Demon - totally incompetent to the end

I must have been mad paying Demon for their broadband a year in advance.
Not only have they been completely useless in fixing a fault, now having
cancelled the service and been promised a refund of advance payments it
seems they can't even get that right.

Now they tell me that any money they owe can't be paid back until the
service has ceased. So while the service has passed its cancellation
date and I was promised a refund five weeks ago I am still waiting.
Because Demon haven't yet pulled the plug their accounts dept say they
can't refund any money.

On asking to speak to someone in a senior position I'm told "we don't
have a single person in charge". So obviously a management structure
doesn't exist there.

Anyone know the name of the debt collection company that Demon use?
Maybe a taste of their own medicine is called for.

--
Norm

> On asking to speak to someone in a senior position I'm told "we don't
> have a single person in charge". So obviously a management structure
> doesn't exist there.

Ask to speak to Bill Allan.

In <(E-Mail Removed)> Colin Wilson said
>> On asking to speak to someone in a senior position I'm told "we don't
>> have a single person in charge". So obviously a management structure
>> doesn't exist there.
>
>Ask to speak to Bill Allan.

Any clues to who Bill Allan might be and where he's found?

--
Norm

> >Ask to speak to Bill Allan.
> Any clues to who Bill Allan might be and where he's found?

Google "bill allan thus"

Guess who owns Demon

In <(E-Mail Removed)> Colin Wilson said
>> >Ask to speak to Bill Allan.
>> Any clues to who Bill Allan might be and where he's found?
>
>Google "bill allan thus"
>
>Guess who owns Demon

Ah yes, wasn't he trying to get rid of it. Wonder if he's had any offers
yet.

--
Norm

Greetings!

> I must have been mad paying Demon for their broadband a year in advance.

Yes -- completely barking if you ask me! I was a subscriber to Demon
back in the "old days" and they were reasonably crap then - but it was
only a tenner a month on a dialup 14k4. They are professionally
incompetent at billing... tech support (!) is a joke - so don't expect
anything and you won't be disappointed. My line has been going from
bad to worse, spoke to Demon about 10 times and gave up - BT wholesale
won't talk to me, they want to hear from the ISP.

On the billing front they 'forgot' to charge me for a few months and
then slapped a direct debit for 4 months on me, leaving me with a
nasty bank charge and a letter demanding payment with menaces...
otherwise they'd cancel my service. I didn't pay - they didn't cancel,
they just resumed charging me monthly. Since then my requests to
cancel the bloody thing so I can move on to a better (read: ANY OTHER)
ISP have been politely refused!

> Not only have they been completely useless in fixing a fault, now having
> cancelled the service and been promised a refund of advance payments it
> seems they can't even get that right.

Aha - advance payments. Trust me - if they can forget to charge for
it, they can "lose" a refund too. Good luck getting them to plug the
(any?) plug :-|

Regards,

Jamin

On 4 Mar, in article
<(E-Mail Removed) .com>
(E-Mail Removed) "jaminja" wrote:

>Greetings!
>
>> I must have been mad paying Demon for their broadband a year in advance.
>
>Yes -- completely barking if you ask me! I was a subscriber to Demon
>back in the "old days" and they were reasonably crap then - but it was
>only a tenner a month on a dialup 14k4. They are professionally
>incompetent at billing... tech support (!) is a joke - so don't expect
>anything and you won't be disappointed. My line has been going from
>bad to worse, spoke to Demon about 10 times and gave up - BT wholesale
>won't talk to me, they want to hear from the ISP.
>
>On the billing front they 'forgot' to charge me for a few months and
>then slapped a direct debit for 4 months on me, leaving me with a
>nasty bank charge and a letter demanding payment with menaces...
>otherwise they'd cancel my service. I didn't pay - they didn't cancel,
>they just resumed charging me monthly. Since then my requests to
>cancel the bloody thing so I can move on to a better (read: ANY OTHER)
>ISP have been politely refused!
>
>> Not only have they been completely useless in fixing a fault, now having
>> cancelled the service and been promised a refund of advance payments it
>> seems they can't even get that right.
>
>Aha - advance payments. Trust me - if they can forget to charge for
>it, they can "lose" a refund too. Good luck getting them to plug the
>(any?) plug :-|
>
>Regards,
>
>Jamin

Might be cheaper and easier to get a second phone line and get that
enabled with broadband from another ISP!

Then cancel the old BT line and renumber the lines.

--
Paul Carpenter | (E-Mail Removed)
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/> PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/> GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate

On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:59:07 GMT, Norm <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I must have been mad paying Demon for their broadband a year in advance.
>Not only have they been completely useless in fixing a fault, now having
>cancelled the service and been promised a refund of advance payments it
>seems they can't even get that right.
>
>Now they tell me that any money they owe can't be paid back until the
>service has ceased. So while the service has passed its cancellation
>date and I was promised a refund five weeks ago I am still waiting.
>Because Demon haven't yet pulled the plug their accounts dept say they
>can't refund any money.
>
>On asking to speak to someone in a senior position I'm told "we don't
>have a single person in charge". So obviously a management structure
>doesn't exist there.
>
>Anyone know the name of the debt collection company that Demon use?
>Maybe a taste of their own medicine is called for.

"Speak to someone"?

" In a senior position"?

I love an optimist....

Maybe they'll realise their mistake like Natwest have done, and do an
about-turn, but then maybe not.

J.

> Yes -- completely barking if you ask me! I was a subscriber to Demon
> back in the "old days" and they were reasonably crap then - but it was
> only a tenner a month on a dialup 14k4. They are professionally
> incompetent at billing... tech support (!) is a joke - so don't expect
> anything and you won't be disappointed. My line has been going from
> bad to worse, spoke to Demon about 10 times and gave up - BT wholesale
> won't talk to me, they want to hear from the ISP.

I'm quite stunned that anyone is still using them. The killer for me
was when they lost some business-critical emails back in September
1994 and tried to fob me off with: "Email is not reliable enough for
business purposes."

Muir is still posting the same unmitigated rubbish as well.

We missed our chance with the Lawrence Godfrey business. When we met
up for the first time in person outside Court 13 to hear Demon's
solicitor read their statement, Godfrey's barrister said: "God, I
thought you were all geeks. If I'd known you were like this, I'd have
advised continuing with the proceedings." I don't think he was
expecting suits, polished shoes and haircuts.

In message <(E-Mail Removed). com>, Phil
Payne <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>> Yes -- completely barking if you ask me! I was a subscriber to Demon
>> back in the "old days" and they were reasonably crap then - but it was
>> only a tenner a month on a dialup 14k4. They are professionally
>> incompetent at billing... tech support (!) is a joke - so don't expect
>> anything and you won't be disappointed. My line has been going from
>> bad to worse, spoke to Demon about 10 times and gave up - BT wholesale
>> won't talk to me, they want to hear from the ISP.
>
>I'm quite stunned that anyone is still using them. The killer for me
>was when they lost some business-critical emails back in September
>1994 and tried to fob me off with: "Email is not reliable enough for
>business purposes."
>
>Muir is still posting the same unmitigated rubbish as well.
>
>We missed our chance with the Lawrence Godfrey business. When we met
>up for the first time in person outside Court 13 to hear Demon's
>solicitor read their statement, Godfrey's barrister said: "God, I
>thought you were all geeks. If I'd known you were like this, I'd have
>advised continuing with the proceedings." I don't think he was
>expecting suits, polished shoes and haircuts.
>
Demon went bad when Cliff Stanford sold up.

But Demon aren't alone these days. I suspect it's mainly because of BT
Wholesale's business model. They charge ISPs at a rate depending on the
amount of data that the individual ISP's collective customers download
each month.

So the bean-counters who seem to be in charge of many of today's ISPs
have worked it out that by restricting the amount of data that each
customer downloads, they can cut their costs. Most seem to be doing this
by "traffic management" and "traffic shaping". Implemented of course by
throttling during "peak hours" and often also in "off-peak hours".
They've also identified that the heavy downloaders are those accessing
binary news, so they do some port-blocking on NNTP in addition.

In their business model, these strategies persuade the heavy downloaders
to leave, leaving them (hopefully) with those who do a little web
surfing and emailing.

Interestingly, those ISPs at the top of the heap at DSL Zone, are top
because they're up front and sell packages each with a defined permitted
maximum download in peak, and another maximum during off-peak hours. And
they state up-front that they do not use traffic management nor traffic
shaping. Many of these top ISPs don't provide news (or maybe only offer
text-only news server), since many (most?) of the heavy binary
downloaders subscribe to Giganews or Easynews.

The ISPs at the bottom of DSL Zone's list commonly blow smoke, citing
contention and the characteristics of ADSL Max for their customer's
dissatisfaction with the standard of services they deliver.

To put it another way, they're trying to cherry-pick those customers who
only do a little surfing and send/receive a few emails.

--
Tony Morgan