Can I try out an ISP before committing to a contract? (Dreadful Plusnet experience)

Mirandoch

I just wanted to get Plusnet into the title, to be honest. I don't feel like going into the full story right now, but my experiences with Plusnet have resembled numerous internet horror stories about bad ISPs. I wouldn't recommend Plusnet to my worst enemy; well, not unless I wanted to keep them offline.

I'm at the point where I've cancelled my contract with Plusnet, but not found a new ISP to replace them. It's not over with Plusnet yet. For a start they've charged me nearly £50 for "outstanding fees" for "unlimited broadband". Not only do I not intend to pay those fees, but I also intend to try to get back the £165 I have paid them for what I mistakenly thought would be a year's broadband.

I absolutely do not want to, cannot afford to, get into the same situation with a different ISP. I was thinking of BT or Sky's cheapest broadband package. Does anyone know if I can try out their internet for a month, say, before commiting a year's contract? It's virtually impossible to get out of a contract, so it seems, even if the ISP doesn't provide usable internet and has been proven to not provide usable internet.

enfield_freddy

be carefull with plusnet , they will not think twice before giving you a black mark on your credit rating


as per a month trial , no chance was the problem with plusnet your speed or there admin?


if speed , there will not be much difference if you sign up for a like to like service , ie adsl=adsl , or medium fibre = medium fibre


if you want to try there admin , try ringing there help centre , (as opposed to sales) and see how long a wait , and the tone of the operators voice , sales are fast , help is slowwwwwwwwwwwwww,,


was the £165 not for phone line rental per year then you had your internet costs per month + calls on top

Swipe

I've been with them for 5 years now and have never had to call their support line once.

brewerdave

Always have a chuckle when Plusnet get slagged off - compared with my experiences with HORRANGE and others with TalkTalk,Sky etc they are Germanic in their efficiency:rotfl:
To answer the OPs question - there are ISPs who provide bb on a month to month basis -but they ain't cheap & involve line rental to be taken. I believe that Sky are offering a free trial b/band package IF you have their TV. Not sure if you have to switch line rental over for the trial tho'

macman

If you didn't find PN satisfactory, then why would you want to use BT? PN is a BT Group company, but with UK CS, running over exactly the same network. Neither BT nor Sky offer 30 day contracts, that tends to be the domain of much smaller ISP's. And as pointed out above, it's hard to find line rental contracts of less than a year, assuming you are looking at LLU options which will require you to bundle the services.

Mirandoch

It's mainly the broadband. Their customer service is godawful too, but I wouldn't have found out about that if the broadband hadn't been unusable - it was running at around 0.1Mb/s on average. After a week of endless phoning up and being passed from pillar to post, Plusnet denying all responsibility, Open Reach engineer being sent round (who said the line was good and that Plusnet advised us wrongly), etc. etc., they have finally managed to provide subpar, but usable, broadband some of the time. Forget 8-10pm though. Bear in mind I haven't been doing any heavy internet use - I haven't been able to! No Netflix, gaming, etc., just simple web browsing and emailing.

I think it's disgusting we can't trial an ISP first, since so many of them can't seem to provide the most basic service that they sell: broadband. It's daylight robbery, plain and simple.

Mirandoch

macman wrote: »

If you didn't find PN satisfactory, then why would you want to use BT? PN is a BT Group company, but with UK CS, running over exactly the same network. Neither BT nor Sky offer 30 day contracts, that tends to be the domain of much smaller ISP's. And as pointed out above, it's hard to find line rental contracts of less than a year, assuming you are looking at LLU options which will require you to bundle the services.

'Cos my dad has BT and it works fine, all the time. He gets close to max speed for his area. Everyone else I know seems to have Virgin, but I can't get cable where I am.

I was hoping Plusnet would be okay because they were owned by BT, but obviously not. Bit wary of going with BT because Plusnet has been so awful, but I read bad stories about Sky as well.

It's shocking how little accountability ISPs have to provide an acceptable service. If I order an item of furniture and it doesn't arrive or it's defective, I have consumer rights to ensure it's delivered or replaced. If I order broadband and it doesn't get delivered, it seems like all my rights are waived.

Not to mention the unbelievable stress it's caused.

Swipe

TBH, if you post on the plusnet forums you generally get a tech who knows what they are talking about and are pretty good at resolving your issues rather than the script monkey on the end of the 0800 number. My IP profile got screwed once and was unable to download at more than 50KB/sec and the forum tech reset my profile for me and I was back up to 800KB/sec

JJ_Egan

Mirandoch wrote: »

'Cos my dad has BT and it works fine, all the time. He gets close to max speed for his area. Everyone else I know seems to have Virgin, but I can't get cable where I am.

I was hoping Plusnet would be okay because they were owned by BT, but obviously not. Bit wary of going with BT because Plusnet has been so awful, but I read bad stories about Sky as well.

It's shocking how little accountability ISPs have to provide an acceptable service. If I order an item of furniture and it doesn't arrive or it's defective, I have consumer rights to ensure it's delivered or replaced. If I order broadband and it doesn't get delivered, it seems like all my rights are waived.

Not to mention the unbelievable stress it's caused.

Often its a user problem rather than an ISP problem .
The service from all ISPs is sold subject to other factors and bears no relation to buying a sideboard .

Is this bad speed over ethernet cable or WiFi ??
As OR said the line was good then my guess is your problem is internal wiring or your connection is over WiFi .
Anyway you now have to pay off Plusnet and decide who you want your service with it will all come down the BT line anyway .
I find BT works fine all the time but then again i found exactly the same with Plusnet .

macman

If it is a line or internal fault, then switching to BT or anyone else will make no difference, as the local loop will not change. What your dad gets on a different line, on a different exchange, is completely irrelevant.
PS: Plusnet are not alright because they are owned by BT, but in spite of it! BT and EE are invariably at the bottom of every ISP consumer survey done.

Mirandoch

Seems to be some defensiveness about Plusnet in this topic. If you've had great service from them, then fantastic: I only wish I could claim the same, because believe me I'm not doing this for the fun of it. I'd far, far rather Plusnet had provided a decent service.

My router parameters were reset - made not a jot of difference.
We tried bypassing the wifi and connecting via ethernet - made not a jot of differnce.
An Open Reach engineer came around - made not a jot of difference (he also tested the line and said it was good).

So as much as everyone seems to love blaming the user rather than the ISP, I find it hard to not believe the fault is at Plusnet's end rather than mine. Guess I'll soon find out, as I cancelled Plusnet yesterday anyhow and need to find a new ISP - 'cos I'm certainly not going back to Plusnet.