Sponsored Links

PlusNet - Do not use them...

Hi,

I advise anyone thinking of signing up with PlusNet, not to.

I originally signed up for an unrestricted bandwidth package 1 year ago and it has been changed to a 25GB download package without any confirmation, which I find unbelievable.

But thats not the worst of it, its almost impossible to get online, the connection drops every 5 minutes and then I am unable to get online for hours. Everythings ok this end (I work in the IT industry) and I have a friend who is with PlusNet with exacly the same problem, who's also going to move from them. ( if they let him)

Tried submitting support tickets with no luck, very unhelpful staff. Infact they are rude, I guess its outsourced customer support.

Now I want to move they have said they want a deferred house move fee of £47 which doesn't apply as I didn't move from another provider, I had cable broadband before signing up with them. They want £120 to cancel the account. No way!

Please do not use PlusNet, [Removed word] you will regret it.

Hope the info is useful for people looking for honest broadband providers.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Presumably the house move fee only applies if you want PlusNet to provide your connectio in your new house?

How did they reach the £120 fee to cancel your account? What are they saying it is for?

I know that at least one of the PlusNet support bods is a member of this site, and tends to be very helpful - you might want to pm him with a link to this thread - his username is bpullen

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/member.php?u=14093
 
The £47 is the BT activation fee, I presume, which certainly does/did apply unless a customer elected to have it shelved over 5 years.

I am with Plusnet, and I agree that they have many faults, however I have never ever had any connection problems whatsoever.

The OP does not say if his connection is via BT or via LLU with the dreaded Tiscali.

I would respectfully suggest to jsmith that he reads the original T&C's that he signed up to, they may well shed a bit more light on this issue.

I am not defending PN on this, but it does seem a bit of harsh judgement.
 
Sponsored Links
jsmith said:
Hi,

I advise anyone thinking of signing up with PlusNet, not to.

I originally signed up for an unrestricted bandwidth package 1 year ago and it has been changed to a 25GB download package without any confirmation, which I find unbelievable.

We've had a few changes of T's & C's over the last year and you would have been emailed about this.

But thats not the worst of it, its almost impossible to get online, the connection drops every 5 minutes and then I am unable to get online for hours. Everythings ok this end (I work in the IT industry) and I have a friend who is with PlusNet with exacly the same problem, who's also going to move from them. ( if they let him)
The fact you are in the IT industry doesn't make your line exempt from potential faults. The symptoms you describe certainly aren't specific to our network and you should complete all the necessary diagnostics and raise a fault if you are having issues (http://faults.plus.net)

Tried submitting support tickets with no luck, very unhelpful staff. Infact they are rude, I guess its outsourced customer support.
We're not outsourced, we're based in Sheffield with the rest of the company. If you have a ticket ID I'll gladly look into things for you.

Now I want to move they have said they want a deferred house move fee of £47 which doesn't apply as I didn't move from another provider, I had cable broadband before signing up with them. They want £120 to cancel the account. No way!
A deferred house move fee is the cost of reproviding your line whilst you are still with us. I'm assuming you have moved house as a Plusnet customer, in which case this will be the £47 fee associated with providing your line at a new address.

If you moved from cable then the same fee will have been deferred at signup. I'm also guessing from the amount you quote that you may have deferred the cost of your hardware too?

Please do not use PlusNet, they are crooks and you will regret it.
Nothing dishonest in paying for what you have been provided with.

Kind Regards,
 
bpullen said:
We've had a few changes of T's & C's over the last year and you would have been emailed about this.

No, I was told that the t&c;s had not changed and hence could not get out of my 1 years contract early.....

Plusnet were rubbish and dealt with me in a shoddy fashion.

Now look at what they have been doing - losing emails, emailing confidential subscriber information out, director having a go at customers publicly.. (sp) etc..
 
Sponsored Links
splang said:
No, I was told that the t&c;s had not changed and hence could not get out of my 1 years contract early.....

Plusnet were rubbish and dealt with me in a shoddy fashion.


Erm...er..I am with Plusnet, I never signed up for a 12 month contract, why did you?

Nobody is forced to, a monthly contract is available, I don't think you are giving the full picture here.
 
I joined before all the new usage limits came in and the harsh throttling...

In the end I paid the 12 month in advance so that I could migrate quickly! I assure you, I was held for 12 months....
 
splang said:
In the end I paid the 12 month in advance so that I could migrate quickly! I assure you, I was held for 12 months....


Well, more fool you, is all I can say, you agreed to be held to a 12 month contract when there was no need to, no point in complaining then.

You can hardly blame the ISP for holding you to a contract that you entered in to willingly.

I would never sign up to any contract over a month.
 
Sponsored Links
Did not know that PN encouraged advance payments. But anyone locked into a 12 month contract with an ISP asking for the whole of the rest of teh contract money to be paid for the person to leave should consult Citizens Advice. It could well be that such lock in clauses with such high penalties are illegal and unenforceable.
 
But anyone locked into a 12 month contract with an ISP asking for the whole of the rest of teh contract money to be paid for the person to leave should consult Citizens Advice. It could well be that such lock in clauses with such high penalties are illegal and unenforceable.

What high penalties? If you agree to 12 monthly payments, then decide you want to go elsewhere then the company you entered into the contract with (it could be any ISP, TV company, moile phone company etc) is entitled to expect those payments - if you don't want to be locked in then don't agree to the contract. How can you describe regular payments that the customer has agreed to as penalties?

As has already been said, not only do PlusNet offer monthly contracts, so do many other ISPs, so it's not like there is a lack of choice.

With the deferred house moving fee - it's quite clear for most ISP's that there is a charge for moving your connection to another address (fair enough, since BT charge the ISPs for that). If my understanding is correct then the OP deferred this charge, presumably meaning they agreed to a years contract from the date it was provided in the new house. This being the case, if they want to leave before the end of that year then it is reasonable to expect that charge to be paid.

It would be helpful if the OP gave a breakdown of the £120 +Net wants from him, but if it consists of the deferred moving charge and/or the remaining months of his contract, I have no sympathy.

Edit:
BIt could well be that such lock in clauses with such high penalties are illegal and unenforceable.

Anon - I'm guessing you are referring to the recent OFT ruling, which many people (including myself) are using to sue the banks for the return of excessive charges placed on their accounts. This is based on the law which says something along the lines that charges can not be excessive, and must only be used to cover relevant admin expenses causes by whatever intiated the charge.

Since in this case the moving fee is charged by BT in the first place, PlusNet charging £47 to the customer in the event of an early contract termintion would certainly (in my view) be seen as reasonable by a court.

-----------------

On a completely separate note, if anyone wishes to know about claiming back their bank charges, please PM me, I will happily pass on my experiences and tips.
 
Last edited:
I stand by the comment, contact Citizens Advice and while you are at it tell them that you have had poor/no service and see if they tell you that the 12 month contract can be enforced. But ask someone that you know offerrs good legal advice, ie Citizens Advice.
 
I joined before all the new usage limits came in and the harsh throttling...

In the end I paid the 12 month in advance so that I could migrate quickly! I assure you, I was held for 12 months....

So did I join up before the " usage limits " came in to force, but I signed up on a monthly contract.

If you chose to pay any ISP 12 months up front, more fool you is all I can say.
 
Did not know that PN encouraged advance payments. But anyone locked into a 12 month contract with an ISP asking for the whole of the rest of teh contract money to be paid for the person to leave should consult Citizens Advice. It could well be that such lock in clauses with such high penalties are illegal and unenforceable.

No harm in trying, but I think that it may well be a waste of time.

The person concerned entered in to a voluntary 12 month contract, nobody forced them.

It may well be that their connection dropped, it seems very strange that mine and thousands of others using Plusnet doesn't.

As I have said before, Plusnet have many faults, connection stability is not amongst them.
 
Sponsored Links
I stand by the comment, contact Citizens Advice and while you are at it tell them that you have had poor/no service and see if they tell you that the 12 month contract can be enforced. But ask someone that you know offerrs good legal advice, ie Citizens Advice.

Unfortunately, since there is no Service Level Agreement for ADSL, it would be virtually impossible to force you're way out of it.

I've not looked into it, but I think you have to pay a lot more for an SLA. As it is, +N could just say that it can't offer an SLA becuase BT don't offer one.

At the very least you'd have to prove that the problem is +Net's fault and not your own systems - difficult if (as it seems) very few other people are having this type of problem.

Even if you did manage to persuade a judge to cancel your remaining monthly fees, I guess you'd probably still have to pay the deferred moving charge and (if applicable) for any hardware you got for 'free' for a years contract.

Of course it won't do any harm to talk to citizen's advice, but I don't think it will do a lot of good either.
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £24.00
132Mbps
Gift: None
Shell Energy UK ISP Logo
Shell Energy £26.99
109Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £27.99
145Mbps
Gift: None
Zen Internet UK ISP Logo
Zen Internet £28.00 - 35.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £15.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
YouFibre UK ISP Logo
YouFibre £19.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £21.00
150Mbps
Gift: £25 Love2Shop Card
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All

Helpful ISP Guides and Tips

Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5473)
  2. BT (3505)
  3. Politics (2525)
  4. Openreach (2291)
  5. Business (2251)
  6. Building Digital UK (2234)
  7. FTTC (2041)
  8. Mobile Broadband (1961)
  9. Statistics (1780)
  10. 4G (1654)
  11. Virgin Media (1608)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1451)
  13. Fibre Optic (1392)
  14. Wireless Internet (1386)
  15. FTTH (1381)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules