Plusnet Broadband, lots of problems

Nickvale

I see they're now a best buy, well beware! I've been a Plusnet broadband customer and been pleased with them for at least 15 years. Last November I renewed my contract and they sent me a new router. And it was dreadful - dropped out every couple of days, needing a reboot to work OK for a couple of days until it dropped out again. Not ideal, not least because they recommend not turning the router off as the exchange may reduce the speed they give you.

So I talked to the support team, three times, and spent hours following their instructions to reconfigure it, to no avail until eventually, on advice from my third call, they advised me shut down the 5GHz channel and rely on the 2.4GHz one. This sort of worked, in that the drop outs stopped, but my connection got noticeably slower. So I did some hunting online to discover this (very long) thread in the Plusnet community :

https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Hub-One-5GHz-WiFi-issue/td-p/1696363

It seems the issue has been known about since April 2019, yet support had said nothing to me about this. Following advice from the group I bought a second hand BT Home Hub for £25, which has worked faultlessly. So I complained again to support, who maintained there was no common problem, and wouldn't even cover the cost of my new router as I'd bought it without telling them I was going to. I didn't accept this, gave them the link above and finally got a call saying as a 'gesture of goodwill' they'd credit me the £25. So all in all not impressed.

missile

I too was a happy customer until my wife started working from home. Her job with the NHS requires her to phone many patients every day. I requested Plusnet to upgrade my account to include telephone call package. They refused and I had a horrendous bill. They told me they would create a new account and transfer my telephone number. That account would not allow me to include call package either.
After many many calls I got tired of phoning Plusnet and switched to BT. 
Plusnet billed me for cancelling my "new" contract early. I phoned them and they agreed to waive the cancellation charge.
Then I got letter from debt collection agency  :-(

Laz123

I call them the Plusnet Idiots. A few years ago I lived in the Philippines and my ex-wife lived in the UK. As part of the separation agreement I paid for her internet. She then decided to move house but as I was the payee they wouldn't speak to her. Phone conversations from Cebu is bad and there's a 6 hour time difference so I emailed to request a termination and I'd pay what was owed. No reply. I tried again. Still no reply. So my wife moved and I cancelled the debit card payments. They soon contacted me to say they would place the matter in the hands of a debt collection agency. I gave them the details of my debit card but they said they couldn't take payment from it (why?). They would only take a cheque (why?). So I had to get my ex to send a cheque. All this to-ing and fro-ing took a lot of time and they began to get nasty. Eventually they got the cheque and the matter was resolved. But the lack of customer service and the idiotic way they handled the situation put me off them for life.

kayaitch

Thanks for the warning.  I was about to sign up for it as I'm currently paying £40 a month to BT, which is a very good service but expensive.  I have a smart TV and I am worried that if I switch to Plusnet, Netflix, Britbox, iPlayer etc will be really slow.  I also work for the NHS; NHS workers are supposed to get a discount with BT but when I tried to do this I was told that my contract is until October so I won't get any discount!  I shall check for more comments before I switch.

Browntoa

You do realise BT own plusnet , it's basically the same company.

And most broadband suppliers use BT openreach lines from the exchange so 99% of the time speed problems with one supplier is the same for all suppliers

JJ_Egan

What are you getting for £40 pm and do you need that package .

Though if in contract until October and you move then you will have to pay the remaining months off .

Murphybear

We lived on a farm near Dartmoor for a while and the only firms who could supply broadband were BT/Plusnet.  We went with Plusnet because they were cheaper.  We had a lot of problems and were without broadband for 3 weeks.  Fortunately a local community shop/cafe had free WiFi as long as you bought a drink.  It took forever to get through to them on the phone.  

When we moved we went with John Lewis because they had good reviews.  Yes I am aware they are in the Plusnet family.  We only needed to phone them once and they answered quickly, they told us that JL customers take priority over Plusnet.  No idea if that is true but we have not had to phone them again in 2 years.  We also got one of those gadgets that you wire up and ask it questions (sorry I have no idea what it’s called) which is useful for things like “hey Google, what’s the temperature in *** “ and getting the answers on University Challenge before some of the teams do.  These boxes cost nearly £100 so we were pleased especially as it turned up out of the blue.

kayaitch

Yes I knew Plusnet is part of BT and this is why I don't understand why one is so expensive and one is so cheap.  We decided that when the contract is coming to an end we will again look into the NHS discount.

Laz123

Just a mute point. It matters not one iota if BT owns Plusnet when it comes to customer service being of the same quality. They are still run as two separate businesses with two different teams. One team can be better than the other or one can be worse than the other.

JJ_Egan

PN has had multiple problem post on here for a few years.

The ISPs like Zen and Andrews and Arnold basically do not get CS complaints .

missile

Laz123 said:

Just a mute point. It matters not one iota if BT owns Plusnet when it comes to customer service being of the same quality. They are still run as two separate businesses with two different teams. One team can be better than the other or one can be worse than the other.

I changed from BT to Plusnet then back to BT. I changed back because Plusnet customer after sales service was very poor.