topic Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying in Plusnet Feedback

Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

David_W — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:21:36 GMT

I've been with Force9 for a long time, way back in dial up days and huge cost and can't really fault the service, it's very good, the staff are very nice and it's overall been a good experience with PlusNet/Force9. So far my impression of Sky is meh, they sent me an email to log in with my username/password I used during sign up and their system isn't recognising it, erp.
However the lure of Sky LLU is just too much, my broadband costs get halved, my speeds get doubled and my usage goes unlimited, if ADSL2 were available on my exchange then I'd happily stick with PlusNet but it isn't due for at least 6 months.
All is not lost however, by the time my 12 month contract ends with Sky, Fibre should be available in my exchange so I'll be coming back to PlusNet's fibre products
We also use PlusNet as our provider of the phone line, all in all it's been pretty good too, in fact we've had no issues with the phone line so it's got to be rated as perfect.
Anyhow, is there anything I need to do on my side now that I'm switching over? Naturally I'll want to keep my account details (I have two accounts though, one is mine - broadband - one is my mothers - phone line) for when I come back
/edit - the lady I talked to made me a great offer to stay, so I'm sticking with you

Re: Sadly leaving

adamwalker — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:27:40 GMT

David W,
Sorry to hear you're thinking of leaving. To facilitate this you'd obviously need to speak to Sky first, but I'd definitely advise giving our customer options team a call as per the details here: http://www.plus.net/support/customer_service/using/grass_is_greener.shtml

Re: Sadly leaving

David_W — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:19:07 GMT

Sky is very weird to say the least. I'm going on their LLU but need a MAC code (I thought that was just to go on the BT Network?). The email they sent me to log in to Sky ID says to use my username/password from sign up, the bloke on the phone said it comes with my router, bet you 10p that if I phone back now I'll get a totally different answer from a different support rep. I'll also be without broadband for 10 days I think? Not too sure on that one, Sky is very confusing, this is why PlusNet wins for support hands down.
I really wish I could stay with PlusNet for ADSL, but you can't offer the same type of package that Sky does, although your phone line is much better value!

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

adamwalker — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:20:38 GMT

Good to hear, the change to the thread title led me to thing that you're staying though?

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

David_W — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:29:40 GMT

I am, I edited the first post. The lady I spoke to was very nice and after a little chat and an account change I'm sticking with PlusNet. I won't get up to 20Mb until next year (with PlusNet) but the change to my account suits me fine and even saves me something like 50p a month. I wanted to switch to Sky because my speeds would pretty much double but the major factor was totally unlimited downloads, now that factor has been removed there isn't a major reason to switch away from PN - plus I can now get fibre when it arrives here (June hopefully) rather than when the Sky contract would have ended (September).

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

adamwalker — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:41:33 GMT

it always pays to have a chat with us if you're thinking of leaving

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

keith4x4 — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:25:46 GMT

I wish I had left
I called to terminate my service to go to sky, after talking to the sales team
I agreed to a nice deal after years of paying top price for a very slow and basic connection.
Guess what! I still have the same slow service as when Istarted. after one visit by BT it went up to 12mb at one point now back down to what it started at with the same latency.
I get the feeling that any service will do as long as PN can claim "it’s within acceptable limits"
All in all I got a very poor result.
I am now investigating ways of not paying any cancelation fees on principle.

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

James — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:43:42 GMT

Hi Keith,
The within acceptable limits line isn't one of ours I'm afraid - it's the message we will have received about your line from BT.
From looking at the replies that you have received, specifically from Matthew (and I would also assume Richard who works for me) that we have put a large amount of work and effort into your case. We can, as you have nitiated with Matthew, decrease your SNR, which may cause an improvement in speed, but is also likely to lead to a degradation in performance.
I understand your frustration on the basis that your speeds are lower than they have been in the past and for the amount of time that this has taken, but having reviewed the ticket that you have on your account I'm I can't really see what else there is that we can do as your circuit is performing within specified limits and there is not specifically a fault that BT would investigate without levying a charge.
In these cases, cancellation charges would stand and if you wanted to take this further, I would suggest that you request a deadlock code and we would liaise with CISAS should your case be passed to us.

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

keith4x4 — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:15:20 GMT

James
I doubt if you do understand
I came to PN on a "free" transfer... I got charged £75 for it due to a "website error" that was years ago. (Approx 1998)
Since then I have paid over £20 a month for the "service" if I had not seen the PN advert I would still be paying it now.
So tell me how is this "customer service" that is "second to non"
Try reading all of the calls including the one closed due to its length. Also count how many times I was told its fine/ok/within limits then ohh sorry there’s a fault!
Why do I (the customer) have to fight to get it looked at with anything more than a cursory glance.
I am very fed up of the "it will do" attitude
PN have had more than approx £3000 from me over the years whilst new customers got a better deal. The established ones got nothing! Not even informed that there was a new price. So how is that a fair, honest service?
Second to none! Get real

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

pierre_pierre — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:54:39 GMT

Keith do you get e-mails from PN or have you opted not to get them, as they do tell you about the newer, lower priced items available.
They will not change anybody without their permission as some people would sooner stay on the older packages..
The last change was in an e-mail sent about the 3rd December 2010, there will be acopy of it in your closed questions, just put in a date range 1st to 1th December 2010

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

Dom — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:25:00 GMT

Quote from: David
...but the major factor was totally unlimited downloads, now that factor has been removed...

Can I ask what you mean by this? Has PN offered you unlimited downloads, or has Sky decided to impose limits where they didn't have any before?

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

keith4x4 — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:39:52 GMT

Hi James
[quote from email “Your username: {username}
Hello.
We're writing to remind you that the government is increasing VAT to 20% from 4th January 2011. The great news is we're freezing your broadband price until 2012. So what you pay for your {product_name} service will stay the same. Champion.”
]
Yes I did get the email. There is no mention of a new lower price or new service tariff.
I went back as far as I can though the service notices
I stand by what I said PN have never sent me an email advising there is a new lower priced service.

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

pierre_pierre — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:22:32 GMT

that was the first paragraph, I am on Value so would not get any package notes, but I am not on the latest Phone package so I had this
this is from the closed service notes 3rd dec 2010

Quote
Did you know you could save money by upgrading to our new Talk Anytime call plan? You'll still get inclusive calls to UK landlines and 0845 / 0870 numbers, but you'll be able to chat any time of the day without worrying about call charges. What's more you' ll get 25% off our international call rates to the EU, the USA and Canada, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Our new Talk Anytime plan will be just £3.50 a month from January, but we're offering it to you FREE for 3 months.^
http://www.plus.net/go.html/get_free_calls
We're making some changes to our Home Phone service in January too. Our charge for line rental will be £11.99 a month. We'll no longer offer 300 inclusive international minutes on our Talk Evenings & Weekends call tariff and off peak hours are changing to 7pm - 7am.
Call prices are changing too, so please take a look at our updated call tariff for this important information: http://www.plus.net/go.html/jan2011_tariff
If you pay your bill by credit or debit card, we're introducing a £1.50 processing fee from 1st February. This is to cover the extra cost of processing card payments. But there's no fee if you pay by Direct Debit. And your payments will be safe and secure, backed up by the Direct Debit guarantee. To check your payment method, just visit the Member Centre: http://www.plus.net/go.html/check_payment

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

David_W — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 20:34:07 GMT

Quote from: Dom
Can I ask what you mean by this? Has PN offered you unlimited downloads, or has Sky decided to impose limits where they didn't have any before?

There is an old package no longer available when PlusNet did unlimited this link shows the shaping they do on that package. I'm currently on Premier Option 1 which is also no longer available, the traffic shaping is a *lot* better and the peak rates are 4pm-midnight but after 13Gb you get quite heavily restricted (the total allowance peak rate is 20Gb).
Sky do no limits at all, nor do they (as far as I know) throttle the service any, logically switching to Sky would have saved me money and got me a faster speed but I'm spoiled by the service PlusNet give so when you weigh it all up PlusNet come out ahead which is why I stuck with them on a grandfathered product (moving from a grandfathered to a grandfathered product).

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

keith4x4 — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:35:03 GMT

pierre_pierre
what part of the improved broad band/ reduced price service do you miss understand?
please point out where that is mentioned

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

pierre_pierre — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:43:23 GMT

well I said I didnt get the broadband offer as I was on the cheapest, and I did get the phone offer as I was on a heritage pakage.

Now what do you not understand
what packages are you on?

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

keith4x4 — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:14:38 GMT

pierre_pierre
to put it very simply for you! I was paying over £20 since 1998 for the same basic package.
At no time were any other offers made to me or received in any form.

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

jelv — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:31:27 GMT

If you go to the portal and select Email settings under My Account in the left hand menu, then Email Communication Preferences is the box on that page ticked?

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

David_W — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:42:48 GMT

It never ends, just got a welcome email from Sky. Apparently they decided to ignore my request to cancel the phone line, I phoned up PN who told me there is a desist or something on the line so to phone the cancellations tomorrow to try and get it taken off. I phoned up Sky to see if they could do it, nope, in fact them doing so would leave me without a phone line at all. Also doesn't help that Sky doesn't do 0845 numbers so an extra £5 on the phone bill this month dealing with them
Taking bets on if Sky will take money from my bank account or not......

Re: Sadly leaving -> now happily staying

adamwalker — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:05:46 GMT

Quote
I phoned up Sky to see if they could do it, nope, in fact them doing so would leave me without a phone line at all.

IMO I don't think that's right, and personally I'd be double checking that with them.