Zen Internet Reviews

Again, a problem with a customers Internet Connection resulted in us as an IT company having to contact ZEN to go through the fault resolution process.

A quite simple procedure on our behalf to clarify there was nothing on the Network causing an issue with eating up the bandwidth was completed with good results, leaving the internet connection / phone line to be the only remaining suspect.

Over to Zen....

Zen Q.."Can you unplug everything and just leave the Router and one computer connected to the internet?"

Our A.. "No, they are a seven million pound turnover company with orders coming through online and it's the middle of the working day."

After several circular questions leading nowhere other than back to the beginning and a refusal from the technical support staff at ZEN to go beyond what was obviously not at fault, we asked to speak with someone more senior.

A slightly better result, within a few minutes they had actually managed to increase the speed to something more workable from the customers point of view, but still not great. This proving there wasn't, as we suspected anything wrong with the customers equipment, and upon further investigation discovered there was a contention issue at the local exchange.

However, for Openreach to diagnose it, we have to reconfigure the Router to log in using Openreach's test credentials, thus taking our client down for an hour or so, while Openreach obtain the information they need to fix the problem with their service.

Why, after all this time, and us advising ZEN that there was nothing wrong with the clients equipment or network, ZEN's refusal to believe the extensive knowledge of our own third line support engineers that were finally proven right, were we still left with all the work of testing, reconfiguring and so on, just to give Openreach the information they need to avoid ZEN having to pay Openreach to come out and actually fix the fault?

I don't believe it's just ZEN, we've dealt with them all and across the board they're all 'pretty much of a muchness', they all rely on Openreach's network, however they should take ownership of the problems and remove the pain from their customer.

Scenario.. Do ISP's really expect an elderly pensioner to remove the face plate of their phone point and plug the Router into the test socket? let alone even know what the master socket is? I've heard of one being asked!

Let me start by saying Zen's ISP service is excellent - the speeds are as good as you'll get on your line, the network and peering are great and I never noticed any congestion or other issues on my connection while I was with them. There's also no content filtering or blocking, which is a bonus. You do, of course, pay for this privilege, a lot more than with other consumer ISPs. They're not quite up there with A&A in price, but they're getting there!

The problem with Zen came for me when I moved house. I placed a simultaneous provide order on my new line, so that my broadband would come online around the same time as the new phone line was installed. This didn't happen, so the next day I called Zen who made noises about "manual steps," "we need to call the helpdesk" and so on. (Note to Zen: please don't promise to call people back and then not bother!)

Eventually, after a couple of days of haranguing Zen for updates, I got my connection up and running - great! Until I got up the next morning to find no connection and an email from Zen about a cease. It turns out their "manual steps" had caused my service to be cancelled for no apparent reason and I would have had to have waited "five working days" (ie. a week) for a cease and reprovide. Since I was going to be ceased anyway, I decided to save money and cease and reprovide with a different ISP.

I'm not expecting the moon on a stick for £25 a month, and as a home user I'm not going to make a load of noise about "I can't work, I'm losing money". I can put up with a few days of delays in getting a new domestic service set up - but in the end, the price seemed a little excessive for the level of service I was getting and the balls-up over the cease sealed it. BT Retail activated me at 9am on the promised day and I'm happily online again and saving money.

There doesn't seem to be *that* much of a difference between Zen's expensive support people and the people on the cheaper ISPs - my experience with Zen was a whole lot of "such-and-such a person was dealing with you but he's out of the office," "this isn't the right department," "we'll call you back" and other such dodges. It's an okay service, but not worth the money.

I signed up to Zen for phone line and fibre last month, Since I was with TalkTalk for fibre, Zen told me I had to first switch to Zen's ADSL and then they will put the fibre order through once that is live. So I went for the "Home Talk" line rental at £11.22 a month and "Zen Active" ADSL at £25.52 a month. I ordered on the phone and was told the total price would be £36.74. Once that was active the fibre order would go through for "Unlimited Fibre 2" and after a few weeks once that was live I would start paying £45.44 (Line rental £15.44 and fibre £30). On switch over day to ZEN ADSL from talktalk there were problems and I had no phone line or internet for 3 days. Once that was sorted they put my fibre order through and I confirmed with them the line rental price would be £15.44 for my 12 month contract as I ordered before they put the line rental price up to £15.98.

Zen then started sending me proformas charging me £15.98 for line rental for the time I was on ADSL with what was supposed to be the £11.22 line rental and for the future months fibre line rental instead of the correct £15.44. I tried replying to the emails from accounts on the 5th September but no one replied to them. I tried various other emails customerbilling and customerservices but they only bothered to reply once without properly answering my email or sorting the problem. After that they would not reply. Even tried the live chat but just got "all agents are busy" every time I tried it.

I signed up to ZEN because they are supposed to have a good reputation here and else where and I was sick of how bad TalkTalk were. Although TalkTalk's customer service is also bad at least I always got a ticket number and a response every time I emailed them. Sure TalkTalk's replies consisted mostly of random copy and pasted script and didn't sort out the problem most of the time but at least I actually got a reply!

Not happy with being lied to when ordering on the phone, emails ignored for nearly a month and over charged. I really expected better from ZEN.

So now I guess my only option is to go through the Alternative Dispute Resolution process.

If anyone is thinking of paying the extra to join ZEN then I have to say they are really not worth it, I really miss quality ISP's like "Be Un Limited".

I've been a customer of Zen's for about 6 years but their service is expensive, and when you're paying a reasonable whack of cash I expect better service than I can get from Sky or BT for £3.99 / mo.

When I moved house and my line a few months back, lots of mis-information and disinterested staff resulted in me being over-changed for a new connection, which was later refunded but unnecessary having already raised the point with them.

My last interaction with their customer support team due to intermittent line issues was terrible, problem still unresolved and every step was Zen trying to dodge the issue and assign it elsewhere (the usual you get with cheaper providers, it's the router, it's the wires, must be the splitter over and over again).

I used to be very impressed by them but they've gone down hill massively and I'm not going to pay premium prices to get Sky/BT levels of service.

I have to say I'm NOT a novice internet user anymore & have used a number of other UK based ISP's before discovering Zen Internet Ltd.

I have to say that in my opinion Zen Internet do have something special & rather different than many other ISP's. I think this is down to the very philosophy the company is based on i.e. aiming high and always trying to be "the best".

The quality of their service is consistently good & highly reliable. They dont make any promises they cannot guarentee 100% to deliver on. In other words they do what they say they will do and on time. Perhaps the only downside depeding upon your view & pocket is that Zen do charge slightly higher fees for they're services but I'm a great beleiver that you get what you pay for. This is even more true when it comes to high speed broadband services & web access. Your paying for quality & its shows.

I have now been a Zen internet customer for many years now and have a superb Fiber Optic based braodband service which I like very much. Zen are so good I have now ditched BT and Zen now provide all three of my landlines. Their phone services is everybit as good as BT's in fact you cannot tell any difference.

I have email services and hosting services with Zen too and all are equally of high quality. I would be extremely happy to recommend Zen Internet to anyone that was looking for a new ISP

You pay a premium to these people and yet you get rubbish customer care. I dare say its one of the worst in the business. Primus give me better customer care and that's saying something.

They even addressed me by my middle name in one email. The whole company is a joke.

I regret joining them. The reviews on half of the review sites do not reflect the terrible time you will have been a zen customer.

If this review saves 1 person from the torture of bad service and one of the worst customer services known to man I will be very happy.

NPOWER & primus should be given the gold medal in customer services if you compare them to zen. That is saying something really.

BAD BAD BAD INTERNET COMPANY AVOID.

P.S The way these people talk about money they sound like they would be happy if there customers don't eat or heat there homes as long as they get there cash. Greedy and bad company. Micky Mouse could provide better customer services.

I've used Zen for 7+ years (with a break in the middle when other half had BT business line provided by her work).

Earlier this year I noticed I was on "up to" 8MB broadband so asked for and got a free upgrade to 16MB. I also took advantage of their phone service as I would rather not pay anything to BT due to the terrible service I've had from them over the years.

Since the upgrade I've had constant problems with the line dropping. I had actually cancelled and decided to give another provider a try, but I was provided to stay on with a bigger download limit (which I need) and promise of a priority call from support.

Long story short, getting "support" for my issue is worse than trying to get the STASI to mend your internet connection. Their definition of "support" is to bombard you with more and more questions about what you have done to investigate, including (and I am not making this up) demands to know the dates when did them!

I sympathise that Zen are terrified of BT blaming me and or them for the problem. However, I need a reliable internet connection and I don't have the infinite time and resources they seem to expect me to expend on trying to sort it out. I have lots of hobbies - mucking about with extreme ADSL diagnostics isn't one (BTW I have already spent a lot of time on checking the wiring and trying different routers, filters etc, all to no avail)

With a (very) heavy heart, I've asked for a new BT line - then at least everything will be "baselined" and I can start afresh.

Zen have shot themselves in the foot - the one month contract was what attracted me as I knew I could leave as soon as they became hopeless - and I thought that would mean they'd be keen not to be rubbish, and that worked fine for some time, but their "support" for my issue has been the reverse.

The guys on the Zen helpdesk certainly know what they are talking about and I have sung their praises before. I reported here that I thought they were being slow to put in a request to BT to unlock a speed limit on my line following resolution of a noisy voice line but I received a reply that this time limit is imposed by BT not Zen. I'll give them the benefit of any doubt even though I thought last time they did it sooner and hence am withdrawing my comment ... well rewording it since I cannot see how to delete the comment.

I had Zen's non fibre service, I never expected to be fast but I expected it to be reliable.

I had a few outages, my finances declined and the speed slowed to 2.8.

I decided to move to orange £5 pm unlimited 17 mbs.

I have now requested my mac code four times, no response, I have rung, no answer.
make your own mind up

i know ZEN aren't the cheapest but you only get what you pay for. ive been with 5 I.S.P'S and they all throttled me sooner or later. theres no way im paying for something that i don't get. i couldn't d/l or play online gaming during the day. so i got shot of them and decided to go with ZEN. been with them for 2 years now and never had an issue with them during peak times (no throttling). ive been with Talk Talk, Fast, Demon, B.T, Sky. all a waste of money. highly recommened them to everyone.