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Problems moving from PlusNet to AAISP

Hi there, wondering if anyone could offer any advice to this situation...

I was a PlusNet customer since October 2011 when I signed up for FTTC. Never really had any problems and was fairly happy with the service.

In 2014 I was working from home a lot more and decided that I needed my connection to be as fast/reliable as possible, so after reading all the reviews here decided to switch to AAISP.

At this point it is important to note that my broadband contract had finished and I had paid the line rental up to the end of December. I called PlusNet to get my MAC which the retention guy eventually gave up and at the same time confirmed that my phone service would continue.

AAISP staff were great and migration went fine, the connection was spot on.

In August PlusNet left a message on my voicemail with something vague to the effect of "there is an oustanding matter on your account, please call us". So I called them, 30 minute wait, person who answers doesn't know why I have been called but could see my phone was still active. No problem still.

Roll forward to 7th October. AAISP drop me an email to say a cease has been requested on my line and to contact the PSTN provider.

On the same day I called PlusNet 3 times (20-30 minute wait each time) to find out what happened and if the cease could be cancelled. In summary, their system does not allow you to have only a phone line so automatically requested a cease and it was too late to cancel.

Phone line dead. With no warning.

Call AAISP, they say to get a new line so they can transfer the service for £50. Ergh, not end of the world I guess.

I signed up for postoffice basic phone line on the 8th October, they had to give me a new number which started working today (13th October).

Contacted AAISP to say the new line is live but an order can't be made today as BT need to refresh line records, oh... and I need to pay out of current contract as I'm only 2 months in to a 6 month contract and new FTTC installation charges will apply...

So:
  • Phone cut off without warning
  • Pay out of current ISP contract
  • Pay to reconnect
  • 5 days no phone, predicted at least 2 weeks without internet

All because PlusNet didn't think to tell me what they were going to do to my line!

HALP!
 
You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
 
You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

I have had almost 6 years of best service possible from Plusnet, if they happen to be the monkeys.
I just recently moved across to BT Broadband because of the extras like BT Sport etc, and oh! the new router plus a fiver a month for a year and totally unlimited usage although I find it difficult to go above 25GB a month at any time.:)
 
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"I have had almost 6 years of best service possible from Plusnet"

I hear that so often, from people with ISPs that have the DIREST reviews; how often did you need the Help Desk, or make a billing query??

ISPs often have little or no control over network reliability, so it is how they respond when there is a problem that defines "Good" or "Bad"; my sister claims EE (né Orange), are good, because she gets a cheap deal from them; but a simple equipment failure at her exchange took them 18 months to sort out.
Exactly the same hardware issue at my local exchange took me 10 days top get resolved using a "GOOD" ISP (most of it waiting for BTOR to send an engineer).
 
Hi Captain, If I used Help Desk or Billing twice during all those years it was the height of it, simply put never had any problems.
I don't think it will take BT 18 months to sort out a problem. I would have no doubt considering PlusNet a good ISP.
 
Jaceroo,

I assume when you took out your package with PlusNet that it was a broadband and phone bundle, or a discounted broadband because you already had a phone with them? If so then did you clearly specify and discuss the circumstances of your cancellation to ensure that they would allow the phone service to continue separately with PlusNet even if the broadband was migrated to AAISP or have I misunderstood the situation?

BT Openreach can conduct a reinstate process for the line, although ideally you should try to get the process resolved with PlusNet first (if they're the one you want to retain your phone service). In fairness PlusNet only do bundles, they don't sell the phone service separately, so they should have made this aspect clearer when you cancelled, but equally you needed to make your requirements clear to them too.

However if they said you could keep the phone and move broadband then it's clearly their error and hopefully you have a copy of that communication on record, as it will work in your favour. Once the line is back then I'd consider conducting an ADR complaint if PlusNet fails to resolve or compensate.
 
If so then did you clearly specify and discuss the circumstances of your cancellation to ensure that they would allow the phone service to continue separately with PlusNet even if the broadband was migrated to AAISP or have I misunderstood the situation?

During the cancellation I said I would be moving broadband only as I had paid until December for my phone line, the retention guy said "no problem". At that point, if they had said to me "WE WILL CEASE YOUR PSTN IN 4 MONTHS IF YOU DON'T MOVE IT"... I would of moved it 4 months ago, because... logic. If they had said something similar on the phone call in August, again I would have done something about it.

BT Openreach can conduct a reinstate process for the line, although ideally you should try to get the process resolved with PlusNet first (if they're the one you want to retain your phone service).

I had several calls with PlusNet on the day of the cease where they refused to do anything about it so I signed up with PostOffice.
 
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Hi jaceroo,

I'm very sorry to hear of the troubles you've had moving to another ISP.

I would be happy to look into this for you and hopefully shed some light on what happened if you could send me a PM with your username?

Look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards,
 
Hi Captain, If I used Help Desk or Billing twice during all those years it was the height of it, simply put never had any problems.
I don't think it will take BT 18 months to sort out a problem. I would have no doubt considering PlusNet a good ISP.

The first part is my point exactly; it isnt until you NEED help that you can say if the ISP is any good.

It didn't take BT 18 months, it took ORANGE 18 months to escalate the problem TO BTOR. In the timeline for my identical fault, 9 of the 10 days were waiting for a BTOR engineer.

In the meantime, Orange sent her so many replacement modems and routers, she could have done a carboot or opened a shop; every attempt to contact them meant starting from scratch and explaining everything again as their helldesk refused to shift from their script or escalate the call.

Even I couldnt get the message through to them, I described IN DETAIL, exactly what the fault was, and what needed doing, but they still pissed around, made vague promises and failed to do anything except send another shiny new router.
 
Hi jaceroo,

I'm very sorry to hear of the troubles you've had moving to another ISP.

I would be happy to look into this for you and hopefully shed some light on what happened if you could send me a PM with your username?

Look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards,

Thanks. Details sent.

Quick Update: My FTTC box is due for repair so I can't actually get a new FTTC connection for another month.
 
If your phone line is now with the Post office and TalkTalk have their LLU at your exchange, you will find that your phone line is running over TalkTalks LLU as this is who the Postoffice use to supply their phone and broadband service. So it is unlikely that any ISP that use the BT infrastructure to supply broadband ( Don't know if AAISP do or not) will not be able to provision broadband on that line anymore. Nothing much to add about the Plusnet situation other than you really should have been notified prior to being disconnected and we would say, if nothing else , that is a failure on the part of their sales team. For all they knew you might have been ready to return to Plusnet.
 
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Hi,

Thought I would post a follow up to this.

I took to the official complaints procedure for PlusNet which was quite slow and painful. They offered a derisory sum as "good will gesture" which I declined and asked for a deadlock. CISAS then eventually took up the complaint and wrote to PlusNet who have now decided to settle my claim in full.

It has been painful, but finally getting a result.

AAISP and PostOffice have been rock solid since.
 
Good to hear jaceroo.

Hopefully the new migration system will make this all a little easier when it is introduced during June 2015, although I fear there will be problems with that too.
 
Good to hear jaceroo.

Hopefully the new migration system will make this all a little easier when it is introduced during June 2015, although I fear there will be problems with that too.

I hope so too, all I needed was a large "CANCEL LINE CEASE" button and this could have been stopped as soon as I found out.

Thanks to everyone here for their input.
 
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