Perhaps I expect too much from a broadband provide, but in general the level of support at plusnet, in my opinion, is dreadful. The do not appear to read questions properly, and in my experience seem to offer a workaround rather than actually looking into fixing the issue. They seem to have no pride in their jobs.
I work in IT so hopefully I do use my brain before calling upon the support team.
A few examples of issues I have had;
I have my work voicemail emailed to me, so that I can access it wherever I am. This could be via a public computer, my laptop or even my phone. The attachment is sent via a wav file, but I was unable to open the attachment using the plusnet webmail system.
I logged it as a fault with plusnet, and after going round the houses a few dozen times, their best solution was as follows;
"I have investigated this for you and it would appear that this is occurring due to the email being sent using UU encoding. Squirrelmail doesn't like this format thus it is not showing the file in the correct format. I have tested this using Thunderbird and Outlook and the file is there as an attachment as would be expected. Can you please use a mail client such as the ones mentioned above in order to collect your mail. You can still use IMAP to download these mails so they are also accessible via webmail if this type of access is needed. Please let us know if you have any further issues."
So in short the answer from plusnet was: use outlook, which I'd already explained wasnt possible in all cases. Webmail is supposed to be used from a web-browser, hence the name. The plusnet responce is clearly them saying "sorry, we dont want to try and look into this problem any further, but webmail doesn’t work".
Another problem I reported was due to my bandwidth evidently being restricted. I received an email from them around the 15th of the month saying that my bandwidth had been capped. I had already paid for an increased usage that month, but had lowered my account settings so that I didnt get charged the higher rate next month....so surely I should be entitled to that I have already paid for. The PlusNet responce;
"1) If you move to a lower package then the bandwidth difference will take immediate effect, essentially you were on the lower package from the date that you made the change, therefore you wont get any of the extra bandwidth."
Great... so I paid for the increased bandwidth, but because I dotn want it again next month I dont actually get it! Great...money for nothing eh, fantastic guys.
Around the same time as my bandwidth issue, I found that torrents wouldnt work or msn, or FTP...so I contacted them to make sure no ports are being blocked. Their short and to the point reply read;
"2) We do not block torrents in this way, I would suggest checking the port forwarding options on your PC."
Ignoring the all important question of "are you using a router, or is firewall turned on"?! I then spent TWO WEEKS trying to resolve the issue, resetting my router, patching my router, double checking that PC firewall hadnt been enabled etc etc, but for love nor money could I get anything other than web browsing to work. So...I contacted them again, and guess what they said;
"I can confirm that you have reached your usage allowance for the month (20GB) and this now means your service will be restricted until your next billing date or until you add further data allowance to your account. Please log into the website for further details."
I dont know if I should laugh or cry.
These people seem to answer support calls without even looking into the issue further, or considering that the customer just might....might know what he is talking about. To be honest, Im not even sure they get to the end of reading a support ticket before they starting writing their reply, which usually involves the customer having to do some work, and not them!
I could also go into the dreadful issue of them loosing all their customers email accounts details, which resulted in me getting literally hundreds and hundreds of spam emails. Of course they owned upto this one, but did they offer the customers any compensation or bonus….no, they just gave us a watered down webmail system.
I have now decided, after this dreadful level of support, that its time to leave plusnet. I feel all of the above issues were valid and not via any fault of my own, yet they have been left unresolved. Now If only I can find out how to get my MAC code from them.....maybe I should log a support call.
