support is a Joke

I left plusnet on the 3rd of this month and was advised I would have to pay a total of about £45.

I requested they review this amount as my connection was unusable for over 3 weeks, and was the sole reason I left in the first place. In my view I was paying for a product that I was unable to use and compensation is in order.

I was then told I need to phone up? why do I need to phone up, they can get the same information from the ongoing ticket.

The fact my internet speed not only returned to normal, but was actually faster after the migration proves what I was saying for the whole of the 3 weeks I had an issue, and that was the issue was not at my house.

Futher to this, I was then charged for another full month on the 6th of this month, even though I am no longer a plusnet customer, I replied to my ticket asking why over 6 days ago, and of course have recieved no reply at all.

To be honest I am about ready to cancel the card they are taking payment from, and contacting OFCOM and the ISPA so they are aware of the bad practice.

Edited by adamsh (Sat 12-Sep-09 01:21:59)

I expect I shall be accused of being a "fangirl", or some such, but I would just say it's quite hard to resolve a dispute with ANY organisation while you are resolutely refusing to speak to that organisation.

I reckon your best bet would be to ring them and have the chat, or hopefully one of the reps here might offer to ring you.

Sounds like you've not been treated very well.

I can't help with your predicmament but I can tell you that even if you cancel the credit card they can and will still be able to take payments from it unless you persuade them to stop.

This is the danger of CC continuous authority as opposed to say Direct Debit.

I cant see why you would be accused of being a fangirl. What you have said is good advice.

To be honest they may as well scrap the ticket system then, because so far at every turn they have told me to phone them.

I had to phone them what i wanted to cancel, and now i Have to phone them because I asked for compensation on having a product that wasnt usable?

No doubt I will also be told to phone them to talk about how they are billing me for a service I no longer have, again a pointless excersize if you ask me.

Please dont get me wrong, I am not thinking or calling you a fangirl, but if they actually had a look at the support ticket they would see that I had been without a usable service for over 3 weeks, they would also see all the information that was provided and the steps taken to resolve the matter.

What more information could I possibly give them than a ticket with 3 weeks worth of information on it?

They told you to 'phone them because you are in dispute with them. Naturally they'd want to discuss your grievances with them.

You'll get nowhere with any regulators if you don't first discuss, either verbally or in writing, your complaint with the firm in question. They won't act until you have used the firm's own dispute resolution procedure and received a refusal to settle the dispute.

You are being unreasonable in this matter by not discussing it!

The beauty of a phone call is that although the business concerned may record it, very few private persons have the equipment or foresight to do so.

Make of that what you will. I would far prefer to conduct such matters by either email or snail-mail.

and they are being unreasonable by charging me even though I am no longer a customer, and not bothering to read the information already provided.

My complaint was provided in writing through one of their official customer support contact lines, if it isnt going to be used how it is supposed to they may as well remove the ticket system and make it phone support only.

I love nothing more than talking to someone on the phone who has no idea what I am talking about (past experiance with phone support here).

I like to have everything in writing when I communicate with matters like this.

**edit** and to be honest there is no excuse for them to ignore my support ticket for 7 days, my initial support question was about compensation but I was willing to forget that, my main complaint was about being billed and ignored when asked why. Now I want both sorted out.

Edited by adamsh (Sat 12-Sep-09 16:05:34)

Agreed. I always put my complaints in writing, too.

However, the OP was even refusing to talk to them when asked to. It's a matter of non-communication!

Then write to them stating that you are making a formal complaint and that it should under their Complaint Resolution Procedure.

Maybe I may have over reacted a little, it has been a bit of a [censored] week.

Someone dented my car, buried my uncle, and was then told I have to work a months notice as I was being made redundant.

I will call them on monday and see what they have to say.

Adamsh, Sorry to hear of your misfortunes. Let's try to separate the three issues here:

1) You have a complaint about the service you have received and want to be compensated. This is your right as a consumer and you should make that claim in writing. For speed, you should raise the issue in a Ticket but should say in the Ticket that you are copying the clainm in writing to their registered office.

2) You want to Migrate (or Cancel your service. The PlusNet T's&C's require you to request a MAC either by Phone or in Writing. I would agree that this is a ridiculous policy but PlusNet argue that it gives them the opportunity to resolve any issues causing you to want to change ISP.

3) You need to give PlusNet 30 days notice (10 days after 22 October 2009) of your intention to terminate your contract with them. This is a bit tricky because if you haven't migrated by using a MAC within the notice period, PlusNet could cancel your line and charge you the BT Termination charge of £25. Because of this hazard, I would raise a Ticket saying:

I refer to the issues raised in my Ticket # nnnnnn. Please take this as notice of my intention and issue me with a MAC forthwith to facilitate the migration of my service to another provider. I also understand that in the event of my migration not completing within the MAC validity period, my service from PlusNet will remain unchanged.

I would then Phone PlusNet and refer them to this Ticket (or copy it by Post). This is one area where PlusNet are (IMHO) unreasonable. I have known them to respond to the Ticket telling the customer to Phone and then closing the Ticket! The CS agents are not allowed to issue a MAC without the Phone call or snail mail.

I hope you get your issues resolved. Lastly. note that IANAL.

Hey Wheelnut,

I have already migrated with a plusnet provided MAC, I moved to my new ISP on the 2nd of this month (obtaining the mac code was no problem at all and plus net should be commended for their speed on this).

I opened a ticket about compensation relating to the 3 weeks of unsuable service and was told to phone up, which I shall do on Monday. Although I am sure they are going to ask me questions which have already been answered multiple times during the 3 weeks I had the issue.

My main complaint was due to the fact I have now been charged another full month, and my question asking why has been ignored for 7 days.

When I was given my MAC code I was told I would need to pay 17 days + the deffered hardware charge, this is where I asked about compensation for loss of service.

Regards
Adam

Try dropping James Bailey a PM quoting the Ticket Number. James will probably be off until Monday but will almost certainly do you the courtesy of replying.

I hope you get this resolved quickly. I am sure that you don't need it on your agenda at this time.

This is quite likely to be the fault of BT Wholesale not notifying Plusnet that your migration has completed (a not infrequent problem). There used to be a ticket path in the help assistant to notify Plusnet that a migration had completed - this doesn't seem to be there now.

Have you explicitly in your tickets in a simple and clear way (not buried in the middle of a ticket with other information) notified Plusnet the day your transfer completed?

Once Plusnet have got confirmation of the date of the migration I don't anticipate any problem with you getting a refund. I don't know if it is still the case, but they used to take in full any payments due during the 30 day notice period and then refund the difference afterwards when the migration date was known.

Adam,

Drop me a PM with your username or ticket number and I'll do whatever I can to get this sorted.

Hi James,

Thanks for the reply, I missed a call earlier from the support team, but they updated the ticket.

The month I payed for is being deducted from the final amount I need to pay.

Kind Regards
Adam

TWA had Petroni .... We have James!

to be honest, James has always been there when I have needed help, plusnet need to clone him

Edited by adamsh (Mon 14-Sep-09 23:13:13)

In reply to a post by Wheel_Nut:

TWA had Petroni .... We have James!

Showing your age.

One James is more than enough thanks

Good to hears he's sorted your issue out.

Edited by chrisparr (Tue 15-Sep-09 08:29:39)

That was cruel... especially after they bought metronet just to get you on the staff

Support has definitley gone downhill over the time I have been with them

If you open a ticketm they do not read it properly, treat you as if you are a novice and down know what you're talking about

On top of the Frontpage fiasco, I've had enough