Generic angry customer rant within

[#1]

My username: bluejam
Alright, I've had just about enough now. I'm gonna give this one more stab for conveniences sake, but I'm doubtful it'll do any good.
It just seems to be one problem after another with PN these days, but the past month I've been struck with a much more immediate problem. It's become basically impossible to just go from page to page or do just about anything, pages fail to load nine times out of ten and when they do in takes hours. It happens in stages, it might be fine for a while but then all of a sudden it'll come to a grinding halt for hours.
I've ran spyware/virus checks, nothing. I've connected via a different computer, no change.
If this was a one off I'd just stick it out, but it's being quite relentless these days.
It took me 20 minutes just to get to writing this message, running a speedtest would take forever. Besides, everytime I've taken one it reports my speed is fine when it's not.
I'm sorry, but I just don't have the time or patience anymore with this. If the fault can be fixed within the next 24 hours then I would be grateful, otherwise I'll be ringing Virgin tomorrow to arrange my migration.

[#2]

This probably isn't the answer you want but...
Your speeds are currently restricted due to you breaching the 20GB allowance on your account, you would have received an email at 13GB advising of light restrictions, another at 17GB advising of more restrictions and one when you passed 20GB stating high level restrictions in place.
You can see more information about these restrictions here

You should still be getting Up to 512Kbps on browsing, so the page timeouts shouldn't really be happening. Are these on any page in particular or just generically across the board?

[#3]

Can I just add that if the time-outs you report are as a direct result of limitations to your account, the system isn't working as designed. Even if you go over your usage allowance, we do still aim to proivde a usable browsing experience. I'm off work today but will be back tomorrow, and would like to look at this further for you.
Ian

[#4]

I'm confused as to how that's even possible, I get about 10kbps on torrents, which is the only thing I use for downloading stuff. It's taken me three weeks to download a 6gb torrent, for example.
Still, I guess I wasn't aware that I was on a 20gb limit, I used to download a lot more than I do now and this hasn't happened to me before.

[#5]

Quote from: Chris

You should still be getting Up to 512Kbps on browsing, so the page timeouts shouldn't really be happening. Are these on any page in particular or just generically across the board?

Everything. SHoutcast connections, MSN messenger etc.

[#6]

Out of curiosity are you using a wireless connection? If so have you got this encrypted and changed the name of the SSID away from the default?

[#7]

Hi there,
I'm sorry to hear that you've been having such a rough time of it recently.
I can see that you are currently under Level 3 management, because of the amount that you have downloaded, which will affect the speeds you will see when trying to browse the web.
You can see how speeds are affected by usage on this page:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archive/bb_premier1.shtml
Can I ask if you have considered our Broadband Your Way packages, namely option 3 & 4? More details here:
http://www.plus.net/residential/broadband/
Also, looking at your usage, about 10GB of this is uploads.  Do you think that you would be able to limit the amount that you are uploading to an extent?  This would help you to avoid being in a similar situation on subsequent months.
Also, we're seeing a large amount of email traffic (like 2GB) coming from your connection.  Can I ask if you have something like an unsecured wireless connection?  It could be possible that someone is using your wireless connection to send out large amounts of spam.  Also, I'm curious if you had taken a slightly more extreme measure of formatting your machine(s)?  How many computers do you have there?  Have you run full anti virus sweeps on asll of them?
Please let me know and I'll be happy to help wherever I can.

[#8]

Yes, I have wireless and it's encrypted. But the SSID is on its default "belkin54g". Should I change that?

[#9]

There would definitely be no harm caused by changing your SSID, although you would hope that encryption would stop this being a potential hacking event.

[#10]

That's a habit I got into, just makes it that extra bit safer!

[#11]

Quote from: James

Also, we're seeing a large amount of email traffic (like 2GB) coming from your connection.  Can I ask if you have something like an unsecured wireless connection?  It could be possible that someone is using your wireless connection to send out large amounts of spam.  Also, I'm curious if you had taken a slightly more extreme measure of formatting your machine(s)?  How many computers do you have there?  Have you run full anti virus sweeps on asll of them?

The email thing is odd, I rarely ever use email. I have ran spyware and virus checks, yes. I recently bought a brand new laptop and the problems persisted when I was using my connection on that, too.
Moderators note by James (James_H) : Slightly fixed quote tags, need more practice to figure out how to fully fix em

[#12]

Hmm... have you tried the laptop with the PC switched off, or the PC with the laptop switched off?
If it's a wireless network, is it fully secured up?
The evidence of a lot of email is typical of an infected machine sending out a lot of spam.  If your wireless it insecure, it may not even be one of your machines.

[#13]

The large quantities of email are symptomatic of having a virus of some description.  Can I ask what sort of antivirus software you are using?  Could you possibly try uninstalling it, then reinstalling and running further system scans?  It is possible that the antivirus software itself is compromised.
On another note, I've tried giving you a ring just now, but I'm guessing that you're out at work.  If you'd like I would be more than happy to give you a ring tomorrow morning or at a more suitable time.  I'm afraid I'll be off home in ten minutes or so.

[#14]

Looking at the usage breakdown there's definately an increase in email since 17th July, I'll raise a ticket on your account and attach the spreadsheet so you can see. Maybe the patterns will help in finding it but certainly if something is uploading it will cause your download speeds to be slower particularly when they've been reduced by level 3 management.

[#15]

I just checked on the network, your sending lots of email out to mail servers on the internet