Scam broadband useage

[#1]

I have been with Plusnet since the 1st August 2011 after moving from Sky.  I never thought that I would regret leaving Sky but I do now.  My Sky broadband was a max 5Gb and over the year I was a customer I never exceeded that limit.  Fourteen days after being with Plusnet and my useage shot up to 10Gb and is currently standing at 14Gb.  According to Plusnet records more than half of our broadband use is for "Streaming", which we don't do.  Neither do we download media, or play games.  All we do is surf the net.  I have tried to explain this to Plusnet but it's like talking to a brick wall, I'm wasting my breath.  They say it's possible that someone in the neighbourhood could be connected to our router. I have logged onto the router and can see no other devices.  I think it's more likely that Plusnet having secured a customer with a promise of a discounted broadband fee for 9 months and a £15 amazon voucher are trying to recoup some money.  I have had to move onto the 60Gb broadband package and for this month buy more allowance at £5 per 5Gb.  I have considered cutting my losses and breaking my contract and if I do it will cost apprx. £90.  I have been with BT, Orange, Madasafish and SKY, but this is the worst Broadband provider so far.  And I'm still waiting for the Amazon voucher!!

[#2]

Have you tried monitoring your usage using NetWorx http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/ to see what is using it and to compare to the Plusnet figures

[#3]

I agree, Networx is a very useful tool.
Also you could try switching off your router overnight - before midnight and don't restart it until after 8am. Your overnight usage should show as 0. If it doesn't then Plusnet have a problem to explain/resolve.

[#4]

Hi i'm sorry to hear this but the chances are the reason you've exceeded your download limit is because you've clicked on youtube videos then clicked off them straight away.
Plusnet tends to be very fast in download rates compared to any other ISP i've had, so if you click on a link it will download at least 10 MB in the space of a couple of seconds, which gradually mounts up.
We're on PlusNet Extra with Pro Package I think, or PlusNet Value with Pro package. Have absolutely no complaints since a BT guy came out, and service has been great. Hope you get your problem sorted anyway

Edit: Basically it works out 1000MB or so is 1 Gig, and you're on a 10 Gig limit. So if you download a song with the video it's like 100MB. 100 of those = your download limit.

Edit2: Joanne Pilson recommended that we went on Extra with the pro addon, which was the same price but with a 60 GB / month usage instead of a 15 GB a month usage. I recommend you look into that.

[#5]

To be honest, you have to take the usage breakdown with a pinch of salt. I've found that the traffic types that it lists, and the sorts of activities that come under each type, seem to be a bit vague, and it'll often say that you've used traffic of one sort, when in fact it was traffic of a different sort (such as listing some gaming traffic as "streaming", for example.
I do think that the overall amount of traffic that it states as being used is accurate though, but I don't think the breakdown of traffic types is very accurate at all.

[#6]

@squashabe

Quote

I have tried to explain this to Plusnet but it's like talking to a brick wall

I'm sorry you feel this way and I really hope we can turn that opinion around, we're more than happy to help you out here.
I'm going to back Oldjim's suggestion of trying networx as this will record your usage directly, we can then compare the stats from that over a given period to our usage figures.
We DO want to investigate this and help you resolve it, if there is any discrepancy between the figures we will make sure you are credited for your trouble.