Terrible service?
Hi,
I just wanted to share our experience of Plusnet so far just in case anyone was thinking of signing up!
We signed up in late December as we were unhappy with our Virgin cable and since we had previously had Plusnet broadband (and everything had gone smoothly) we thought we may as well come back, choosing the fibre service.
Our service went 'live' mid January - we plugged in the kit and did a speed test - 80MB download, 20MB upload - needless to say we were pretty happy at that point.
However, the speed and reliability quickly deteriorated - we now get 40MB download and 15MB upload - still not shabby and to be honest we would probably accept this...if it could stay connected for more than a couple of hours at a time (at best).
Worth noting we are in the middle of a town of 50,000 people and we are very near the exchange.
The reliability is shockingly bad - which is frustrating as previously when we had Plusnet broadband we didnt have any problems.
So we called Plusnet and arranged for an engineer to come out on 25 January. So, having to work from home, we waited for the engineer to show up - and he never did. At this point we started to feel like we had made a massive mistake...
Arranged for another engineer to come out - a BT engineer turned up on 27 January, fiddled with the phone socket, ran some tests and advised we do a speed test in 48 hours. Not really sure how we thought this would fix the problem. Needless to say internet was still dropping every 1-2 hours and sometimes was out for hours at a time.
Contacted Plusnet for another engineer to come out - booked for 1 February - naturally no engineer ever turned up - very disruptive as had to work from home. We also have it pointed out that if an error is found in our house lines we will need to pay £50 - probably fair enough if we hadnt been messed around so much...and if someone could have fixed the issue on the first, or second visits...or even turned up...
Re-booked the engineer to come out on 5 February - did the engineer turn up? Is there even an engineer? An interesting philosophical question I think you will agree.
What is certainly true is that our service has been active for two weeks, we have booked 4 engineer appointments, only one turned up - three engineers have failed to turn up in just over a week. Appreciate maybe they just fiddled with the exchange or something and so didnt need to come to the house...but still, we have to sit in the house and not go to work each time someone tries to fix this. Maybe we should charge £50 every time Plusnet fail to visit?
So we are about to book another engineer, but felt we should share this story as frankly if we had another shot at picking who to use for internet, we would never pick Plusnet.
I dont know who manages the engineer bookings, but I think that a) they are being paid (too much) and b) that a 12 yearold with a laptop could do a better job.
Seriously, you must waste so much money a) paying BT for the use of their frankly average engineers (in our experience) b) paying for the admin of booking engineers to visit customers who never turn up c) losing customers as the service is so terrible.
If I was on the board I'd fire the COO/CTO as quickly as possible and recruit a lobotomised monkey to take over.
Well fingers crossed this will eventually get fixed - if we get an out we will take it.
I'd love to hear from Plusnet as to how this is possible?
Amusingly, just tried to post this and found out the internet had dropped!
I just wanted to share our experience of Plusnet so far just in case anyone was thinking of signing up!
We signed up in late December as we were unhappy with our Virgin cable and since we had previously had Plusnet broadband (and everything had gone smoothly) we thought we may as well come back, choosing the fibre service.
Our service went 'live' mid January - we plugged in the kit and did a speed test - 80MB download, 20MB upload - needless to say we were pretty happy at that point.
However, the speed and reliability quickly deteriorated - we now get 40MB download and 15MB upload - still not shabby and to be honest we would probably accept this...if it could stay connected for more than a couple of hours at a time (at best).
Worth noting we are in the middle of a town of 50,000 people and we are very near the exchange.
The reliability is shockingly bad - which is frustrating as previously when we had Plusnet broadband we didnt have any problems.
So we called Plusnet and arranged for an engineer to come out on 25 January. So, having to work from home, we waited for the engineer to show up - and he never did. At this point we started to feel like we had made a massive mistake...
Arranged for another engineer to come out - a BT engineer turned up on 27 January, fiddled with the phone socket, ran some tests and advised we do a speed test in 48 hours. Not really sure how we thought this would fix the problem. Needless to say internet was still dropping every 1-2 hours and sometimes was out for hours at a time.
Contacted Plusnet for another engineer to come out - booked for 1 February - naturally no engineer ever turned up - very disruptive as had to work from home. We also have it pointed out that if an error is found in our house lines we will need to pay £50 - probably fair enough if we hadnt been messed around so much...and if someone could have fixed the issue on the first, or second visits...or even turned up...
Re-booked the engineer to come out on 5 February - did the engineer turn up? Is there even an engineer? An interesting philosophical question I think you will agree.
What is certainly true is that our service has been active for two weeks, we have booked 4 engineer appointments, only one turned up - three engineers have failed to turn up in just over a week. Appreciate maybe they just fiddled with the exchange or something and so didnt need to come to the house...but still, we have to sit in the house and not go to work each time someone tries to fix this. Maybe we should charge £50 every time Plusnet fail to visit?
So we are about to book another engineer, but felt we should share this story as frankly if we had another shot at picking who to use for internet, we would never pick Plusnet.
I dont know who manages the engineer bookings, but I think that a) they are being paid (too much) and b) that a 12 yearold with a laptop could do a better job.
Seriously, you must waste so much money a) paying BT for the use of their frankly average engineers (in our experience) b) paying for the admin of booking engineers to visit customers who never turn up c) losing customers as the service is so terrible.
If I was on the board I'd fire the COO/CTO as quickly as possible and recruit a lobotomised monkey to take over.
Well fingers crossed this will eventually get fixed - if we get an out we will take it.
I'd love to hear from Plusnet as to how this is possible?
Amusingly, just tried to post this and found out the internet had dropped!
