Day 1 of Metronet's assimilation by Plusnet

Hmm. This is not looking like the best of starts.

Today was D-Day for Metronet's assimilation by Plusnet.

Goodbye to Metronet's friendly email support, hello to Plusnet's
ruthlessly-efficient (but somewhat impersonal) support portal. And of
course, today would just happen to be the day that I actually need
support, for a very rare change.

Yesterday: my ADSL works as perfectly as ever.
Today: the lights are on and blinking, but there's nobody home.

Some diagnostics at my end (good old bt_test@startup_domain) seem to
indicate that it's not an exchange fault. Hmm, Plusnet assimilates, my
ADSL fails: it's just a coincidence, right?

Thanks to the magic of wwwoffle (which, even with broadband, I still use
to keep a local cache of frequently visited pages!) I do have Metronet's
support website cached, or at least enough of it to let me know the
emergency holographic dialup details. Now, where did I bury that analog
modem..

Fault duly logged with Metronet++, no problems in doing so (apart from
the climatic shock of readapting to dialup speeds).

But hang on, what's this, there's another ticket in my shiny new ticket
log already?

"Account restricted: billing failed"

Hmm, maybe this isn't _actually_ a connectivity fault after all..

Now, hang on a minute. It just so happens that the day my monthly bill
is issued is, guess what, today, and I sure as hell *hadn't received* the
usual email invoice before the plugs got pulled. Given that my Metronet
bill can be variable, I can hardly psychically predict a payment before
it's issued, now can I?

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I have 14 days to pay the bill, so
who's going around pulling plugs not only on the first day, but before
the bill is even issued to me?

Naturally I'll pay the bill in due course, but it has to be said that
Plusnet's dumbfoundedly heavy-handed attitude here isn't inspiring
confidence. I've been a previous, and I should point out, entirely
satisfied, customer of Plusnet in the past, but this is hardly a
courteous welcome to new customers that inspires confidence in the
current organisation.

I wonder how many other Metronet customers are having headaches today?


David.

--
David M. -- Edinburgh, Scotland.--[en, fr, (de)]--[reply-to valid <365d]
» Please trim quotes & interleave reply for readability, don't be lazy «
» Please feel free to help me by correcting my foreign language errors «
*Research climate change on your computer: http://climateprediction.net*

"David M" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hmm. This is not looking like the best of starts.
>
> Today was D-Day for Metronet's assimilation by Plusnet.
>
> Goodbye to Metronet's friendly email support, hello to Plusnet's
> ruthlessly-efficient (but somewhat impersonal) support portal. And of
> course, today would just happen to be the day that I actually need
> support, for a very rare change.
>
> Yesterday: my ADSL works as perfectly as ever.
> Today: the lights are on and blinking, but there's nobody home.
>
> Some diagnostics at my end (good old bt_test@startup_domain) seem to
> indicate that it's not an exchange fault. Hmm, Plusnet assimilates, my
> ADSL fails: it's just a coincidence, right?
>
> Thanks to the magic of wwwoffle (which, even with broadband, I still use
> to keep a local cache of frequently visited pages!) I do have Metronet's
> support website cached, or at least enough of it to let me know the
> emergency holographic dialup details. Now, where did I bury that analog
> modem..
>
> Fault duly logged with Metronet++, no problems in doing so (apart from
> the climatic shock of readapting to dialup speeds).
>
> But hang on, what's this, there's another ticket in my shiny new ticket
> log already?
>
> "Account restricted: billing failed"
>
> Hmm, maybe this isn't _actually_ a connectivity fault after all..
>
> Now, hang on a minute. It just so happens that the day my monthly bill
> is issued is, guess what, today, and I sure as hell *hadn't received* the
> usual email invoice before the plugs got pulled. Given that my Metronet
> bill can be variable, I can hardly psychically predict a payment before
> it's issued, now can I?
>
> And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I have 14 days to pay the bill, so
> who's going around pulling plugs not only on the first day, but before
> the bill is even issued to me?
>
> Naturally I'll pay the bill in due course, but it has to be said that
> Plusnet's dumbfoundedly heavy-handed attitude here isn't inspiring
> confidence. I've been a previous, and I should point out, entirely
> satisfied, customer of Plusnet in the past, but this is hardly a
> courteous welcome to new customers that inspires confidence in the
> current organisation.
>
> I wonder how many other Metronet customers are having headaches today?
>
>
> David.
>
> --
> David M. -- Edinburgh, Scotland.--[en, fr, (de)]--[reply-to valid <365d]
> » Please trim quotes & interleave reply for readability, don't be lazy «
> » Please feel free to help me by correcting my foreign language errors «
> *Research climate change on your computer: http://climateprediction.net*

ADSL Connectivity - NEW
Due to the recent changes to Metronet support we are aware of a problem
where some customers billed over the weekend are experiencing connectivity
issues today. We are working to resolve this and hope to have it fixed by
this afternoon.

We apologise for any inconvenience that this causes.

Kind Regards,

Jon Whiting
Customer Support

I am personally disappointed that the Metronet Exchange Status Checker / MSO
reporting stuff has gone.
The PlusNet version is not as good and BT give us users sod all information

> Hmm. This is not looking like the best of starts.

I didn't have your problems but I am expecting them. I usually pay my
bill manually by credit card, an option which PlusNet have removed. I
do not wish to register my credit card because depending on the scheme
used it can be hard to get then de-registered. I am witing for comment
on this from +net.

In the meantime my bill is nearly due, Direct Debit is not up and
running yet and although I can't tell yet (because my invoice appears
not to be posted yet) I hear that BACS payment is no longer available
either despite an email saying it was. I am awaiting confirmation of
this also.

That leaves the option of paying by cheque but time is running out.

As you say not an auspicious start.