Origin Broadband - any good

newtonflotman

I've been with Origin Broadband for around 1.5 years on their 76mb Fibre package. Can't fault them. Excellent speeds 65mb+ always. Sorted out an issue with caller display within two days. Been with Bt, Talk Talk and Sky before. Origin are by far the best ISP I've used.

tracytee39

Origin have the worst customer services ever. I was on hold for 3 and a half hours last Saturday trying to speak to technical help. I have has Origin as my provided for 18 days but only had internet for 7 of those days.

I have been made a 'priority' apparently, which means someone will phone me back within 24 - 48 hours (when I will probably be at work) but if I want to speak to anyone today I will have to wait my turn (which could be many more hours on hold).

I spoke to customer services today and said I wanted to cancel my contract as they were not providing the service I was paying for. I was told I could cancel but would be liable for a full years contract.

50Twuncle

tracytee39 wrote: »

I spoke to customer services today and said I wanted to cancel my contract as they were not providing the service I was paying for. I was told I could cancel but would be liable for a full years contract.

Whatever you do - don't give in and pay them for the remaining time....
fight it

anneliese123

Hi ,

Thank you for your constructive feedback , I am nearing end of my Contract with Talk Talk , had enough stress with them to last me a lifetime , had an Issue with my BB , gave them my Mobile contact number , they were calling my daughter at College

shop-of-horrors

Due to Sky price hikes and them not willing to match the £12pm deal MSE had two weeks before, I decided to look at what else MSE recommended which was ORIGIN Broadband.

I know the feedback on MSE was not full due to a relative new company, but decided it was the cheapest offer especially with £39 TCB - I paid upfront for the £189.99 at the beginning of February.

Online process went well no issues with current number, then 10 days in an email to say we cannot port your number, please reply to ask us to try again or would you be happy with a new number (Unsure if they were going to charge the £48 for a new connection).

I replied via email and called them two days later, over 1 hour on hold, free phone number, got through to someone who assured me that Sky were blocking the porting of the number and I would need a new number.

Called Sky who after requesting to speak to a manager put me through to the team that does the connections, they could see no records showing on my line since moving to sky over 2 years ago, not in contract, no holds and number and data both portable. They were checking the open reach system all broadband providers use and advised to tell Origin that they had checked everything on the open reach system which they should be looking at.

Call back to Origin this time 45 minutes on hold, but went through to new connections who is also the disconnections team, I explained what Sky had checked and they could not offer to do anything other than the new number. I asked to cancel in the 14 day cooling off period and was given the usual 3 to 7 days refund, I also backed this up with an email and recorded the call to say I was cancelling in the cooling off period, I asked for an email to say this was happening but never received.

Still no refund of the full amount, but now lots of feedback on the internet regarding the issues with trying to join them, nearly all people are being forced to take new numbers, check there facebook page and all the messages with the complaints.

I do feel Moneysavingexpert have unwittingly given this scam a lot of victims with the Sky hikes and it being the recommended deal, don't get me wrong I still made the decision to purchase but the feedback was good but looks like everyone tried joining at the same time as MSE money tips email went out looking at all the bad feedback now.

I am going to claim the money back through my bank.

A warning to anyone who is thinking of joining Origin please read all the comments on forums, review sites and their own Facebook page as they do not seem to be trying to hide any comments.

saineegan

So very disappointed. I've changed from Sky broadband and phone to Origin yesterday as Sky was too expensive. Origin sent an email stating that my broadband will go live by 7 pm yesterday. Unfortunately it's almost 12 midday and still no broadband and worse still I have been on the mobile phone for almost 4 hours today trying to get through to them and no reply.

Eventually when I did get through just now, it was a case of pass the buck and I requested very strongly to be put through to a manager, but was told no one is available right now.

Seriously please please do not make the stupid " buy cheap , buy twice" mistake that I have made. They are extremely poor to deal with once they have your money. Yes I've been utterly stupid and paid for 12 months line rental upfront, all because I genuinely couldn't afford to stay with sky who seem to increase prices every few months. But I'm a home worker and work on the internet, I've lost the entire morning, and still no internet, no answers from Origin and no customer service at all. They are an absolute nightmare to deal with!

Please can anyone tell me who can I report this too? I am a low paid worker and can' t afford to lose my livelihood Which is internet based. Can someone please point me in the right direction, I'm very stressed by this. It's the worst financial/telephone provider decision I have ever made.

Donotdealwithorigin

It's a regular, woeful story concerning this bunch. I know from my own experience with them. If you ordered less than 14 days ago, you can cancel under the rules, however, good luck with that as they play every trick in the book to keep you and your money.

I tried the Chief Exec, which looked like it might produce the correct result, however he just gets one of his lackeys to not actually sort out the issues but frustrate you into staying too. Although the more emails to him, the better to try and make them change their ways.

If you're outside of the 14 days, I suggest you lodge a complaint now (don't do it with their online form as you get no copy and then they say they didn't get it). They then have 8 weeks to set you straight, but again, good luck with that too. Then you go to the ISPA, which as I found out yesterday do no such thing as the mediation they are supposed to, they just forward your complaint to the "high-compliance team", wherein they have 5 days to get back to you. If you are still deadlocked, ombudsman services/Ofcom is the next step.

I wish you the best of luck.

mnbvcxz

saineegan wrote: »

So very disappointed. I've changed from Sky broadband and phone to Origin yesterday as Sky was too expensive. Origin sent an email stating that my broadband will go live by 7 pm yesterday.

Long ago (another provider) I was once migrated on a friday afternoon only to find they could not issue my adsl password because that desk had closed and would not reopen till Tuesday after the bank holiday.

But the good point was after that it was rock solid for the next two years. Migrations are often slightly fluffed which is very annoying at the time but if you can work out whats wrong it can often be quickly fixed and then everything is ok. Plus.net sent me an adsl router instead of a fibre router, but three days later it was fixed.

Or it may always be a disaster but I would suggest some hope at this early point and perhaps it will yet turn out bearable.

What has actually happened? I assume you are migrating an adsl connection? Did you have a working sky phone line and broadband yesterday and then today it had stopped?

This may be patronising I'm afraid but have you checked your sky broadband has stopped, could the migration just be a day late?

You presumably have a new router as the sky ones are locked to sky. Can you see from the lights on the front whether it can see an internet adsl signal? Often you can tell there is adsl you are just not connected. In which case you could log into the router and check it has the right settings. Perhaps you have migrated but you just need to put the right username and password details into the router? Is it definitely plugged into an unfiltered master phone socket.

Equally if its a complicated migration perhaps they are waiting for the openreach man to swap something in the phone cabinet and he is a day late. Maybe it will all work tomorrow.

Perhaps this is no help and you have tried all of this already...

But good luck, I hope it yet works out.

AG47

I signed up with origin pay up front for a year last year.

It took ages to finally get up and running, then very unreliable service.

The internet keeps stopping working. They said to try various things.

One young man in the call centre called Adam ok we can try a few things, it was a proper comedy moment. He said let's try taking the phone line out and putting into the emergency socket, I did what he said and ofcourse the line went dead, I think he forgot that would happen.

So I called him back on my mobile and he said to try a few other things, it still hasn't come back on.

Then he told me to wait half an hour and he would ring me back if it still did not come back on. This did not make any sense to me, and I th k I was just being fobbed off because he would be finish g work in half an hour and it would be somebody else's problem.

Sure enough in half an hour it still hadn't come back on, and nobody called me back.

So I rang back and got through to Steve, I said I was expecting a call from Adam and sure enough he had gone home.

Steve told me to try many things, most the same as before, still didn't work.

He said sorry will have to put you through to level 2 tech help.

I was on hold for another 45 mins.

Then Leyam asked me try all the same things that I have already tried a few time and it still doesn't work.

He said please wait 24 hours and if it doesn't come back on they will send an engineer out to us.

I said can we please skip the 24 hrs wait and just get the ball rolling with the engineer? He said no this is what will happen and I had no choice.

I asked if I will be co pen sated as I'm paying for a service that I'm not getting?

I'm a bit fed up with origin broadband. But I have paid upfront for a year.

What is the procedure for getting refunded and going with somebody else please?

Can I raise this with the ombudsman?

Donotdealwithorigin

Finally, success! If the email I received after going through the ISPA is correct, Origin appears to have just(!) set up a complaints team and has agreed to cancel my broadband after a 4 month battle. My advice, if you are in dispute, is to complain directly to Origin and get to the ISPA as soon as you can after that (8 weeks in the case of exisiting customers, a week or two if you are a new customer who has cancelled within the cooling off period).