Origin Broadband - any good

RedbullRJ

FYI Origin's website and portal are currently down and they are "hoping to have this resolved early January"

youravinalarrrf

RedbullRJ wrote: »

FYI Origin's website and portal are currently down and they are "hoping to have this resolved early January"

Thanks for confirming that as both website and portal have been offline and unavailable for at least a week already. It all started with the several attempts it took them to provide correct bills last month and has never been right since. I was beginning to wonder if my computer was faulty/corrupted following the latest Windows update.

Extremely amateur for a so called internet communications company who, from my personal experience, provide the slowest and most unstable broadband connections in the country and their separate monthly bills and call lists really do look like something a child of 12 designed on their first day at big school!

They even had the cheek to send a letter and email asking if I'd like to renew. I'll leave you to guess what I'll be doing. :mad:

Origin-Broadband

Hi there,

If you would like me to take a look into any issues you're having accessing certain services, please could you email us on forum@origin-broadband.co.uk with your full name, address and postcode .

Kind regards,

Origin Broadband

Origin-Broadband

Hi there,

If you have any outstanding issues you would like help with, just drop us an email via forum@origin-broadband.co.uk with your full name, address and postcode .

Kind regards,

Origin Broadband

youravinalarrrf

Origin-Broadband wrote: »

Hi there,

If you have any outstanding issues you would like help with, just drop us an email via [EMAIL="forum@origin-broadband.co.uk"]forum@origin-broadband.co.uk[/EMAIL] with your full name, address and postcode .

Kind regards,

Origin Broadband

Your repeated automated responses to posts from Origin Broadband customers are extremely unhelpful.

You need to post relevant information for your customers and to provide an explanation as to why your connection speeds are so slow when compared to all other broadband providers and the reason why your broadband connections drop out so frequently.

Your website and customer portal not working for a considrable period of time is a major issue for all your customers and does require an explanation.

Most companies would take the time and trouble to put up a simple 'emergency' website landing page containing brief information. As it stands you've rashly chosen to take your website offline and just left it to time out. Rightly or wrongly most existing customers and any potential new customers may possibly assume that you've ceased trading.

Until you grasp and understand the basics of what providing customer service means and what is expected of a company representative on this forum it really is pointless wasting our time.

Origin-Broadband

Hi there.

I can assure you these are not automated responses. The reason we direct people to this email address is:

1. To provide a point of contact for customer queries.
2. To provide a secure online platform in which personal information can be shared to aid the resolution of said queries outside of a public forum.

We have not closed our website or taken any steps to do so, which is why we are encouraging any customer that experiences an issue similar to the one you are referring to (or indeed any issues) to contact us via this email address so that we can look into it.

If you have a query, just send us an email via that address and we would be more than happy to help. However, as I'm sure you can understand, we cannot discuss private information on a public forum.

Kind regards,

Origin Broadband

Mister_G

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about, but my customer portal at Origin seems to be working ok, including accurate billing information.

Also, my service has been far more stable since I joined Origin in August 2016. Prior to that, I had frequent drop outs with both PlusNet FTTC and Virgin National ADSL.

youravinalarrrf

RedbullRJ wrote: »

FYI Origin's website and portal are currently down and they are "hoping to have this resolved early January"

Just to update this. Despite the Origin Broadband representative's comments it turned out that Origin Broadband were fully aware of this issue and it was finally fixed on 28th December.

For the benefit of other MSE members please be aware that Origin Broadband have now been removed from both TopCashback and Quidco websites due to non-payment of cashback claims legitimately earned by and owed to customers.

FAO Origin Broadband Representative

Please be aware that if payment of all outstanding cashback claims with both TopCashback and Quidco is not made within the next 7 days I intend to start legal proceedings against you via the Small Claims Court.

I am sure you will be aware that this will ultimately end up costing your company far more than the cashback you owe.

Don't you think your company's reputation is already bad enough?

Saeed

I've just gone back to my online account and found out that they have billed me for a "partial month". I have emailed and will see what happens.

Funnily when I called up to tell them I wanted to leave, no one at Origin mentioned that Origin have sneakily billed me extra so I have effectively paid until the end of the month so I may as well stay until then. So if I leave on the completion of my 12 months, origin have got upto an extra £10 or more for the "partial" month they don't tell you about.

Supa

I have come close to the end of my contract (which I signed up for through a link on MSE) and have only just now noticed that I've fallen foul of this 'partial month' billing, having paid an extra £36.04 for 24 days in addition to the 12 months I paid for up-front. While I'm glad to hear they no longer do this to customers I am extremely disappointed in both Moneysavingsexpert for not highlighting this particular term and Origin BB.

I look to MSE for the best deals and choose the cheapest and take chances on new/lesser known companies but feel I will be less inclined to do so for any small company after this experience, let alone how I now regard Origin BB who have shown they are not to be trusted.

I trusted MSE to check all the terms for strange things like this when I am browsing their site, before presenting it as a good deal or cheaper than other packages. I thought I could trust their expertise but feel I was wrong about this and I ended up paying far more than the next cheapest package.

Regarding Origin BB aside from the whole 'partial month' debacle, they made several errors in billing which I had to spend time sorting out, they took around a month to actually get the service running live leaving me without a service, and the actual service was absolutely terrible with many cut outs every few weeks and much lower speeds than my previous ISP despite being on the same Openreach network, speeds regularly dropped to around 1MBPs or even less.

I then requested to have my service cancelled at the end of my contract and despite assuring me the cancellation would be carried out and receiving email confirmation, today I received a bill for the month after my contract date charging me in advance at the standard rate (most expensive tariff which is used for out of contract).

Luckily when I called up they agreed to cancel this extra month which I cancelled. But despite all this, when I asked if they could discount me something or give me anything as a show of good will on account of everything, they said they couldn't do anything.

Terrible BB service, terrible customer service, extremely deceptive. Shame on MSE for promoting them and not pointing the 'partial month' clause out. Here are just 2 other customers that have suffered the same fate as me due to MSE promoting them:

'I've just gone back to my online account and found out that they have billed me for a "partial month". I have emailed and will see what happens.

Funnily when I called up to tell them I wanted to leave, no one at Origin mentioned that Origin have sneakily billed me extra so I have effectively paid until the end of the month so I may as well stay until then. So if I leave on the completion of my 12 months, origin have got upto an extra £10 or more for the "partial" month they don't tell you about.'

'Partial month billing:
I have received an unexpected bill, via email, from Origin to pay for broadband from the date on which I started receiving service (10-07-2017) to the end of July. Thus I have a query concerning partial month billing for customers like me, who paid in advance for 12 months line rental + broadband. Having searched Origin's web site, I quickly found a KnowledgeBase item which makes this quite clear:
“
Discounted Broadband

All of our broadband packages come with discounted premiums for a certain period, be that six or twelve months. In order to ensure you get the full benefit of our offers, we only apply the credits to complete months, meaning you may have to pay for the partial month between going live and your first full month.

For example - if your Origin Broadband package went live on November 10th, then your first discounted month would be December. We would take a partial payment for November 10th !!!8211; 30th, and your 12-month discount would expire on November 30th the following year.
”

For one of the MSE mods; it'd be helpful to build in Origin's answers to 1/ and 3/ into MSE's analysis of Origin.'