More Plusnet woes

Trustpilot holds more bad news for Plusnet https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.plus.net
Complaints will always top the postings of any ISP, but unhappiness with management policy to cut back on their hard-working support team is becoming more widespread. Many businesses would love to have PN's once superb image, now alas sadly tarnished.

The stock Plusnet reply to every post does them no credit.

Plusnet aren't great, but there are a lot worse.

As with a lot of these companies you don't know what they are like until you have to complain. The actual phone and broadband service is much the same with any provider: it's the customer service and billing that differs.

I think my current provider is the worst so far. Hopefully I won't find any worse.

How long ago did you leave and/or stop actively monitoring Plusnet support and also the provisioning service?

Both have developed serious deficiencies in the last 12 months. That's why I left.

That's on top of a problem somewhere in the system messing up a high number of users, that has also been ongoing since last year. They are able to replicate it on their own kit but not fix it, it seems. I find it hard to believe it isn't finance rather than technical preventing the fix.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

How long ago did you leave and/or stop actively monitoring Plusnet support and also the provisioning service?

It was over a year ago now.

I had twelve months of relatively trouble free service with Primus and now I am with EE.

Might go back to Plusnet next year, although PostOffice are looking favourite atm.

I'm still with PN. Came out of contract in August and waiting until December when my BT phone contract ends. Not saying I will move then though. The long running problem barely affects me. Every couple of months I might discover my connection has gone bad but it only takes a router reboot (because it doesn't have a disconnect button) and everything is back to normal. Apparently though others are a lot more bothered (or were) and seem to be being continually plagued with a bad connection then it takes them several attempts to get a decent connection.

I wrote '(or were)' because it feels like it's less common of late. I don't if that's people who have given up waiting and left (or just no longer see any point in complaining) or if perhaps the problem has been fixed.

Either way for me it's not currently worth the hassle of updating my domain and the risks of getting tied into another long contract. PN are 'doing me proud' 99% of the time so I'm content. I would definitely be concerned at the prospect of having to rely on their technical support though.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 13-Oct-15 18:44:51)

In reply to a post by hk11:

Might go back to Plusnet next year,

Are you mad?

Have you looked on the community forums recently?

In reply to a post by jelv:

Are you mad?

Barking!

In reply to a post by jelv:

Have you looked on the community forums recently?

No. I might do shortly: I could do with a laugh.

In reply to a post by hk11:

Plusnet aren't great, but there are a lot worse.

Nope, I don't think so. Not at least if my recent experience of trying to use them as a partner is anything to go by. Couldn't have been less "brilliant" if they tried. Took forever to provision a line (internal issue, nobody bothered to tell me), then they've refused to provide a /29 without diagrams even though it's bleeding obvious to anyone with half a brain cell what's needed. Alas that experiment was short lived.

They're unhelpful, offer generic responses, are absolutely hell bent on a policy that they've even admitted is only internal and isn't *actually* a requirement (which I knew).

Alas if that's the level of care and attention they give to "partners", I can't imagine how bad it is for everything else.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I wrote '(or were)' because it feels like it's less common of late. I don't if that's people who have given up waiting and left (or just no longer see any point in complaining) or if perhaps the problem has been fixed.

Fixed? I'm on the 40/20 package syncing at 80/20 (achievable over 100).

Speeds vary from http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html... in the daytime to pretty bad at peak times. Here's a set of tests with me gateway hopping in a futile attempt to find a decent one:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Complaints are becoming less frequent because either people have left or they've got fed up with getting absolutely no response from Plusnet.

Are you mad?

Who knows but I've just renewed my contract for another 12 months of ADSL1 from Plusnet, no problems with the BB connection in over two years.

Most annoying was waiting around 30 minutes for my call to be answered re. a voice fault, however even more annoying was waiting nearly 10 days for Openreach to appear, shortage of engineers in a large rural area apparently.

Who else have you tried?

If you think Plusnet was bad you should try EE!

I think most ISPs are pretty rubbish when it comes to customer support.

My pet hate is when they just don't read what is sent to them.

Plusnet were good on that front. Now, it isn't that they are bad, they are virtually non-existent through the previous channels.

The ticket system for instance has ceased to be a method of conveying non-urgent queries or requests. If you can find how to raise one, as it has been very effectively hidden, it will take approximately seven days to generate a reply "We do not handle this sort of question this way any more. Please phone or use the Online Chat, Twitter or Facebook".

Which is not exactly helpful, and nor frequently is any of the suggested methods convenient for a variety of reasons.

They do use the ticket system to tell you changes that have been made to your account. Which is fine if you have it set to email you.

In reply to a post by hk11:

Who else have you tried?

If you think Plusnet was bad you should try EE!

I think most ISPs are pretty rubbish when it comes to customer support.

My pet hate is when they just don't read what is sent to them.

We work with several other ISPs as partners, and have precisely no issues with them - they're competent, they don't make you jump through considerable hoops, they communicate things to you, and generally they are a breeze to deal with.

PlusNet have been awful from the outset.

In reply to a post by therioman:

We work with several other ISPs as partners,

Care to enlighten us, so we can concider these suppliers? I am always looking for good service.

Your comments about EE having some of the worst customer service going is pretty accurate though EE had recently said they are now going to do something about it....

Plusnet has now sunk into the stages that EE have been in for years which is bad customer service and nothing being done about it "yet"

So you might be happy to know that actually, EE might be on top compared to Plusnet, but currently we don't know!

I personally think that with the ongoing deals to migrate EE into BT than Plusnet could "somehow"become part of that deal, it might end up with Plusnet's small "knowledgeable" staff being migrated into BT's new upcoming UK based support and maybe forming a "Super Support Group" hey we could probably call it "No Reach" or "Unable To Reach"

Of course, must make sure its not part if the BT Group or it could be unfair for other providers

You could have knocked me down with a feather when I last rang EE and got someone from the UK and who actually seemed to know what they were doing! Of course they didn't email me back with their findings, as they promised, so my pleasant surprise was short-lived!

I 'spose it is only to be expected that ISPs are generally getting worse, but there must be ones that actually want customers?

I hope Plusnet doesn't get swallowed up by BT, although no doubt someone will be along to take their place, if they do.

In reply to a post by hk11:

You could have knocked me down with a feather when I last rang EE and got someone from the UK and who actually seemed to know what they were doing! Of course they didn't email me back with their findings, as they promised, so my pleasant surprise was short-lived!

I 'spose it is only to be expected that ISPs are generally getting worse, but there must be ones that actually want customers?

I hope Plusnet doesn't get swallowed up by BT, although no doubt someone will be along to take their place, if they do.

http://community.plus.net/blog/2007/01/24/bt-announc...