Since Pipex customers were moved over to the Tiscali platform, we've heard rumblings of discontent. Would anyone care to enlighten us as to exactly where Pipex are going wrong?
"Having been with pipex for 12 months no problems untill tiscali took over. Then it hit the fan. They slowed my connection down to walking speed, it took me several phone calls to get it sorted. I then had enough and asked for my MAC code.Big mistake on my part, they asked me telephone them for my mac and conned me into another 12 month contract, with so many promises.I thought ok give them another chance. They then stole £180 out my bank, telling me i had cancelled within my contract period after 0ne month. What a load of thieves, so if you ask for your mac code, be sure to cancell DD first or they will rob you."
"After several emails exchanged and getting nowhere, they insisted that i telephone thier 0871 number at 10p minute, another money making scheme for them. Got through to mumbai and nobody understood a word of what i am talking about. They cut my broadband connection after they took all my money."
"I have never ever in my whole life had such appaling customer service from an appalling company. What i find worrying is that ofcom or any other toothless watchdog are just not interested and do not investigate. They also swithed my phone calls back to BT without my knowledge, so i recieved a bill from Bt for my calls. I have heard that tiscali try to get you to phone thier 0871 number to increase thier revenue in that way! I have now got another MAC code and switching to AOL now on thier flexi package.That way i can leave them when i like without any penalties."
"Given Pipex/tiscali the boot out my life for good. How can they sell a company without customers.lol."
Well, here is my experience with pipex (tiscali) since the covert switch to the tiscali platform, I remain without a broadband service and unable to make phone calls.
Anyone would be mad to sign up with Tiscali, they clearly consider their customers to be an inconvenience.
A short while ago I received a call from pipex inviting me to take advantage of a special offer of reducing my pipex max unlimited broadband service costs from £24.99 to £17.01 and also reducing my line rental costs a little, the reason given for making this offer was the that I was a longstanding and loyal customer, my primary concern was that there would be no change to the broadband service I currently receive and was repeatedly assured both by the operator and her supervisor that there would be no change to my broadband service, I understand you record all calls and would invite you to review the call to establish the validity of what I have said.
I have now discovered that my broadband service has been fundamentally changed in at least two ways, firstly, without my knowledge or consent I have been migrated from the pipex network to the tiscali network, a noticeably poorer performing network, secondly, and again without my knowledge or consent, my broadband service has been changed from pipex max unlimited to pipex lite, with a light user usage cap of just 3GB, further, without being informed beforehand I am being charged for any usage above 3GB and have just been issued an invoice in the absurd amount of £94 for a month of service.
In not being properly informed by your operator or her supervisor of the real changes pipex intended to make to my service I was clearly and deliberately mislead by your company, a contract acquired in such a manner is legally null and void and you are obliged to return my service to the status quo before any such changes took place, alternatively you may provide me with a migration authorization code and allow my broadband service to be properly migrated to another provider, this would be preferable as I shall be moving from pipex either way.
In view of the above the bank has been instructed that direct debits from your company are no longer authorized, equally I am informing you that your company is no longer authorized to make direct debits against my account, once the charges reflect what they would have been before the inception of this void contract and I can see confirmation of this online and in an email from a person of authority in your finance/accounts department I shall instruct the bank to honor such direct debits once again.
In order to initiate a migration request please contact our Customer Care on 0871 222 5550. Opening hours: 9am - 6pm, Monday - Friday.
This enables us to perform the necessary security checks to ensure all requests originate from the account holder. It also gives us the opportunity to discuss your reasons for migrating.
Please note that the migration of your broadband connection may incur a cancellation fee if you are still within your contract period. The cancellation fee would consist of any remaining months of your contract.
If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Unfortunately I have been very busy of late and unable to spend the time dealing with the issues regarding my account with you until now.
It is very disappointing that despite having made a number of premium rate phone calls, and been made a number of commitments by your company, those agreements remain unfulfilled and the issues still unresolved.
On the 10th September I spoke to your finance department, after explaining the issues I had with my service charges I was told that charges totaling £63.75 would be credited against invoice number SIN4605691.
Also on the 10th September I spoke with your retentions department and was offered a new service agreement detailed as follows:
A rolling monthly contract allowing me to terminate service in any month without incurring extra costs.
8Mb unlimited broadband.
Free weekend calls in the UK and a selected number of other countries.
Free phone line rental.
No changes to my email accounts.
Service charges of £9.99 per month.
On the 11th September, after being left a message indicating that my service could be suspended, I called your accounts department and was asked to pay the full amount (£94.89) of the invoice previously mentioned, I recapitulated my previous conversation with the finance department and again the operator agreed to remove £63.75 from the invoice, I asked for confirmation of this in writing before renewing my direct debit agreement, I was told that I should receive that letter by the end of the week, however I received a letter the next day demanding £94.89 that I assumed to be a cross post sent prior to my latest conversation.
Becoming increasingly concerned I also called your retentions department on the 11th September to confirm the details previously discussed with them and get assurance that the new service was in effect, I was told it was being processed and that I would received confirmation of the details of the agreed service within a couple of days.
One month on and I have yet to receive a letter reflecting the corrections to my account or the email confirming the new service level agreement made with your retentions department, to add insult to injury I now see that the latest invoice (SIN4627673) indicates that my service level agreement has not been changed. Despite it's posturing, it would appear that your company has taken no notice of the efforts I have made regarding these issues.
Given the commitments your company made to credit £63.75 of invoice SIN4605691 and switch my service contract to the one detailed above I calculate the actual outstanding balance on my account to be:
SIN4605691 £19.99 SIN4627673 £ 9.99 Total £29.98 (inclusive of VAT)
Given the conversations I have had with your company I require confirmation by letter that you will not attempt to draw more funds than the total stated above for those invoices, I also require that you confirm the service as agreed with your retentions department and that it is the current service level agreement I have with you.
On receipt of these confirmations I will renew my direct debit agreement with you.
Although I do not wish the extra inconvenience, if this situation is not satisfactorily resolved withing the next five working days, or you suspend my service, despite this debacle being caused by the inability or unwillingness of your company to move forward on the commitments it made on the 10th September, I shall refer the matter to CISAS for adjudication and take my complaint to the Telecommunications Ombudsman.
I would ask that you avoid causing further anxiety by resolving this issue in a timely and professional manner.
I have just received the following email from pipex credit control:
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Ref: nomop1
Account Number: xxxxxx
Dear Sir/Madam,
As we have no method of payment your Pipex account has now fallen overdue as we are yet to receive payment from you. Unless the balance is paid and a new Direct Debit/Credit Card Instruction is received within the next 6 days your Pipex services will be suspended.
To resolve this matter and to prevent any unnecessary disruption to your services, we kindly ask you to address this payment as soon as possible.
You can make payment over the phone on 0871 221 2212 with one of our dedicated customer service representatives.
In the meantime if we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards
Pipex Internet Credit Control
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Are you seriously just ignoring my communications as well as the arrangements and commitments pipex made to me over the phone, is there nothing that will cause you to react in a professional and competent manner???
I remind you that I was given no notification of these charges, on the contrary I was actively given the impression there would be no changes to my service, just a subscription reduction.
Should pipex continue to make no attempt of redress or response to my communications and suspend my service, further blocking my ability to migrate to another provider unless I pay the illegal sums being demanded, I will seriously consider suing for the undue stress and anxiety I am being caused, and also to recover the costs of having to have broadband installed on another line.
Please display some degree of concern and professionalism.
Thank you for your email, the contents of which have been noted.
I tried to call you today on your landline to discuss billing issue; however, there was no response. I have left a voice message for you.
Upon investigating your account, I can confirm that your account has been credited with £79.07 on the 10th September 2008. Your account has been credited with three month free broadband period. This will reflect in your next invoice. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience which may have been caused.
If you have any further requests or queries, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Care Team.
From: Kenny Stuart Sent: 11 November 2008 19:08:50 To: Pipex UK Customer Care (care@pipexuk.com)
Dear Abisola Obakoya.
I have lost the use of my telephone. I have lost the use of the internet. I have lost access to my pipex email accounts.
After taking nearly 25 days to respond to my emails and over a week after your company suspended my broadband service and barred me from making outgoing calls on my phone you send me this!
I have to say after practically having to beg for this to be addressed I gave up expecting any action from pipex to resolve this issue. No, I don't accept your apology, as someone who has spent the last twenty years overcoming depression the distress and anxiety that I continue to suffer at the hands of your company goes way beyond any inconvenience.
Firstly the amount in dispute was £63.75 not £79.07, if as you claim the latter was credited on the 10th September then what are the charges of £94.89 I was asked to pay on the 11th September and which were further requested in a letter of the 12th September? I think I made it quite clear that I needed to know how much pipex intends charging me before authorizing another direct debit, that appears to be confusing to you and I apologies for not making that request in an idiot proof manner.
Please provide me with my account balance and an explanation of what those charges are for, that is also known as a statement, should that remain confusing to you I would appreciate it if you would not wait nearly 25 days to let me know.
You are legally obliged to provide a statement upon request within a reasonable time frame, I would be grateful if you would honour that obligation, I don't think three months is reasonable, especially after you have crippled my broadband and telephone services in the interim.
Secondly, On the 11th September and numerous occasions since, I have asked for the details of the new agreement arranged with your retentions department to be forwarded to me, again that request appears to not have been idiot proof as I have yet to receive anything in this regard.
Please provide me in writing the service level agreement for the service agreed by me with your retentions department on the 10th September, please include details of the features and pricing of the service.
You are legally obliged to provide details of a service level agreement upon request within a reasonable time frame, I would be grateful if you would honour that obligation.
Although I am taking legal advise and will proceed accordingly let me make it quite clear that I am loathed to pay for the disgraceful level of customer service afforded me and the utter incompetence your company has shown in dealing with an issue entirely of your own making, it would have been so easy for you to provide the information I requested back in September.
RE: Complaint [Incident: 081011-007706]? From: Kenny Stuart Sent: 13 November 2008 17:43:57 To: Pipex UK Customer Care (care@pipexuk.com); Customer Care (customercare@pipex.net)
Dear Jerome Mullin
Thank you for a speedy response, although a rather poor effort at least it allows an opportunity to move the issue towards a resolution, it is a great shame that I was denied such an opportunity back in September by such a small attempt at customer service.
As previously requested please provide a breakdown of the outstanding balance as the sum of £38.80 does not appear correct to me, as previously stated I believe I owed £19.99 for September and £9.99 for October, you have not disputed this and yet continue to attempt to charge me £38.80, why?
If it is the case that you do not wish to resolve this issue, and I assume that this is the case as you have now cancelled my services with pipex which were previously temporarily suspended, then release my phone line and stop attempting to charge me monies that are in dispute and that you continue to deny me an opportunity to resolve.
It is simply unacceptable for your company to have prevented me the opportunity to resolve this issue during the period it was initially raised and continue to do so by not providing the information I have repeatedly requested and to which I am legally entitled, let alone crippling my broadband and telephone services in the interim.
Well it looks like others have suffered at the hands of pipex / tiscali. I was first under tiscali & the service I received from them was beyond belief, mind blowing even. So as any person put in this kind of situation would do ( by the way I was no longer under contract ) I started to look for another supplier, well I was advised to go to Pipex ( again this was before Tiscali bought them out ), so like a fool I went to pipex. The first few weeks was bliss, a good service, well better than I used to get from tiscali anyway. Then the bubble popped, well it blew up big time really, tiscali bought out pipex & boy did the good times start to roll or what!!!! Just to give you only a few of the problems I had & am continuing to have with pipex ( by the way I only have 6 more weeks of my 1 year contract then I am out of there ).
First of all not long after tiscali came & took over, every time I received & also made a phone call, I got kicked off the net. It then took about 5 to 10 mins for me to get that connection back again. I told them about this, they then said oh don't worry we have fixed it, then the next time I got a phone call I got kicked off again. I told them about it again & there engineers told me don't worry we have fixed it, well lets just say to cut a story short, this has now been going on for 10 months now & still to this very day, if we receive a call or if we make a call we get kicked off the net every single time. As you can understand just this little thing in its self would make a grown man cry, but as we know with pipex & tiscali they not only stab you in the chest, once there they then start to twist it as much as they can.
The last little bit of fun I have had is over the last 6 days, I started to get a slow speed connection, pipex would not accept this. But still it got worse & worse, to give you an idea I was getting speeds like 0.08 & 0,06 & 0.18. Now as we all know these speeds are not even dial up speeds, they are so slow its snail pace. Well after 6 days I now has 4mg speed, ok its not what I pay for that is 8mg but its better than what I was getting. Anyway while dealing with this I was told that I was not the account holder ( though I am ) I was then told it was my wife, but when she then phoned up she was told could not deal with this as I was the account holder. So she put me on & we was told that they had to put us through to another dept as it was them who needed to deal with this. They then told me that they could not deal with me as I was not the account holder. My wife then went on & she was then told she was not the account holder, by then I am sure you can all understand we was both close to killing someone. Needless to say we have just put the phone down on them, the problem is sorted, we have 4mg broadband speed so that is ok for now. When the 6 weeks are up we will then change to another ISP, we have sky tv so we might as well go to them for broadband as well, as we have them for phone as well. All I can say is that pipex should have there suppliers licence taken away from them & tiscali they should be shot at dawn every single employee they have. Anyone who thinks of joining pipex or tiscali DON'T DO IT you will end up being close to suicide.
Pipex Broadband
Posted - 27/05/2008 : 16:42:42
