Horrific Trustpilot Reviews

[#1]

Hi All,

New to this forum, I just signed up with Plusnet after getting yet another price increase from BT (been with them for years). I looked through the usual places to get info on the latest deals for broadband and eventually settled on Plus net.

A key decider for me was the logos from established reputation sites here: https://www.plus.net/home-broadband/awards/

I duly signed up and am now awaiting provisioning. I decided to take a look at the trust pilot reviews for Plus net (something I normally do before ordering anything). To be blunt, I was totally horrified by what I read there, are they really as bad as those reviews would indicate?

I'm thinking seriously of cancelling my account right now.

[#2]

Hi,

A warm welcome to the forums.

There are a number of considerations here - the first of which is that in places such as here and Trustpilot, there is a greater tendency for people with issues to post than people for whom everything went well and come and say "Great Experience".

The bulk of the issues raised tend to be within the provisioning journey of which the majority of issues start with some failure with BT Wholesale's or BT Openreach's service order / management systems.  Unfortunately when they go wrong all hell can break loose and BT resolution can be protracted requiring a lot of close-order chasing from the ISP.  You will unfortunately find no end of BTw / BTOR fowl-ups (deliberate pun to avoid censorship) leading to horrific complications.  I have experienced them myself, but would assert that Plusnet always sought to drive resolution as fast as BT's drag their feet processes would allow.  Given that source of issues, support channels can become over whelmed.

Unfortunately many users choose not to use the primary Plusnet (resourced) support channels - phone / chat / this forum - but would rather go wash the dirty laundry in public.  Of such public forums, Trustpilot is not proactively supported by Plusnet and thereby that space looks very bad.  That said if you look at the Trustpilot comments on other ISPs, you'll see a similar profile.

Remember what is common to all ISPs is their shared provider - BT Openreach.  You can draw your own conclusions.

Keep a watch on your order ticket (see the link below) if you see messages indicating that BT have cancelled the order, then immediately chase for an update.

For the vast majority of users, everything goes fine … if that were not the case, the business would not still be here.

[#3]

Townman, thanks for that fast reply, much appreciated. I understand the reasons behind your comments as there is only one hardware owner. I've been with BT for years specifically because they own the infrastructure, so my reasoning for years was to deal with the top tier, so when things went wrong (as they seem to do from time to time) then I'd be dealing with the people who could get to the problem quickest.

I feel the way they are treating their customers now though is more like a cash cow than anything else, I can see an exodus appearing - I took your advice to look up other providers as a gauge and you are quite correct, the others get dire reviews also.

I'll let my Plusnet order go through and report back in a couple of months with my experience, I'll be the first to stand up and promote good service if it happens.

Keeping my fingers crossed...!

[#4]

Hi trigger1,

re

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@trigger1 wrote:

 I've been with BT for years specifically because they own the infrastructure, so my reasoning for years was to deal with the top tier, so when things went wrong (as they seem to do from time to time) then I'd be dealing with the people who could get to the problem quickest.

---

OFCOM have regulated BT to prevent BT wholesale & Openreach prioritising BT retail customer faults over other retail ISPs customers.
PlusNet are owned by BT group and are managed by BT retail.

This has its downsides, for example group companies do not complain to regulators about the performance of the wider group. How often do BT retail & PN complain to OFCOM about Openreach?

This can lead to Openreach prioritising customers from ISPs which are free to complain!

[#5]

@RichardB

PlusNet are owned by BT group and are managed by BT retail.

I do not believe that the last bit is true - do you have a reference for that please?

As I understand things (which might be flawed) Plusnet is a full peer to BT Retail within BT Group PLC.

[#6]

Actually BT Retail are no more, PN, EE and BT Consumer all come under the Consumer division.

[#7]

As Mustrum points out BT retail are now BT Consumer....

https://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/Ourcompany/Groupbusinesses/btconsumer/index.htm

PN is part of BT consumer and the PN CEO reports to the CEO of BT consumer.

[#8]

Hello @trigger1

Welcome to the forums and we are happy you are coming aboard with Plusnet.

We really appreciate your concerns and I would like to assure you that delivering a good customer experience is our main goal.

There will be times with any technology where problems will arise, having said that we will always aim to adhere to our company's values. These are to be always helpful and straight talking during these difficult times.

We will always aim to resolve an issue as efficiency as possible and value any feedback that is shared. Please don't hesitate to contact us should you need any assistance.

[#9]

@trigger1

If I can add my two penneth:

1. If you have problems then this forum is an excellent place to seek help.

2. If you have a BT Smarthub 6 then use it on your new Plusnet account. You will find instructions on how to set it up on this forum's Router board. The Plusnet Hub One is a rebadged BT HH5a whilst the Hub Zero is a very very basic device. The Smarthub is a far better router than either of them and is used by many of us. 

[#10]

thank you everyone for your comments, there's some great help and information there and it's much appreciated - it's really settled my mind.

@SammyM

Much appreciated.! Hopefully the provisioning will be smooth enough, I now know this is a very helpful forum, I wasn't expecting it to be honest so I'm happy (and that makes a change.!).

@Baldrick1
I was kind of thinking about using the BT router, which I've found to be totally excellent. I'm a techie so dont mind manual set ups etc. Your advice there is great and it's good to hear I can use it with my new PN account, thank you.

[#11]

@trigger1  I have been with Plusnet for over 10 years now...... ( says something in itself, I suppose )...  From the start, the transition from my old supplier ( who went bust... V21 taken over by "Biscuit"  then crumbled ! ! yeah, true to life ) ... was without fault. I have moved home about 5 times and each one has been done efficiently... ( I cannot remember "being without"  at all).. ( although some people seem to have been plagued by this, reading through some of the Customer complaints on the Feedback forum board ).. My connection has been "rock solid"  except for a couple of slight "glitches" that did not prevent the service from being used, and once reported to PN, the fault was identified, and fixed within a very short period of time...

All the staff I have encountered in various forms and formats through this forum, have been knowledgeable, and have listened to "my side of the story", and continued the dialogues, despite being on opposites sides for some years ! ! ( a long story about phone answering times ) ..

Live chat is a brilliant way to get through to PN staff for help when needed... and , as others have pointed out, this forum "Tech Help" and "General Chat" are also good ways to get help, if needed,... and you would be surprised to know that General Chat forumites, are a mine of useful ( and sometimes hilariously useless ) information about everything on this earth!..

As others have said... Reviews, of the worst kind, are more likely than those from "satisfied" customers... and this forum is no different...

I have posted several times on the "Feedback" forum page, to say how good PN has been, but those "good feedback" reports tend to get swamped... so... in short... see how it goes, and bear in mind, that, sometimes, things do go wrong... but PN staff WILL try to do their best to help, and get things sorted... despite BT... !

Good Luck, and enjoy PN and Welcome to this forum... ( have a browse in General Chat ) while you wait ! ! .

[#12]

@shutter many thanks for taking the time to post, it's a big help for me! I'm due to transfer over on the 7th so look forward to getting it all over and done with.

Unbelievably I'm saving almost £40 a month from the transfer so can't wait to stop getting fleeced by BT...

[#13]

A great post, i wish i had viewed plusnet before signing up. 11 days since service eventually started, 8 phone calls, 2 to 3 hours on the phone and they still have not got my discount and monthly package right. Unbelievably bad customer service was promised a phone after an hour, 2 hours and 20 mins now i stayed in waiting , couldnt get car washed, couldnt take mum to shops, what do plusnet care. Then they think they doing me a favour by giving me discount.

[#14]

@minazelyas1973 I'm guessing its the broadband service? Do you have your services working?

[#15]

services are working now eventually, they want to charge me £38 when i signed up for £27.99 a month, promised a call back, nothing. fustrating, will go back to talktalk as soon as i can.