Painful sign-up / provisioning process with Orcon

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Painful sign-up / provisioning process with Orcon

produKt

20 posts

Geek

#185718 2-Dec-2015 19:12

I signed up with Orcon for Fibre 2 weeks before I moved house.

We've been here for just over a month (Making this week 6 without net at home. (currently using a phone tethered to pc)) and i've just started to call the provisioning team regularly asking why and to give me an update. The last 2 people I spoke to said they'd call me back the next day with some answers. That hasn't happened on either occasion.
I've been lied to.

I've been reading around the net, and customer experiences like this are not uncommon with Orcon.
And based on what I've read, I'm scared that if I cancel Orcon, I'll still get a bill in the mail for something that I've never had.

Am I being unreasonable? I just want to have Internet access at my new home when the holidays come up shortly for me. Not too much to ask?

PS: We have all our pc gear in a dedicated room From my window here, I can see the end of the last mile. It's so close I'm considering running the fibre myself...

Taking a very quick look around these forums nets some positive results. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=91967&page_no=2 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=179343 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=115185

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=106013
Just 4 quick examples of things going terribly wrong. I'm sure there are 100's more.

RunningMan

8912 posts

Uber Geek

#1439466 2-Dec-2015 19:15

Can you get xDSL in the interim? Usually far quicker than a new fibre installation.

EDIT: Oh, and only one of the links to complaints you put in is less than two years ago ;-)

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Salami

237 posts

Master Geek

#1439472 2-Dec-2015 19:47

Not surprising 6 weeks for a fibre and still waiting.

Last I heard Palmerston North area has to wait 1.5 months for a connection because there aren't enough techs to do the install. Each installation may take 2hrs or a whole day to get it sorted.

Kinda feel sorry for the techs that had to lay cables from the rooftop in intense heat..

If you cancel your connection you shouldn't be charged but if you do sign up with another ISP you'll be back in the queue waiting for another month.

What was the reason they advised why it took so long to install?I'm pretty Orcon usually connect customers with ADSL first then migrate the customer to UFB when its ready.

quentinreade

351 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

2degrees

#1439479 2-Dec-2015 20:00

Hi,
Sorry it's been slow, doesn't sound ideal - please drop me some details via PM and we'll have a look...
Thanks! Quentin

Comms chap

2degrees

kingjj

1728 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1439749 3-Dec-2015 10:00

I'm hazarding a guess and saying you're in Chch (S* St) from your photo? From the grape vine it seems the average install time on Enable these days is around 2.5 months. Good luck.

MadEngineer

4244 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1439864 3-Dec-2015 12:42

Two issues here: Orcon not returning calls and the wait for install.

The first is a shame, perhaps they were relying on a return reply before replying to you. This is of course the wrong way to be going about it -- if they promise a return call they should be scheduling a time to call you regardless of them having no further info or not. This is an industry wide issue with customer service.

For the second, an ISP may never know when your install is going to happen and this is not Orcon's fault.

see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML0tr-9zTw0&feature=youtu.be&t=4h33m00s

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

produKt

20 posts

Geek

#1441139 5-Dec-2015 21:23

No real movement yet.

My 79 year old nana has Fibre ffs, she may only browse trademe and check the weather,, but still....... >_>

dappy7

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#1441204 5-Dec-2015 23:42

I signed up for Orcon Fibre at the end of August. Got an estimated install date of mid-September. Ended up being early November, over two months after I originally signed up. Poor communication all the way through, customer service reps would just be reading scripts and didn't seem to have any way to pull up the contents of previous phone calls so I would end up having the same conversation and having to go through the same steps each time just to get to the point where they blamed Chorus again. It was a painful experience. I'm in Palmy.

paulinnz

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#1450007 14-Dec-2015 09:15

Hi,
Don't rely on getting ADSL as a stopgap measure as I've been waiting for 3 weeks now for Orcon to connect it and all I was doing was changing the same service from one ISP to another. The whole thing has been a comedy of errors and it appears that Orcon Provisioning are so simply inept that they are unable to provide Chorus with the right instructions.

In hindsight my big mistake was telling my old ISP that I was leaving.

Nebbie

458 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1450058 14-Dec-2015 10:44

paulinnz: Hi,
In hindsight my big mistake was telling my old ISP that I was leaving.

Yes don't tell your old provider when moving to a new provider they may put in a cancellation request to chorus that prevents the new provider from doing anything.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Nebukadnessar

produKt

20 posts

Geek

#1450411 14-Dec-2015 22:37

One step forward, about 4 backwards... So here's my experience with Orcon in a from start to finish.

14th October(ish): I signed up with Orcon 2 weeks prior to leaving my old flat. (ish)

21st October, called by Rebecca from Chorus During work hours, had to pull over in company car, 28 min phonecall. - Was told that we didn't exist as their internal systems said that we are Flat A 1** s********** Street. I assured here it's flat 1/1*** s********** street as per out tenancy agreement. She moved the conversation on to where to we see our nearest Fibre Outlet. To which I replied "Outside our bedroom window, 1.5 m away", then she asked if she could have the tag numbers from the tube which I gave to her, which finally set in motion a correction of address. She checked their internal mapping / provisioning application and confirmed with me my thoughts(My word should not have been taken for anything...) that we would NOT have to get consent as the fibre outlet was within an acceptable tolerance. She still had my get my landlords to sign a form as she described it "A technicality"
23rd October, forms signed, scanned and emailed back. At this stage I had an official Order number. Yay... or so I thought.

I heard nothing for ages.

I became concerned, so I rang the Orcon fibre improvising team. The lovely lady confirmed all my details, had my order number on file and when I asked if it's possible to get an ETA on install, she said she'd call me back tomorrow.
3 days passed and I rang the "Team" again - This time I spoke to a bloke who did his damn best to read of every script to the letter. I asked the question again "can you provide an ETA on install?" to which he replied "I'll call you tomorrow with any or the updates".
This didn't happen.

I was pretty damn furious by this point. It was a relatively simply question which if handled correctly, would have garnered a simple answer.

So I'm asking around my colleagues who said to come here. Apparently a forum on the internet to which Orcon is not affiliated with in any way shape or form is a better place to get some answers. Thus started this thread.

A day passed and Quentin jumped on board. Great! I thought... a few PM's back n forth.....

Until for whatever reason I couldn't be found WITHOUT my account number (nice to be known by name these days isn't it?) Only after giving my account number could we get anywhere. I was then informed via PM that "His colleague" will be in touch. Here's a buck. Pass it.

I waited for another 5 days and He/she/it didn't get back to me either. I assume this entity doesn't exist.

Now we are at Wednesday of last week. I rang the Fibre confusion team once again. The lady I spoke to was less than helpful, wouldn't directly answer any questions, wouldn't provide any information except she loved MY OWN idea of getting ADSL in the interim.
She passed me on to god knows who, but she was definitely Filipino (I've working in hospo far too long to NOT know this). I could barely understand her. I don't know what her role in all this was, but what really irked me was the fact she had NO IDEA what the call was about. So I had to explain myself again, hand over all my personal details over the phone only for her to say "I'll need to transfer you through to the sales team.."

What?!

This time, Daniel in sales answers my call - Once again he had NO IDEA what the call was about, so for a third time now I had to give out all my details, confirm everything etc etc
I was pretty pissy by this point and he took this as a sign to rush through the process.

And then it got worse. Enable rang BUT ONLY BECAUSE it seems THAT IM GETTING A DIFFERENT CONNECTION. They rang twice in the same day no less =|

They informed me that the fibre line outside is known as a PED, or a pedestool in which multiple connections are branched so it is not possible to connect us straight up. WHAT?! Why wasn't this noted the first time around when the first Enable rep checked things?

AND THEN IT GOT MORE WORSE. This lady at Enable saw fit to share with me some of her intellect and she thoroughly checked everything about the property, the fibre line type, location etc
She then determined that in order to get fibre to the house the line would have be be run underneath a small 0.4m wide shared path. This tipped the scale and now I need consent from every property owner in this complex. There are 8 units. 5 different owners... F*****king great.

After all the sh!t i've been through just trying to get onboard with Fibre (By the way, I was really excited by it at one point...) the best Daniel (the 3rd rep in a line of passed calls) could offer me as recompense for my suffering and frustration was to waive the 12 month contract that came with the ADSL connection ONLY because I was technically upgrading my connection when it's ready (mid-next year at this rate)

I took this. Gladly.

It was the only thing I was going to get out of a disjointed, fragmented, careless and carefree organisation whom at the end of the day are still happy to take my money. I mean that's what t's all about isn't it?
Screw customer service and screw being competent at anything we try to do.

We (Comcast) Just. Want. Your. Money .... oh wait. I meant to say Orcon.

And we'll take it from you. Gladly.

quentinreade

351 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

2degrees

#1450608 15-Dec-2015 09:55

Sorry to hear it’s been frustrating, but unfortunately, when it comes to fibre installs, things can get tricky.

Fibre installs don’t happen overnight, no matter how much we want them to.

I – like many of the reps from multiple ISPs – who post on here at all hours, don’t have a magical fix-it button. We need to pass information and correct details (like account numbers) to the people in our organisation who can help. Again, these things can take time.

Also as a general aside, it’s prudent when contacting ISPs via multiple support channels to be consist with messaging. If you tell someone you are cancelling, and then later call the sales line and order a different product, it’s likely to cause confusion.

Comms chap

2degrees

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79140 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#1450614 15-Dec-2015 09:58

I've read this thread and it sounds like there's an expectation from customers when it comes to installs. As above, unfortunately those are done by third parties and ISPs can only pass on requests but have not much influence on the work itself.

If there are other factors (as above) including consent, etc then things will take time.

Also make sure never to cancel a service with existing ISPs before moving to another one - doing so will cause a disconnection and the customer goes to the end of the queue.

I am locking this thread because it's really looking like the matter is between customer and ISP and correct people are already involved.