Plusnet a tail of Woe

Plusnet a tale of woe

I have switched (lol) to Plusnet last week. I was on BT before and so should have been pretty simple seeing that Plusnet are owned by BT.

Nope.

They messed up the ordering. We received emails to say the order could not be progressed as there was an existing BT order open... there was not on my side. Rang them, waited 30 mins on hold, “Sorry, that was an error on our behalf and all is good, ignore the emails” OK

Cut across day, phone went live minus Calling line display that we need for our call guardian.... 30 min web chat wait to be told, give it 24 hours...... BT switch off Broadband at 19:00 hours, Plusnet service does not come up..... Oh well 23:59 for that so will see in the morning.

Saturday: get email to say there is a problem with broadband order and will be Monday before they can escalate with openreach... Call them up. 45 min hold, then told I will need to be transferred, 15 min further wait, cut off.... Triggered

Call back on the "I want to cancel" option. 20 min wait and get transferred to the department I need to speak to. 15 min hold. Get to speak to provisioning, Great agent, explains everything and what the issue is and when I can expect them to escalate.... happy bunny.

Sunday: Go out as Mrs Strudders is whining about internet. Get back to find Vodafone and O2 have enabled 4G in our small rural area and 65MB on Vodaphone... Impressed.

Monday: Receive email from Plusnet to say there is a further issue and that it will take 5 working days to resolve before service is enabled..... Triggered.. Call the plusnet number... 43 min on hold, speak to agent, transferred to Provisioning, 12 min hold.


Speak to agent. Use my disabled card, which I very rarely do. (I am registered blind as I have MS n other crap and pretty much rely on my iPad and PC for everything fun in life) He explains that the issue might be with openreach and that he can not do anything. However offers me £25 BT Wifi card... I explain that most people in my street are either with Sky or Talk Talk and I have no BT hotspots in range as I am in the middle of nowhere.... I ask to speak to supervisor/manger.. on hold 5 mins, he is not available and will call me back. Calls, speak to manager... he genuinely concerned and says it like it is. Seeing my last 15 years in work was in telecoms and network support manager , he did not make up any BS and promised to call me back later in the day to see if he could escalate with their openreach account manager... However the SLA for the current state of play is 5 working days and in all reality will be 26th Sept, (knowing BT as I do, I am resigned to that date) 8 days past original go live date......

So there us have it... Tethering FTW for browsing,


One other thing. I guess there support management are happy with the SLA manipulation they practice. Closing and opening new tickets after every update would never have been allowed in my day I can assure you... tut tut.

They are clearly having lots of problems recently. When I first joined nearly 2 years ago their customer service was great. The first time I called them was at peak time (maybe 19:00) and I only waited 10 minutes or so, plus I spoke to someone who spounded like they spoke English as their first language (*cough* BT). These days wait times even for their chat service can be over an hour!

They've certainly gone to pot recently, which is why I'm moving away.

I moved my parent's broadband from Plusnet last summer. They failed to stop the direct debit payments which I only noticed this month.

Three times I've been on their chat support and three times I've had to wait for over 45 minutes to speak to someone. They've promised to refund the money twice now, but I've yet to see a penny. I've asked the billing dept to email me as I don't want to sit in another queue again. They've failed to do so. Support told me that they were emailing the billing dept. and I was to be sent copies. Didn't receive anything despite confirming my email with them.

It would seem that flushnet is a more appropriate name for them these days.

joey1211 said:

I moved my parent's broadband from Plusnet last summer. They failed to stop the direct debit payments which I only noticed this month.

Three times I've been on their chat support and three times I've had to wait for over 45 minutes to speak to someone. They've promised to refund the money twice now, but I've yet to see a penny. I've asked the billing dept to email me as I don't want to sit in another queue again. They've failed to do so. Support told me that they were emailing the billing dept. and I was to be sent copies. Didn't receive anything despite confirming my email with them.

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Speak to your bank, you're covered under the direct debit guarantee. They'll sort it all out on your behalf.

They have been good so far. Although I will be planning to move unless they can drop the cost.

Been with Plusnet for 1 year now,no problems to speak of
Just signed up to move back to Sky as had a slightly better speed when i was with sky previous

Update, now have a dedicated manager who I can text direct. Openreach have dug their heals in and will not budge on the 5 working days, which to be honest is them allover...

However have been refunded upfront cost £24 and have 1 months broad band and line rental for free, given I was in a deal six months period is only £16 quid lol. so £40

However will see what happens later.

To be continued

Like any ISP if you managed to get by without any problems then great, but PlusNet do have a bad reputation - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.plus.net

This thread is interesting to read for a potential plusnet customer like myself.

Vargas said:

Like any ISP if you managed to get by without any problems then great, but PlusNet do have a bad reputation - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.plus.net

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Sky and BT are also listed as 1 star on trust pilot. You'll get good and bad reviews for any broadband provider to be fair.

I had Plusnet at my place in the Highlands, worst experience ever, I ended up getting satellite broadband installed.

I almost signed up with Plusnet, but luckily I saw all the negative press beforehand. I ended up going with Pulse8 who have been superb so far.

maj said:

You'll get good and bad reviews for any broadband provider to be fair.

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Indeed. I've been a Plusnet customer for 13 years and I'd not hesitate to recommend them.

Been with Plusnet for four years, it's been ok.

Their customer support portals are a bit sluggish currently, though. Took best part of an hour on the online support when I used it last week. They have quickly arranged a fix for our landline (incoming calls weren't ringing - fault with the exchange, sorted by BT Openreach), which got sorted today, 24hrs ahead of the proposed 'engineer' visit.

They seem to have taken on a whole load of new customers thanks to fairly heavy advertising and don't seem to have taken on the corresponding numbers of staff needed to support them. That and the issues they're having with their new network means that were I ever to leave Sky I doubt I'd change my BB, except maybe to Virgin for the speed.

To be fair to them, my biggest gripe is CS portal, be it phone or web. They will have to address that as the hold times are massive and people only strew when being told "sorry we are busy"
I went with them because they offered a great deal on an 18 month contract. £18 pm less than BT and cheaper than sky. I am lucky that my FTTC is 50 meters away to first teir Fibre is 50MB and TBH I have not taken advantage for my 75mb infinity 2 service in the past. However when I went to drop speed with BT when my contact was up they would still only offer me it at 20 quid. Plus £3 for CLID for my call guardian. Plusnet were 99p and I571 is free. Even there anytime call package is £8 and that includes 5000 mins to mobiles. However we use our mobiles for outbound so that was moot. But the swap over has been just a pain.

Anyway as I said, tethering for browsing is fine.

They cheekily charged me 50p for a phone call an engineer made to test my line! Got it back but of course that meant waiting nearly an hour in the chat queue.

I was with Plusnet for around 7 years but the last couple of years they have gone downhill badly and I had enough so switched to BT Infinity. Plusnets customer service had turned from excellent to abysmal. Long waits on the phone with a good chance of being cut off and having to start over again, support tickets that go unanswered and not honouring a deal that I had with them even though they sent me a email confirming the deal when it was agreed on. I wouldn't go back to them if it was free.

Been with Plusnet quite a while now. It's been faultless for me.