Origin Broadband Reviews

Customer service might be OK if they ever answer the phone! Abysmal! I have now held for 45 minutes twice and still not got through to anybody. I only wanted to upgrade my package but thinking I'll just wait until my contract ends and leave them.

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

The speed of the internet is slow, can not be any quicker. Always the same speed with previous providers.

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

Very poor speed (1Mb/s), intermittent connection, customer services reaction was "that's the speed you get" (tough!)
they block incoming connections (FTP etc.), although they deny it, unless you pay extra for fixed ip (DDNS is blocked.

I have changed supplier, instant speed increase to 4Mb/s - engineer visit, speed now 7.5Mb/s. I am also now able to use ddns without issue.

my advice - Avoid origin Broadband.

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star

Worst customer service known to man, if you like to listen to 3 different songs for multiple hours while trying to contact your Internet provider then this is the site for you! And if you like paying for a service your not provided then also this is a site for you, but if your one of them really lucky people (the type that wins the lotto multiple times) then you will eventually have someone answer the phone, but they will just fob you off with what you want to hear "so you go away" and then never answer the phone again. But on the plus side you will have the option to switch provider, just as soon as your contract runs out, Advised.

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

Ratings should have -5 stars the only good thing I can say about this service is they don't have that terrible noise we older folk can remember from dial up. Do not I repeat DO NOT be conned. This must be the worst service ever.

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

Want give me my money back even thought I cancelled one day after signing up. Do not use this company. Decided to cancel due to press coverage of them being in trouble (financially) - no refusing to give me my sign up deposit back. Seriously do not consider these.

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

Terrible company. Broadband regarding speed and reliability ok, but a complete mess regarding invoicing. I can only repeat what others have already mentioned....AVOID....AVOID....AVOID...at all costs. The market will do the rest.

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

Here we are another Originbroadband fail no phone no broadband again !
We have been overcharged month after month . we spend hours on hours to contact them they to tell them they over charged they then charge the right amount for one month then we have to ring again next month overcharged again. This as gone on for months they promised refund never arrived now we have paid hundreds of pounds over our contract 18 months @ 23.50p some months 65.00p. And now no service phone or broadband at all for five days but they will still take there money for no service again These clouns must be stopped

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

Poor beyond belief, imagine if Fawlty Towers ran a broadband company. Didn't tell me about my activation day, turned up unannounced and then the changeover left me without broadband as they hadn't posted my router yet (they sent it to the wrong address 3 times!) and lack of notice meant had to pay out my notice for old broadband provider. Slow speeds. Unreliable. Received other people's bills on more than one occasion. Terrible customer service. Posted router back at end of contract and after 4 phone calls and 2 emails am now taking them to court to be paid back the money for the postage they agreed to pay 3 months ago. Avoid at all costs.

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

Never buy broadband with them, they are the worst ISP inn the country, the internet will be down 70% of everyday, the internet speed you paid for will never be met and should you call to tell them that it is not working they will say it is working according to their computer and that it will cost us heavily if we call out a bt technician. I AM SERIOUS I TYPE THIS TO WARN YOU DO NOT GET THEIR BROADBAND!!!

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

Avoid. Guilty of breech of consumer trading law: "False Free Avertising".

They advertise the router as included and "totally free of charge"... yet you will get stung with the follwing when you leave after your term completes.

Origin policies page :

"However our relationship comes to an end, we will need our modem/router back. So you will be required to return our modem/router to us within 14 days after termination/cancellation.

If you do not return our modem/router to us we will invoice you for each piece of equipment in the amount of £40.00 (including VAT). The modem/router will then become yours."

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

I have been contacting Origin Broadband recently because they are preventing the activation of a new Superfast broadband cabinet in the village of Hatfield Woodhouse near Doncaster. They have failed to give their agreement to Open Reach for activation of the new cabinet and the result is that their customers who are paying for a fibre broadband service are being denied the best broadband available (even though they are already paying for it) and a large number of other residents in Hatfield Woodhouse cannot access Superfast Broadband even though the cabinet is installed and has been ready to be activated for 6 months.
I am told that Origin Broadband have caused the same problem in other areas but they are unwilling to make contact with Open Reach and resolve the problem.
From my conversations with Origin, I don’t believe they understand the problem so they are denying it exists.
If you are an Origin fibre broadband customer in Hatfield Woodhouse I recommend that you contact them to seek compensation as they are not fulfilling their responsibility to provide you with the best broadband service available.

• Satisfaction
  1 star

This is my review and to be honest I don't know where to begin with this company. Unreliability has been a major problem with the internet going down without prior warning of doing so. Despite numerous times I've rang to discuss issues like most of you the people are nice to talk to but it's like with there internet they can't function and go into the classic default mode of trying to blame BT or lying repeatedly to me about this will get solved or as I had with one of the complaints team " I know about the final right to reject and I accept that and also we will pay back in full the money that you paid out for the router that I had to pay for". This of cause was another lie. The other problems I've had is the internet will go off when we need it the most as I've got a one year old son he likes watching YouTube videos of his favourite tv shows it's very difficult telling a one year old that the internet has gone off and it's not his fault. Generally the moto for origin is correct the only thing they got right. Where it begins. Yes it begins with them lying, taking money for a service that works when it wants to and not accepting blame. If any of you have an enemy and they ask for advice for there next internet company then go with origin. This company should be shut down completely and Ofcom and relevant associations should close them down before anybody else's hard earned money goes to this horrible company.

• Customer Service
  2 stars

Had Origin for a year and generally found them to be really poor. I’ll preface by saying I’ve been with pretty much every big provider at some point – Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet, Virgin, Vodafone, and whilst nobody is perfect, you should steer clear of origin.

My personal experience has been unsatisfactory in a number of areas, which has been topped off by their recent awful customer service.
Origin does usually provide a speed around what they state, but unfortunately it is fairly common to find that randomly the internet connection cuts out or drops in speed for no reason. They’re initial setup speed is also very slow – I placed an order in June and didn’t get switched over to them until November. And that’s in London, not a rural place where connection may be tricky
The Router is pretty standard, but its wifi range is not particularly good, the signal is too weak to even constantly watch Standard Definition Netflix on another floor. You can always fix this with boosters, but when you pay £25 for the modem, you feel a bit hard done by.

The worst thing I’ve found is recently, when I tried to call up around July to find out my end of contract date. I was told November, and then when November came around, I used a switching service to get a new provider that had a deal on [Vodafone].
I then got a bill for 5 months internet, for leaving my contract early. Despite phoning the customer service department 4 times, the story I get is always the same. We’ll listen to the call to confirm if you were given the wrong information, and let you know. The next day they say, ‘you signed a contract’ and that I’m liable for monies owed, even though the mistake is on their behalf, and nobody has listened to the phone call to verify this. And so they promise to do the same thing, and the next day it’s the same story. All the while dragging out my potential cancellation date for my new Vodafone contract.

For a company to be so devious in trying to extract money from you which they are not owned, should be criminal. But worst of all, is their unwillingness to even do their jobs, to review their call logs and confirm these errors. It is inherently unfair to give a customer wrong information, and then penalise them based on that information. Simple as that. Any company that carries out such a practice, should is inherently untrustworthy and should be avoided at all costs
To put this in perspective, I’ve also had multiple issues with my new Vodafone connection. But their customer service team and sent me out a new modem ASAP, and have added data to a sim to cover me with 4G during my lost internet time, and the manager has suggested changing the billing date so we don’t end up paying for internet we’ve not been able to use. This is the sign of a conscientious company, which values customers. Problems happen all the time, I accept that. But how a company handles the solution is the real test… and unfortunately Origin Fails miserably

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

Origin cancelled my broadband (6 Nov) as they said they could no longer provide a service in my area (I had just renewed this and paid GBP200 in advance for a years broadband). Origin also tried to take GBP 58 pounds at the end of the contract, which I stopped. I could not access my online account to see why.

Origin then also requesting I return the router at my own expense (which they said I could keep) and also charged me for the last month of service (which they said would be free).

I have only just managed to access my online account and now Origin are saying I owe them money (GBP 28) but the bill does not itemise what this is for. They are not acknowledging that they owe ME money and so far have not offered to return any of the money I paid in advance. So far numerous emails on this subject to their so called Customer services (and including the managing director) and Facebook messages have not resolved anything.

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

18 months with Origin must have been one of THE worst experiences of any kind of service I have ever received. Everything from charging me wrong three times, taking lump payments then direct debits, tonsending three different routers out, none of which worked, to abysmal internet speed when it actually worked, to their customer services (the same two women when you can get through), to the way they deal with you, to eventually trying to not let me leave when the contract had ended, to this morning trying to take £40 out of my account as they hadn’t received the router back yet. Please do not give them your money or you’ll end up paying for it ten times over with your time.

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

This probably has to be one of the worst internet providers I've had to deal with. Connection constantly cuts out, sometimes for hours or it just jumps on and off every two minutes. Earlier today, I tried downloading an app of the GooglePlay store, it genuinely took me 5 minutes because the connection kept jumping on and off. Don't get me started on the game I tried downloading the other day. YouTube was struggling to load a 240p video earlier this week. And all of this is AFTER we switched to the 'fiber optic' package. We tried calling the tech line, see if we could get these issues sorted, we were told that they cannot speak to us because we, as tenants, are not listed 'as trustees' as it's our landlord who sorted the wifi. I don't blame the employees, it's a rule, not their fault. But it's a stupid rule because they refused to even check if anything was wrong with the connection.

Sure, sometimes it runs smoothly and we don't have any issues, but to put it in perspective, I am writing this off my 3G.

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

Terrible patchy service. Line dropped without explanation. Slowest broadband speed we've ever had. Useless router. Friendly customer service let down by a awful product. We've just moved to Talk Talk fibre (with some trepidation given their reputation) but couldn't be happier. Has made me realise how pants the last year with Origin has been.

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

AVOID AVOID AVOID
Keeps cutting out for weeks!
Customer service n technical not trained, take u round in circles, useless careless, faults promise to ring back n never do, big time liers, robbing thievs

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

I havent even rated this service cus i havent even had it i paid my bill...... and some how i have no internet.....because someone has took over my line... i have explained that i buy and sell on line and without it i can not live.... they dont care said someone will ring back... yhis has never happened this service has been no exsistant i have had the worst service ever avoid.... avoid... avoid... do not go with origin....

Terrible service throughout my one year contract. Very poor customer service, lie after lie when I challenged their answers to my problem. I paid the full year in advance as it was a good saving but they continued to bill me every month and it took almost 10 months to resolve. I did have a reasonable service from September 2017 to the end of May 2018 but since then it has been diabolical since then with download at 0.3mbps regularly and upload slightly higher at 0.6mbps. When I really started to push them on the problem they suddenly (by email) advised me that they could no longer provide me a service and gave me 30 days notice to change provider! The reason they gave me was flimsy at best and a downright lie at worst - they said it was due to a"network restructure". When I tried to get an explanation of the so-called "restructure", I got a load of nonsense and decided to just cut my losses and change provider. I'm now with Plusnet and things are much better.As far as calling Origin goes, the longest wait I had for them to answer my call was ! hour and 47 mins!! To be told absolutely nothing!

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

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

Keep away. Cheap? yes but seriously pay a little extra and actually receive a service. This company may as well wear stripped jumpers and carry swag bags. They are so look bad

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

slow slow slow! it is so bad i no longer send emails i write letter as its more reliable, also i go to the library in salisbury to get information as it is quicker than google on my laptop!

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

I was with Plusnet but they had put the price up again, I suppose it was a BT thing as they are owned by BT so I was looking for a cheaper provider, this is when I came across Origin at £24.99 a month for their Max service. As I was getting 52Mbps from PN and the only thing changing was my payments I decided to take the plunge. The price seemed too good to be true and so it seems I should be getting over 50Mbps as I was with the other 2 providers.
My moving date was the 4th October and so it went OK they kept to their schedule, I got a text to say I could connect so did. I did a speed test to see how my speed was and got a shock 37.2Mbps I should be around the 50 mark I thought nothing of it it might be their start speed and they up the speed until the line drops constantly then lower it down a bit but I was using their excuse for a modem router the DSL-N16 so just after the 10 day period for allowing the speed to settle I get a new modem router an ASUS AC3100 I cannot get it to connect so it goes back after two weeks of trying. A few days later I get a Netgear AC1900 modem router after 2 days of fiddling I get it connected so box up their N16 freebie.

I do another speed test and it's only 37.26Mbps 0.06 faster than the piece of junk they provided.
I had to contact them online to get the router as all the others I had were for the providers I had previously left and I couldn't get the providers logins out of the windows. I tried but never could get the old provider out of the window. I do believe they are capping my service though as I am paying £24.99 for their MAX service and just after they took the money, when I signed up, they increased the fee to £28 in a matter of a day.

Also I think they capped my service because I can get over 50Mbps with my previous two providers but only a maximum of 37.26Mbps with Origin.
I even bought a better modem router to try and get a better speed but it didn't work, what I will say is if you want their max service don't expect to get it with their free DSL-N16 router it's worse than 5H1T.

There is another problem as well, I never saw any increase in the price been advertised after the first 18 months I've been with them nearly 3 weeks and today is the first I see of any increase after 18 months to £37.48 or is it .98? But as the minimum contract is 18 months then by month 19 I will be gone. If they can cut between 9Mbps and 16Mbps from my speed then I will at best see out the minimum term then go quicker than horse 5H1T off a wet stick.
Will I be gone in 18 months you bet I will. If I ever find out who the company CEO is he's going to get a mouthful and then some. Cap my service just because I might have been one of the last to sign up before the price increase from £24.99 to £28 and that to me is a breach of contract because I am not getting the speed I paid for, even if its stable it not what I am paying for.

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

You know a service is bad when you consider that buying out the remainder of your contract (approximately £600 and 1 year remaining) is actually much cheaper than the amount of money the poor service is costing you per month is lost earnings.

I contact Origin every 2-3 weeks with a complaint and the same story "A member of our team will contact you at this particular time etc etc" is said, but never happens.

Technically, this is actually fraud. The excuse of "The Service is provided by BT Open reach" is used, however I never had this issue while actually with them or indeed virgin when I was with those previously...So in affect, Origin are not providing a service but are charging a premium for it.

No doubt, one of their social media executives (yeah seriously, that is a real job) will contact me and try to offer a solution as before. But in reality, nothing will be resolved.

I'm not interested in perception, image or cost. I'm just interested in a product/service that ******* works...Sadly, this service does neither.

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

I have given them 1 stars because I cant give zero.
My internet connection has been terrible from day one, I complained to the company, but these complaints were closed by Origin without my agreement. I work aborad and cannot take telephone call when I am away, this is the only way origin will communicate with you, they will never put anything in an email.
Now 18 months down the line they say I owe them over £100 going back to last year. I have not heard anything about this prior to this. I have been abroad work and because I have not paid this outstanding amount they have cut my broadband off within 30 days of informing me I owe this money. My bills have always been paid ontime by direct debit.
Technical support is now only available during working hours and when you do call you end up on hold for at least 30 minutes.When you do manage to speak to someone they speak over the top of you, they do not listen to what you are saying, everything is very scripted.

Whatever you do keep away from Origin Broadband the connect is so intermittant and the customer service a complete joke. These are without doubt the worst company I have every dealt with.

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

Awful. I moved house and it's taken 2 months to try get WiFi to move with me. Sent out engineer who didn't even complete the fitting of WiFi. I then have 4 other dates I have taken of work for engineer to come around and he has not turned up to any of the 4 dates. Not one apology and still being charged when no service being provided. Fuming

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

What a totally rubbish company....
Avoid like the plague and pay more for a reliable provider,
I spent over 4 hours trying to connect the service and still ended up with a massive bill for cancelling the non existent service...
Go BT

• Satisfaction
  1 star
• Customer Service
  1 star

Can't score 0 stars Speed so slow I can't connect for a speed check. Three weeks now, promised numerous updates never received one. Now cancelled. AVOID, AVOID,AVOID.

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

Same problem as others have mentioned on here, paid upfront but still got charged a monthly fee about 6 times and had to chase them to get it back. Cancelled the Direct Debit but they set it up again. Even after I left they kept billing me and even called to chase up the money!

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

Awful customer service attitude, takes several calls to get any problems sorted. Avoid at all costs!

• Speed
  4 stars
• Reliability
  3 stars

Having paid for a year's service up front, I have had "bills" for monthly line rental on 6 occasions within a year. Each time, I had to call their helpline (no other contact possibilities given) and wait 20-30 minutes to be told that they'd fix it and it would not happen again. In August, they actually managed to steal £18.095 from me and to date have not paid it back despite me contacting them several times. Actual internet service is fairly fast but had to reboot rooter about once a month when it crashed or the service failed. No outages of more than one hour.

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

No service was provided and I was promised a refund for my years broadband paid for in advance. Still waiting after 8 weeks. First it was going to be a cheque but was told had to wait up to four weeks for it to be processed. Next it was going to be a bank transfer that never arrived.
Customer services are truly hopeless
I wouldn't use Origin again if you paid me.

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

There is a social media page dedicated to the poor customer service of this ridiculous company.
I honestly don't know how they get away with changing things/ making things up as they go along.
They don't even tell you that you need to return the router.
They they throw more obstacles in the way to stop you ever getting your refund.
SERIOUSLY AVOID, HUGE HEADACHE.

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

This company is totally unprofessional and their service is less than satisfactory. My late brother died APril2018 and after numerous emails and presentation of a death certificate they have continued to debit his account for five months after his death they are not a company I would recommend doing business with besides bad service you cannot get rid of them

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

The worst “fibre” broadband ever. Constantly being kicked off, the connection is so slow it’s ridiculous. It may be cheap but honestly just pay the extra few quid and go with a better company. I’m 10 months into my sentence now, only 2 months until I can change my broadband supplier. CANNOT WAIT!! Avoid origin like the plague.

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

Changed over to another provider was told origin will disconnect on 17 but disconnected on 13 very bad service not happy

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

We struggled on with Origin Braodband for 6 months before finally cutting our loses and giving up. Slow speeds, poor reliability, seemingly on desire to improve matters. To cap it all, 2 months after my 12 month up front line rental ended I became aware that they were still charging me for line rental. They refused to refund me claiming I had never informed them I was ending line rental!

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