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Avoid Plusnet - Terrible service and ridiculous waiting times

I ordered an internet installation from Plusnet back in November when I was having some refurb work done on my house, only to find when I moved in that, despite them sending me texts saying it was working and me paying for the service that their engineer hadn't been able to install it because of some technical problem and they had never followed it up. Great thanks for that, move and no internet.

That was 4 weeks ago!

They sent someone out to fix it, the first person didn't fix it properly so they had to send another person to fix their work, then the router they sent doesn't work and they said it would take 5 days to send a new one (I mean surely at this point you courier the router to me in the next 2 hours...) It hadn't arrived after 5 days so my friend called ! to check they had sent it and they hadn't!

TOTAL JOKE

I ordered the internet almost 5 months ago and they still haven't sorted it. When I've called the 'customer helpdesk' the last two days to complain and cancel my contract because it's beyond a joke now it's either a 20 min wait to speak to someone or 72 hours to call you back, I mean with ISP it's pretty simple, the thing works and your customer service is great. simple business model

PLUSNET DOUBLE FAIL ON BOTH FRONTS
 
The problem here is you selected an ISP that is selling at low prices so something has to give to fit the low income budget this tends to be the customer service side.

Pay a fair price for the broadband and you find no long wait issues or like mine if they are busy and miss your call they tend to do a call back to see what was up only for customers mind.
 
Did they give you any indication of what the technical problem actually was? It's Openreach (BT) that has responsibility for that side and not PlusNet, although this is irrelevant to the end-user since your contract is still with the ISP.

Disappointed to see they didn't send the router out when they said though, that's obviously an additional frustration and it would be interesting to know why they delayed.
 
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@ralionel

Sorry to hear you've had such a poor experience recently. I'd be happy to take a look over your account and provide feedback internally on where things have gone wrong so we can correct them in future.

Unfortunately the routers are shipped from a separate warehouse, so we can't just courier one from our main offices. However this should never have been necessary as the router should have been sent initially.

If you can provide me some way to identify your account I'd be happy to have a look.

Chris
 
I have to concur with ralionel that Plusnet is an ISP to avoid, though for slightly different reasons.

I am now in my second, and final, year as a Plusnet customer. This firm cannot be trusted. They agree a deal with you and then charge you more than was agreed, and getting refunds is a great deal of trouble.

When I first signed up with Plusnet I was offered unlimited broadband for £2.99 a month, and I also paid for 12 months' line rental in advance. The sales person I spoke to also said, to my surprise, that I had to take a call package costing £5 for the first month, but then I could cancel it. So my first monthly payment was £7.99. Subsequently I had to contact the Plusnet CEO (Andy Baker) about the failure of Plusnet's customer support to reply to me about several queries I had and he passed my complaint to Matt Cruise, a Plusnet Customer Service Advisor. Matt Cruise was puzzled about why I had been told I had to pay £5 for a call package. Apparently, I was not required to do so and I was promised a refund of £5 and that the call package would be deleted from my account. Despite this, the following month I was again charged £7.99 instead of £2.99. This time the full £7.99 was refunded to me, though only £5 should have been. However, I was also owed a refund for 2 weeks' line rental, as I had paid for line rental from the same date that my broadband package started, but my telephone line did not migrate to Plusnet until 2 weeks later. The refund for the line rental was never made. Recently, Matt Cruise claimed that the £7.99 that was refunded to me was the refund for the line rental and I have had to put him right about this.

This year I was going to switch to another ISP, but Plusnet offered me a deal that would have cost me less than other deals I had seen, so I decided to give them another chance. Mistake!!!!! I was offered 12 months' broadband at £2.50 a month, plus £50 cashback if I took line rental as well. I renewed my line rental and paid for 12 months in advance, as before, though the price has gone up by about 10% in the last year. The new broadband deal started from February. I was promised that the £50 cashback would be sent by cheque automatically two weeks after "activation". I made a point of querying this as other ISPs offering cashback seem to expect the customer to claim the cashback rather than it being sent automatically, but I was assured that the cheque would be sent automatically and that I would not need to claim the money. In February I was charged £2.99 for my broadband, not £2.50. In March I was charged £9.99 instead of £2.50. A week ago I spent 52 minutes on the phone to Plusnet's customer support, of which 20 minutes was just waiting to speak to someone, to try to sort this out. I was promised a refund of the overcharge for February and March. So far the overcharge for March has been refunded, but not February. I was also told that an e-mail had been sent to me on 2nd March telling me how to claim the cashback (which I had previously been told would be sent automatically). I pointed out that I hadn't received that e-mail. I was then told, after several minutes on hold, that the "appropriate team" would contact me about the cashback. I am still waiting to hear from them. Subsequently, I contacted Andy Baker again as this is really not acceptable customer service. Again, he passed my complaint to Matt Cruise. Matt Cruise has promised the refunds would be made and he has agreed to pay the balance of the refund for my line rental overcharge from a year ago, though I have not received that refund yet. With regard to the cashback, on 25th March Matt Cruise said "I have sent an email this morning to our marketing team to confirm that the cheque has been requested, and also the process by which you should receive this." I am still waiting to hear from Plusnet about this cheque.

Given that Matt Cruise now seems to be ignoring my e-mails and that Plusnet still owes me a refund on my 2014-15 line rental, a refund on my February broadband charge and £50 cashback, it is beginning to look as though the only way that I will get what I'm owed is by taking Plusnet to the County Court. As Matt Cruise's e-mails acknowledge that these sums are owed to me, I do not rate Plusnet's chances of winning in court very highly.

As if these issues weren't enough, Plusnet insists on using an incorrect postal address for me, it does not give the start and end dates of my line rental in "My account" on its website, and in the account details it shows a number of payments I have made as "part-paid" even though all payments have been fully paid (and as I pay by direct debit it is up to Plusnet how much they are paid each month).

It seems to me that Plusnet is administratively chaotic. It also seems to me that they are either deliberately dishonest or so incompetent as to seem to be dishonest. I would not advise anyone to use Plusnet, and if anyone is foolhardy enough to become a Plusnet customer they need to keep a very careful eye on how much they are charged. This firm cannot be trusted. And if anyone does have a problem with Plusnet they should drop Andy Baker a line (though he doesn't seem very interested in customer complaints). I don't want to be accused by Plusnet of any breach of data protection by giving his e-mail address here, but it can be found on www.ceoemail.com.

I look forward to 2016, when I will definitely be leaving Plusnet, even if they were to offer me free broadband and line rental.
 
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