Origin Broadband Reviews

I've no idea how this organisation has had any favourable Reviews. I have found them incredibly hard to contact via either email or phone, unreliable to the point of dishonesty, and totally unprofessional in their communications. Having promised a broadband service and taken my money for 3 months,when it became apparent that no service was possible they quickly abandoned me, promising a 'full refund', they have given only one months rental back, and have refused to respond to my further communications. To be avoided like the plague!

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

I've only had it a couple of months, and apart from a small hiccup getting connected, I am very pleased, the speed is good considering the distance from the exchange and I've had no problems with reliability. Customer service was very helpful when there was a delay getting connected due to inter departmental mix ups. So far I would definitely recommend.

• Satisfaction
  4 stars
• Customer Service
  4 stars
• Speed
  4 stars
• Reliability
  4 stars

Absolutely crap its borderline a scam DO NOT USE THIS COMPONY THEY LIE wen I phoned to see what was happening to my 70mbs because I was only get 2mbs they said I needed to buy boosters so I bought them and no difference I then phoned back to have there customer service laugh down the phone to me .......they should not be aloud to do business and after reading other people's reviews don't think they will be around for much longer....AVOID THIS COMPONY

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Origin Broadband may seem attractive because of their low prices, and that's half the reason I took the leap, but it was honestly the worst mistake I ever made. While I like to take chances on smaller relatively unknown companies, this was one of the few times that decision has bitten me in the butt.

First, I'd be surprised if your connection remains stable for longer than a few weeks. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times our internet went offline without warning, sometimes for days at a time. This wasn't limited to just me, either, check Twitter, more often than not, huge regions of customers will be completely cut off without warning.

On the rare occasion it is online, connection speeds fluctuate no matter what time of day it is. This is likely due to the outdated tech that they call a "router". But hey, if you have a couple of hundred quid to throw their way, you can buy their more up-to-date router.

Oh, and their customer support, I kid you not, is the same person every time I've called. But don't worry, why not head on over to Twitter to express your concern? A few times I'd spoken to their customer service via Twitter who seemed to "solve" the problem for me (they didn't) and reimburse some of my bill for the inconvenience (they didn't) as well as correct a double-charge on my account (they didn't).

Oh and don't even dare Tweet at them directly with complaints about their terrible service because they'll just block you. Yep. Having simply tweeted them about losing connection (again) I went to check their page for a status update and low and behold, I'd been blocked. Bloody good customer service there. Ignore the problem and it'll go away.

You're right, I did go away, to another ISP.

TL;DR - Origin Broadband is a terrible company with unstable connection and abysmal customer service. I'd avoid at all costs even if the deal seems too good to miss.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  2 stars
• Reliability
  1 star

Why did I ever change . Previous great service from BT & Sky and never had one single issue . I joined this company for price and I actually wanted to give some business to the little guys . The fact is I want them to succeed but they have chewn off far more than they capable of. Chased the buck instead of producing a good quality product for the masses.
Since January I have probably had 10 separate issues and in total wasted close to a good 24 hours of my life on hold or problem solving . Also use very crafty tactics by sending the router 3 weeks after set up when the cooling period is 2 weeks . I've seen this has been an issue for other people . You are then locked in with nowhere to go . Poor behaviour.

Warning ⚠️ Always stick to the tried and tested suppliers if you want an easy life . I hope they can resolve their issues but for now this is a terrible product plagued with issues .

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  2 stars
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

After seeing a great deal for Origin Broadband at '£17.99 with no hidden costs' i got this broadband for my new flat, but after four months i switched to another provider due to the constant disconnections, slow speed and disgraceful customer service.

The 'no hidden costs', which they claim on the website is not entirely true as during my second payment i was charged £40.99, once i looked into the fine print, the £17.99 was only for switching, something that was hidden in my view.

The Internet suffered from disconnections every week, sometimes several times a week, with no Internet for periods of 10 minutes to a few hours to overnight. When the Internet was connected the speed was good, but on occasion it could be quite slow and frustrating.

I called to make complaints on four occasions, on all occasions no help was given as to resolve the disconnection issue. Later i discovered my complaints were not recorded and dismissed.

After reaching breaking point i sent an official complaint to their complaints department mentioning that i was cancelling their service as i believed they had breached their contract with me. After this i switched to Sky and have had zero issues in the past four months.

9-10 weeks after sending the official complaint i got a call from Origin saying they had just read my complaint. They then said that i breached the contract and that i never contacted them. They then claimed i did not let them resolve my issues. Keep in mind that it took them 9-10 to respond to my complaint. After talking to them on the phone they threatened me with debt collectors, and i refused to pay any further fees to them. Now i have a case going against them with the Ombudsman, and have reported them to OFCOM. Right now i am happy paying more with Sky as i receive a good consistent broadband connection, with good customer service

Three months after cancelling my direct debit to Origin i saw that money had been taken out my account. After investigating i found that they set up another direct debit without my knowledge and therefore took money out my account without my consent. I again cancelled this direct debit, but am afraid they will start it again.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Waited over a month with no communication for switch. Once that was done have found speeds to have fallen from 20mbs to 3mbs.
1hr 20 mins to speak to person who could not help. She has escalated my call and now I am on 2hrs and 40 mins and counting. Pretty shocking.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Dependent on Openreach, which is fine but they didn't seem to be able to contact Openreach to determine the problem with my service. Went almost 2 weeks with no service despite being told multiple times that it'd be online within 24 hours or they'd explain the fault. Often long wait times, although WeQ4U worked fine so didn't bug me much. Extremely cheap prices, especially if paid in advance.

• Satisfaction
  3 stars
• Customer Service
  2 stars
• Speed
  5 stars
• Reliability
  1 star

Awful customer service (no response) and terrible internet problems.

Avoid. Can't deliver an acceptable service.

Switched providers and no issues

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

I'm so disgusted with origin broadband. I have called in 7-8 times in the last 6 weeks of being with origin, as every few days my broadband disconnects. They also told me my monthly payments would be £17 but they take £36. I would not recommend anyone joins this company. Each time I have called in I spend minimum 1 hour on the phone. Terrible I'm shocked by service of this company.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Origin offers a good price for broadband services. I have a low requirement so opted for 17MB speed which when working is fine, however, lately i have found the service poor during the day which may bevdue to Outreach working on the system?
The help line was very helpful on the occasion that I needed them, extremely patient whilst sorting me out.

• Satisfaction
  4 stars
• Customer Service
  5 stars
• Speed
  4 stars
• Reliability
  2 stars

poorest service in the UK. poor customer service on phone and email. broadband speed from 3.5mbps to max 7.8mbps for download and 0.01 mbps to 0.79mbps for upload on ADSL. The speed stays same whetherits midnight or weekend or weekday, just poor service. Price is same as of talk talk, plus net or EE so better avoid Origin. at the end of contract you pay for another 1 month as you have to give them notice and then return the crappy router..which I am putting in recycling bin as I don't want another customer to suffer with poor Origin hardware. AVOID, AVOID, AVOID this poorest broadband. I am now with Plusnet and I have constand 13mbps download and 1.09 mbps upload in Greater London area.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

I put 1 star cause I had to, but I give to OriginBroadband -10stars. Worst services I have never had, never available, dishonest, the list is long.... RUNAWAY

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

One would be better off banging ones head off a brick wall for six months than dealing with this excuse for a company.

Once you sign up, nothing happens. Eventually after some weeks you might get an email with an install date. A basic router will arrive in the post. No instructions on how to access origin servers.
So you call them and wait for over an hour before getting through. To be fair some of the staff are pleasant but if there is an issue then it's through to level two with literally hours of waiting before speaking to someone.

Speeds were dial up 200k per sec. After much complaining, they increased the speeds slightly.

Things were OK for a while then extra charges appear on the bill for no reason. When queried, again after long wait and no return emails, they say they will credit.

One customer service agent will talk to you on Facebook but then another will refuse, sighting data protection. Bizarre.

Really do not go near this outfit with a bargepole. It will snap your will to live.

Everything is a problem. All the bad reviews are right!

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Last summer we moved out of my parents place to our new flat and as such we had to find both a landline and broadband provider. My preferred choice from previous years was Virgin but unfortunately this was not available at our new address. Origin had a very tempting offer, £17pm for both landline and (basic) broadband, so I jumped for it.

Unfortunately, I wish I hadn't. First month of billing, they took £27 out of my account, not £17 as advertised. Called them up, they admitted it was a billing mistake and they would rectify it, which they did after a week or so. Second month, again they billed me £27. Again on the phone to them, again they apologise and said they were working to rectify the billing problem. Again I was refunded. Third month.... yeah, you can probably guess.

At this point I was getting a little fed up so I asked if I could pay the remainder of my 12 month contract in one lump sum and just cancel the direct debit, thereby saving me the hassle of having to jump through hoops every month. They agreed and said it was fine for me to cancel my DD.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they started emailing me saying asking why I had cancelled my DD, even though at the time of paying the lump sum the gentlemen assured me it was ok to cancel it and that he would put a note on my account clearly stating I was paid up. I guess they don’t bother reading the notes on the account.

Aside from that, the internet speeds are pretty awful. I mean, I went for the cheapest package, so I knew what to expect. I get 5-6MB, which is fine. But when it dropped to 3 and web pages were failing to load, I got on the blower. At that point they decided to ‘move’ my profile from the slowest to the highest, whereby I was back to normal (expected) speeds.

There is some good to be fair. We only had one major outage where the service wasn’t available for a day or two. Also, despite the issues I’ve had, on the phone they are a pretty friendly bunch and at least try to be helpful.

Overall though, I won’t be renewing with them. If nothing else because I have no confidence in their billing system, it just doesn’t seem to work.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  3 stars
• Reliability
  4 stars

New customer from Dec 17. Very slow speeds,nowhere near speeds advertized.
Costantly dropping connection. But isn't this all ISP's in the UK now. Customer service is very poor to none existent. Lied too and shouted at me. Customer service refuse give sir name so you don't know who you're talking to. Waiting over 25 mins to speak to someone . AVOID AT ALL COSTS. We need a shake up in this country with these cowboy, take your money and run,companies. All ISP's work on contract, so they immdiately are in breach of their own contract as soon as they don't provide what their contract says it does.So you are not obligated as soon as this happens and can sue for breach of contract.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

It's a common thing with Origin, dropout after dropout on broadband. When it's up the speed is maybe 2Mb on a good day but it forever drops out so not much use. Their billing philosophy is naff, charging a month up front before connecting and then charging a high rate for a partial month after connection plus the next month in advance. I'm giving up after suffering for 12 months and expect a battle getting a refund for what I've paid in advance. It's cheap but still not worth it because it's so unreliable

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

It didn't work from the start. It took me 45 minutes to get through to Technical Help and then over the next week I spoke to various people as to why it kept cutting out. On 17th February I Was promised it would be okay in ten days. It wasn't and still isn't. Last week I took 15 minutes to get through to a man there who then put me through to a level 2 technical expert. Well in theory he did. I hung on for over 50 minutes then just gave up. I have now written to the CEO and await a reply. Pigs will fly. MY Internet still cuts out about twice an hour and one lady there had the temerity to tell me if I switched to another company I would be charged a penalty. Avoid this company like the plague. They are totally useless.

I don’t suppose it will make any difference to them actually fixing my outstanding issues, but I would like to help others making their future broadband provider choices and say this company don’t give a fig about customer service. Their technicians will say anything to get you to go away; I’ll report it to networks, I will assign it to myself so I can monitor it and the ultimate push off I will call you back when I am back in and then don’t.
Have just spent another evening trying to get through with no success. So go on Origin get in touch if you dare and let me actually provide you with some constructive comments on your service processes.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  4 stars
• Reliability
  1 star

Awful awful service. I have been with 0.5Mb broadband (wired) for nearly 20 days now and am paying £33 per month. I email and ring up constantly and get no response. I emailed again to ask why they are ignoring me and I get sent 'LOL' from one of their customer services representatives. Please DO NOT use origin broadband.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Over 3 weeks and still no internet, customer service is a nightmare. They've "lost" replies to emails, different members of staff told me conflicting things. Supposed to get a text and email confirmation of a date after being on the phone which never happened. Going to cancel with them as it is beyond a joke now.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Awful service, speeds are intermittent at the best of times. Oct/Nov i had 3 weeks of no service followed by a week or so of intermittent service, got a credit to the grand total of £5 and then all communication stopped when i questioned this. Never get through on the phone only via twitter chat, when i was told the lines were free i was still placed on hold until i said so in my twitter chat. Seeing the reviews and what they are doing to their staff makes me wish i had paid that bit more and gone elsewhere (although there are packages available cheaper now!). Currently complaining via the resolver website (surprise surprise no contact from them - 12 days until i can go to the ombudsman) shame you cant give 0 stars, please avoid!

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Absolutely terrible... can't even watch netflix the broadband is that bad. Constantly cuts off and you have to re start the router for the tiniest bit of Internet and then it is still rubbish. Do not get your broadband from this provider.... 0 stars

Service was OK. On terminating contract sent me a bill for >£200 for termination of contract even though the fixed term had expired.

• Speed
  3 stars
• Reliability
  3 stars

amazing customer service, couldnt fault anything.

• Satisfaction
  5 stars
• Customer Service
  5 stars
• Speed
  5 stars
• Reliability
  5 stars

Originally took well over 20 days to get me live on ADSL and I've been waiting 22 days to go live on fibre without ever being contacted. I've contacted them multiple times and have been told each time that they have no news on an upgrade date. I've been waiting so long that the BT website no longer says that fibre is available as it is over capacity. I waited MONTHS for it to be available and they potentially make me miss out by being so incredibly slow. Unbelievably poor service - Keep well clear

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

OK... so here it is ive read reviews of other people, now i started building pcs when windows 95 was released im very tech savvy and know what im on about with speeds and service connections etc.

Now id been a virgin customer for years and there speeds are much better but there always ramping up prices and it was winding me up that iud been on moneysavingexperts site at the time and came across 'originbroadband' now i opted to pay 2 years upfront at the time i got that for just under £300 pounds all in works out at 12.50 a month in my case but its already paid and i never get any bills, now first thing i did was unplugged my actual home phone i dont use it and it started ringing before id ghiven out its number so i assumed it was sales or whatever but anyway i ONLY plug my home phone in if i want to make a phone call from it and that would be a free phone number only as i like not ever having any bills, but have a good mobile contract so my calls are done on my mobile anyway, now origin uses bt systems in actuality they all share its infrastructures and networks unless were talking cable and fibre optic, you are supplied with a free router but a cat 5 ethernet cable you want to buy a cat 6/7/8 (6) will be cheapest and fine ethernet cable (ebay?) even asda ethernet cables will be cat 5, cat 5 is terrible but any free ethernet cable you will get you can assume will be cat 5, if you hardwire your connection via ethernet your speed will be faster and more reliable and you can get 10m 20m cables and such, also buy a better microfilter to squeeze a little more juice out of that phone line again (ebay?) so all this up to 17mb jargon you here, this translated into a real typical download speed of 0.7gb per second im talking you know torrents or whatever expect to be hitting 0.7gb real download speed of these files again you get what you pay for, now if i run an actual speed test on my line it tells me my my download speed is 7gb per second so you may be thinking well why am i getting 10% of this in real terms then? well the answer is and i was clued into this by virgin media a long time ago and the respons was at that time as i was on about 20gb speed with them '20gb is your container speed and youre real actual download torrent speed would be 10% of that which was why at that time i was recvieving 2gb per second download speeds, so this is omething to remmeber we can call this clever marketing to make things sound better than what they are but in summary 20gb=2gb 50gb=5gb and so on REMEMBER THIS,now im rating this 5 starts in overall satisfaction purely as i got what i paid for it does the job i require it was cheap and thats it.

• Satisfaction
  5 stars
• Customer Service
  3 stars
• Speed
  3 stars
• Reliability
  3 stars

My broadband stopped working on Sunday and today it is Thursday and it is still off line. Now they are saying it will be next week. The service that you are supposed to be providing has again been shown to be substandard when it comes to making international calls, which are included in the package included in my contract. Even though the calls are supposed to be included in the package, I have been charged extra for them on multiple occasions. After the first time I called and was given a refund, but since then it has happened in my last two bills.

It is very difficult to get in touch with customer services or technical support. After being left on your for hours, sometimes I might get connected to one of your workers, who then may or may not be able to help with the problem. However, testing response times by calling the number to join Origin Broadband, I was connected almost immediately, which brings questions about your willingness to help existing customers.

It is almost impossible to contact customer service again as they put you on hold for hours. They don't provide another way to contact them such an email address. They do have a Facebook page where I asked for help, but although I got a reply from them, nothing has been done regarding my issues with billing for the phone calls or with my broadband service.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  2 stars
• Reliability
  1 star

I joined yesterday. No broadband at all. I've been on hold to tech support for 1.5 hours so far. Worst service ever. Wish I had checked this site out first before switching. Now going to cancel. Are there any decent broadband suppliers out there.... What a way to spend a Saturday morning. Very frustrating.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

DON'T SIGN UP WITH THIS TERRIBLE COMPANY.THEY SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO OPERATE. The bad reviews absolutely reflect my experience. 5 weeks after paying the obligatory first instalment I STILL don't have broadband. Takes hours to get through to technical support and customer 'service' pass you from pillar to post. They are the worst company I've ever dealt with.please heed our advice and avoid at all costs. They are breaking the law and I'm going to report to Ofcom.

• Satisfaction
  1 star

Loss of connection several times a day for no apparent reason,
customer service take forever to get in touch with , when you are in touch they try basic setting tests but nothing gets resolved.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  2 stars
• Reliability
  1 star

If it were possible to select no stars that would be better! Switched online on 28/6/17 took payment successfuly and 6 weeks later received nothing. Our own provider cancelled as requested our service and on calling origin ( and waited an eternity to talk to anyone) they admit our order was not placed!!!! Best they can do is place it in the next 24-48 hrs!!!! From there it would take 10-14 days to set up. Called plus net our previews supplier who got us up and running in 9 day. Not always about price they may seem cheap but service shocking and left us with no braodband and told lies on the phone as to the state of the line. Shocking service

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Cancelled my service today and it’s the only time in 2 years I’ve managed to get through to customer services in a reasonable length of time. With fibre speed less than 0.5 MBps and virtually unusable I sacked it. Totally appalling ISP from day 1. Steer clear. Shouldn’t be in business.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

So far, so good. I moved to Origin Broadband a month ago from Plusnet. The transfer went smoothly and the connection speed has been perfect, and more stable.

• Satisfaction
  4 stars
• Customer Service
  4 stars
• Speed
  4 stars
• Reliability
  4 stars

Experienced some major hick-ups during the set-up process, firstly, there was no confirmation of service switching and a set-up date (resolved by messaging via facebook), secondly they didn't send me a password to connect to my router, so while I had full connection, I had no way of actually using the internet. Having said that, after 30 minutes on hold I got connected to a lovely bloke on their tech team who immediately issued me with a password. A speed test shows that it is well below what was advertised, but I see absolutely no difference between Origin and my old provider, so as long as I can browse and stream (which I can without any issues), I am a happy customer.

• Satisfaction
  4 stars
• Customer Service
  4 stars
• Speed
  3 stars
• Reliability
  4 stars

Origin Broadband really deserves a negative amount of stars.

Setting it up took forever. Of course, you pay extra for it and already pay for the broadband even though it is not yet working.

The internet speed is really poor and if you restart the router it takes at least half an hour until the internet works again.

They are a paperless company, which I at first thought was a good thing. But for origin that just means that you don't get any written confirmation regarding your order (or termination) at all. Their costumer portal is a joke.

They terminated my service a week early. Unnecessary to say that they were not competent enough to correct the mistake.

The only thing they were good with was the billing. They usually charged me two months in advance.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Good package, broadband quick and reliable, great customer service.

• Satisfaction
  5 stars
• Customer Service
  5 stars
• Speed
  5 stars
• Reliability
  5 stars

Awful.
Cancelled before the 14 days due nothing being confirmed, no communication and queues to speak to someone so long, I gave up after up to 8 minutes on hold, on 3 separate occasions.
Cheap for a reason.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star

Have been with Origin for a couple of years on broadband and am very happy with them. The best price for broadband and line rental, and customer service has always been excellent. Broadband not the fastest but this is because of distance from exchange. BT have finally upgraded the line to fibre, so am transferring to fibre but staying with Origin.

• Satisfaction
  5 stars
• Customer Service
  5 stars
• Speed
  4 stars
• Reliability
  4 stars

By far the worst company I've ever dealt with! I agreed to the £16.99 broadband per month to later find sums from £40-80 had left my account to no explanation as to why. My service was poor I complained and conveniently my complaints were lost and I had to re-explain on a number of occasions to despair. This went on from May till Novemebr they eventually agreed to refund my full payments only to find they again took the money out of my account! Months of grief and no explanation I've never been so frustrated. Even the staff bad talk the firm how they continue to run is beyond me.
Believe me when I say AVOID

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star
• Speed
  1 star
• Reliability
  1 star