Plusnet holds off spirited charge from Vodafone in broadband complaint charts In Brit comms regulator Ofcom's quarterly summary of broadband and landline whinges, Plusnet retained its complaint crown despite a strong challenge from Vodafone. The results (PDF), measured in terms of complaints per 100,000 subscribers, placed BT-owned Plusnet as the most-griped-about, running well over twice the industry …
I wonder if part of the high number of complaints is due to the high standard people were used to, while people on TalkTalk (for example) are used to poor service so don't bother complaining.
I must admit the only ISP I have had contact with that I rate more highly than I used to rate Plusnet is A&A but they are significantly more expensive.
For now I am sticking with Plusnet, I still get a static IP and decent throughput so I just have to hope I don't have to query a bill in the near future.
I find if you can get through to a human they're quite decent.
The technicolour router was on it's last legs, I asked online chat about a new hub, they wanted a one off payment or extra on the bill.
I left it at that, messaged their twitter account who had made suggestions about setting channels on the technicolour, next thing a new hub is in the post.
The staff are polite and professional but the billing/account management system they have to work with is frankly pants and I presume is something that BT foisted upon them when they were borged.
The contract has insurance overhead to guaranty BT's business for the full duration of the contract even if the customer dies or the world ends which I find bizarre as no other business is guaranteed an income unless they contributed to some policical party. Perhaps BT did
Yes, plusnet offer UK call centres and their staff are excellent but the back room borg keeps limiting what their excellent staff are allowed to do such as fix problems where the billing system decides to over write your banking details with someone elses, someone who only pays $8.01 for the top service and cannot be found.
Luckily they never charged this unknown as my advance payment covered the £8/month before I noticed and alerted them. Now they cannot tell me how it happened or if the unknown and I were classed as the same account such that I worry that the police are going to kick my door in and take all my electronic kit if the unknown is doing something they shouldn't. I asked them for an official letter to show the plod if they turn up saying the fault is theirs but they tell me there isnt any option to do that.
When I am in a contract with a company that fails at billing then I normally move them to standing order but they insist that this is not availible only transactions where they have complete control over such as repeat CC or DD are availible. Now I know it isn't the Pnet staff that are draconian monsters, they all seem okay but since neither of us is in control once you signed up then you just have have to hope that the amount they take out of your account is anything like you were expecting because they cannot even confirm that.
So whilst the Customer care staff are great they seem to have less control over what is happening than I do simply because the SYSTEM is god and it doesn't talk to mortals
I used to have Waitrose (this was resold by PlusNet at the time) and then was moved to PlusNet direct to get a static IP address. I have never had billing issues, customer service generally call towards the end of the contract. The switch to FTTC went smoothly. I also use PlusNet for a small business and that has been equally good. There was an issue with billing when we changed the contract at some point but it was resolved quickly and we got a credit.
Based on my experience in retail (John Lewis Partnership) there are some customers who will always complain, justified or not. Whatever they do, for some reason there are "problems" and it can be really challenging to resolve these when in reality, the problem is not of the provider's making.
There are going to be genuine issues but as ever, bad news is better than good news and you rarely hear about what went well.
Yes, they didn't remind me when the two year contract was up, but after one call, they rectified that. When I moved house, it was seamless and at no charge. When I was having problems with the wiring, they replaced the master box, again no charge. You do have to call them and negotiate, but that's the same with every other service provider (and we're talking utilities, insurance and all the other clowns, here). Since then I've had super fast connections, at a fraction of the cost of any others. Am I just lucky or is it 'Brexit Syndrome', where you only ever hear from the whingers?
After nearly 20 years with zen (my adsl username was firstnamelastname@zen) I switched to plusnet fttc on a contract term that halved my bill. I also paid upfront for 18 months of line rental.
However, after 6 months I really wanted to expand my public ip range and asked how to get at /29 allocation. Not available on the consumer product, but I could change to the business product line - not as painless as you'd imagine, I had to be allocated a new dsl username as the old name was going to be cancelled. I could keep the existing phone number (doesn't get used) and had to be issued with a new (identical) home hub thingy. All the billing was changed to my ltd. co.
Everything went well, I was assigned a /29, I paid £20ish for the home hub and was refunded the balance of my upfront phone line payment. So I was £20 down on the hub and £100 up on the line rental.
My next bill is Feb 9th 2019 - I have a DD in place that they've never drawn against, there is an undertaking on the forums that everyone will only be charged 90 days worth of fees once they get the billing fixed. As it stands today I'm 6 months into the new contract and have paid £20.
Any accountants out there want to tell me how much I should be accruing against the inevitable invoice which at this stage looks likely to arrive in the next financial year .....?
PlusNet ... "For the sixth (SIXTH!) year in a row we picked up the Best Provider Customer Service award in the uSwitch Awards, showing how our dedication to giving you a great experience is paying off. In even more exciting news, we also won the top prize for our SIM-only mobile network."
Unfortunately under 'bb provider of the year' and 'best value bb provider' they are only 'highly commended' (both were 'wiiner 2018' and earlier)
https://www.plus.net/home-broadband/awards/
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