[ScinteX]

[jmmijo]

Hmm, that's a sad tale of woe indeed

I'm glad that so far, Comcast has been very, very nice for me. They recently upgraded to 4Mbs from 3 last month

Before that it was ATTBI which also ran just fine and before that I had Qwest xDSL which was great too. Had one outage which Qwest fixed in about 2~3 hours...

I'm knocking on wood now

[packman]

Scintex,

I fully concur with you. Yes, matters with Tiscali certainly did go downhill after about 2002. They weren't particularly good BEFORE that, mind you. But, yes, it was around 2002 that Tiscali bought out a number of smaller ISPs in Europe, including LineOne, the one I used to be with, on dial-up. I was able to stay with a LineOne address but in essence I was now signed up with Tiscali.

I'm currently having major problems with Tiscali, with them trying (it seems) to defraud me and many others. They are deliberately not closing their billing when customers leave them. They've even taken it to the point where they've instructed bailiffs to recover money or goods from past customers, even though the accounts were closed way back.

I myself closed my LineOne Surftime joint account with them last October but have been given the run-around by them ever since. They publish account cancellation guides at their website which are totally inoperable, they don't respond positively to e-mails on the subject, and they make every attempt to make you phone them on premium-rate phonelines, to try to get your account sorted. I've also written to them by snailmail several times but they say one thing and do (or rather, don't do) another. For example, I had a letter of reply from them dated 2nd Feb 2005, where they state that they apologise and will immediately cancel the continued billing via British Telecom (BT) and also remit me a cheque. They state they'll do this within 28 days. It's now 3rd March and they've done no such thing. And I can't even phone BT about it, as all lines to BT's customer service are apparently permanently busy, day after day.

My Surftime account was linked with BT - part of what I paid went to BT, the other part to Tiscali, with the two parts appearing on my quarterly BT bill. But Tiscali are still billing me every quarter. They also owe me some money, from me having quit only one third way through a quarter. I've talked to BT about this many times in past months but BT maintain that they cannot remove Tiscali's billing unless Tiscali want to. I mean, that's ludicrous, isn't it? However, I'm stuck with that situation.


If you look at some of the archived ISP complaints from the last year or two on www.ispreview.co.uk, you'll see that there are many complaints of my and your kind about Tiscali. Some ex-Tiscali customers in the UK have had to resort to getting solicitors involved or attempting to get help from Ofcom. Actually, Tiscali has been voted by users of ISPReview as the worst ISP in every category for the last few years. I'm seeking legal advice, myself, at present.

Frankly, I cannot see how an ISP could have sunk to these depths. I cannot see that, by appearing to be either unethical or so incompetent, that Tiscali can ever hope to gain anything. Sure, they can earn interest on ex-customers' money while the disputes continue but, in the end, they'll be shown up for what they are.

Certainly, I'd never recommend anyone signing up with Tiscali. Doing that in the first instance might be easy but leaving them is a veritable nightmare. It seems that, especially in the UK, we have no safeguards against this kind of thing.

[ScinteX]

Wow guys I am humbled by your posts!
It's actually times like these that you realise that you cant fight these people just by yourself. Solicitors and other bodies are usually needed. It's a real pain in the as$ since I would love to go down there and smash some stuff up!
So for the time being I think patience is needed.

I got bored earlier and just phoned them up pretending not to know anything and started to say fun stuff at them like (all done with 0 preparation- makes for the must amusing stuff lol):

Tiscali:Whats your phone number?
Me: I dont know
Tiscali: Ok what's your surname?
Me: I don't have one everyone calls me Joe
Tiscali: Ok Mr Joe
Me: No it's just Joe
Tiscali: Your surname is Joe and your firstname is Just? As in Justin?
Me: No not just in I have been waiting a while
Etc....

Then:
Me: Hi I have a real big problem I am trying to cancel my broadband can you help?
Tiscali: Yes of course what wrong?
Me: You have been investigating why my remaining contract period is never going down its always on 6 months.
Tiscali: Have we?
Me: You told me you have an investigation team on the case, have they found out anything yet?
Tiscali: We don't have an investigation team here we just do cancellations
Me: Of course you do, I am sure the Tiscali Investigation Team (TIT) are looking into it
Tiscali: Sorry I don't know what you are talking about
Me: Let me have a look through some old emails I'll get back to you later today. I really think you should look up what that team do as I think you could all work in there rather than being on a helpdesk all day
Tiscali: Really? (sounds quite pleased)
Me: Yes look up that team, be one of them
Etc...

haha what joy. Childish... yes... pleasing oh yes!

S

Them:

[AndyFair]

I've also heard many terror stories about Tiscali - including the refusal to release the MAC codes that allow you to transfer your ADSL from one supplier to another, continuing to charge customers way beyond their cancellation date, and many other tales too horrible to repeat here.
They were also, of course, the company that got their wrists slapped by Ofcom for describing 128k as broadband.

Glad I could help with the recommendation, but remember: if it all goes tits up, you haven't seen me, right?

[packman]

[packman]

Scintex,

I also meant to give you Ofcom's tel no: 020-7981-3040 or 0845-456-3000. I assume you're in the UK somewhere. You could at least complain to Ofcom in the first instance. DON'T rant and rave, though; keep everything succinct. Ofcom won't be able to help you directly, but they WILL log your complaint. If they get enough complaints about Tiscali, perhaps something in the end will be done about it, in a more universal way.

[ScinteX]

Thanks packman much appreciated.
The facts it is then, no worries there.
I only played the games cos somehow it made me less annoyed at them- never menacing in anyway.
I hope they release that MAC code like good people should.
I'll make a few enquiries with Ofcom and Otelo.

Thanks again, kind regards

[packman]

Glad to be of some small help, Scintex.

BTW, is that 'Business 500' you're on, with Tiscali, or is it an earlier 'domestic' broadband account? It might be that Tiscali regards only their Business range of DSL packages as worth supporting and perhaps they let everything else go to the wall. That's the impression I get, anyway, rightly or wrongly.

I think it was only relatively recently that Tiscali shifted a lot of its so-called customer support to call centres in India. Judging by what's happened with countless other IT organisations when they've done that, that's real bad, as the support staff there are usually woefully inadequate and only give answers that their supervisors approve, anyway.

[Wicked101]

Hi ScinteX,

I dont know if this will help, but here in Germany I use 1&1, they are very good and I've never had any problems with them. I only have a 1024 line with flatrate and I pay 19 Euro/month, I dont think thats bad at all.

Just a little useless information, use it, dont use it:-)

[packman]

Alecstaar, I ( and I guess) Scintex take your points on board, obviously. Unlike the legal situation that exists in the States, in the UK, disputes of this sort are handled in a much more low-key way. Going to court over such a relatively small amount of money involved simply wouldn't happen. The best one could hope for, in the UK, is to either get a solicitor (attorney) to write a warning notice to the offender, or to take the offender to the Small Claims Court. In either case, it means the plaintiff spending money, again perhaps more than they'd get back from winning the case. It'd rarely even go this far, though. As often as not, a better route is to get a TV consumers programme to expose the fraud. But the TV company will only do it if enough victims write in. In the case of Tiscali customers, my impression is that they don't bother and just let Tiscali get away with it.

[theefool]

Just curious. Why not change out your nic, that way you don't have to wait on your MAC to be released. Unless you are not talking about the MAC address on the NICs themselves......

[AndyFair]

thefoool, no the MAC code we're talking about here is an authorisation code that gives BT (the telecoms incumbent, and owner of most exchanges and equipment therein) and the new ISP the authorisation to switch the ADSL connection from the old ISP.

Confusingly, it has nothing to do with NIC MAC addresses. x)

[theefool]

ahhh, K....

[ScinteX]