onspeed WARNING

Onspeed sounded great. It got fabulous reviews and. So last Nov I signed up.

I used it for a year on my dial-up connection. It did speed up some things,
but overall it was a disappointment. Web pages loaded quicker if I chose to
accept much reduced picture quality. Emails did not seem to download any
faster. Overall it was decidedly unimpressive.

So towards the end of my subscription year, I uninstalled it.

I thought that was the end of it.....not so

Today I received my credit card statement. It included £24.99 for a renewal
to my onspeed subscription. I rang them. They pointed out that according to
their conditions of service, renewal is AUTOMATIC unless actively cancelled.
I had not realised that. They told me that they had sent an email about the
renewal.....but I had originally provided them with an address that is
spam-proof in that I don't usually read it!

Worse still....they had billed me at a credit card that I had stopped using
but had not cancelled ( I realise now that I should have done!)

They agreed to refund me.....fine....once I had retreived my card details.

They offer a 14-day refund. My credit card statement just happened to come 7
days after the billing date, so I was fortunate. It might have arrived after
too late for me to cancel.

But I wonder just how many subscribers are caught out by this clause in the
conditions of service...........see below

So if you have it and don't want to continue, be sure to check the email
account that you gave them.

And if you don't have it ......well, read all the conditions of service
before you sign up.

Below is an extract from the email that they sent me

.................................

Your ONSPEED account renews shortly. There is no action for you to take.
Your card, provided when you initially purchased ONSPEED, will be charged on
01 Dec 2005. This is your renewal confirmation and receipt.

If you want to charge your ONSPEED renewal to a different card, click here.
If you change your card details, your ONSPEED renewal will be charged on
this new card straight away.

Please note: to cancel your automatic renewal, you must call ONSPEED.
Requests via e-mail, fax or post will not be actioned.



--
To email me

its not a dot its an underscore

its not ie its co.uk

"Dongle Widget" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:wYIlf.24349$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Onspeed sounded great. It got fabulous reviews and. So last Nov I signed
> up.
>
> I used it for a year on my dial-up connection. It did speed up some
> things,

Not everyone enters into an agreement without reading the terms and
conditions or understanding exactly what they are paying for. I am glad you
have at least realised you need to use a bit of common sense and accept some
responsibility for your own actions in future.
Doing a bit of research on products FIRST is also best otherwise you might
get something that doesn't do what is claimed. I bet sales people love you!

I second that!

Kind Regards

Malte


lewis wrote:
> "Dongle Widget" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:wYIlf.24349$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>>Onspeed sounded great. It got fabulous reviews and. So last Nov I signed
>>up.
>>
>>I used it for a year on my dial-up connection. It did speed up some
>>things,
>
>
> Not everyone enters into an agreement without reading the terms and
> conditions or understanding exactly what they are paying for. I am glad you
> have at least realised you need to use a bit of common sense and accept some
> responsibility for your own actions in future.
> Doing a bit of research on products FIRST is also best otherwise you might
> get something that doesn't do what is claimed. I bet sales people love you!
>
>
>
>

"Dongle Widget" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:wYIlf.24349$(E-Mail Removed):

> Onspeed sounded great. It got fabulous reviews and. So last Nov I
> signed up.
>
> I used it for a year on my dial-up connection. It did speed up some
> things, but overall it was a disappointment. Web pages loaded quicker
> if I chose to accept much reduced picture quality. Emails did not seem
> to download any faster. Overall it was decidedly unimpressive.
>
>

Is Onespeed actually any good for *normal* web browsing (not so bothered
about image quality or email/downloads). My mother refuses to get
broadband on her connection, but moans about the dial-up so Onespeed is
something I considered getting for her.

My experience of any so-called accelerators is that they offer no noticable
or significant improvement.

News24 wrote:
> "Dongle Widget" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> news:wYIlf.24349$(E-Mail Removed):
>
>
>>Onspeed sounded great. It got fabulous reviews and. So last Nov I
>>signed up.
>>
>>I used it for a year on my dial-up connection. It did speed up some
>>things, but overall it was a disappointment. Web pages loaded quicker
>>if I chose to accept much reduced picture quality. Emails did not seem
>>to download any faster. Overall it was decidedly unimpressive.
>>
>>
>
>
> Is Onespeed actually any good for *normal* web browsing (not so bothered
> about image quality or email/downloads). My mother refuses to get
> broadband on her connection, but moans about the dial-up so Onespeed is
> something I considered getting for her.
>
> My experience of any so-called accelerators is that they offer no noticable
> or significant improvement.
>

It's just a proxy with a cache for webpages you've already seen. It
seems to strip out a lot of extraneous 'bits' from pictures etc etc. It
doesn't actually make the download speeds any faster, it just appears to
browse faster, especially on frequently visited sites. Same as any
other old 'web enhancer'.

If you think it'll help downloading files or transfer of data then it won't.

--
The Caretaker .........

Dongle Widget wrote:
> Onspeed sounded great. It got fabulous reviews and. So last Nov I signed up.

> So towards the end of my subscription year, I uninstalled it.
>
> I thought that was the end of it.....not so

Snipped tale of woe and customer stupidity.

How can anyone in this day and age enter into an agreement with an ISP
(or anyone for that matter) without reading the small print first?

Dimwittedness of the highest order.

--
The Caretaker .........

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:43:11 GMT, The Caretaker
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>It's just a proxy with a cache for webpages you've already seen.

its more than that, it compresses stuff and caches pages other people
have already seen (or it predicts based on links from pages seen etc).

Has its limitations, but its not "just a cache"

Phil
--
Tiscali - dialup speeds at Broadband prices, see
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...&Board=tiscali

AOL - the unlimited ISP of choice for heavy downloaders.

Phil Thompson wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:43:11 GMT, The Caretaker
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>>It's just a proxy with a cache for webpages you've already seen.
>
>
> its more than that, it compresses stuff and caches pages other people
> have already seen (or it predicts based on links from pages seen etc).
>
> Has its limitations, but its not "just a cache"

I didn't say it was ... if you read properly.

--
The Caretaker .........

"The Caretaker" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Bpamf.25225$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Phil Thompson wrote:
>> On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:43:11 GMT, The Caretaker
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It's just a proxy with a cache for webpages you've already seen.
>>
>>
>> its more than that, it compresses stuff and caches pages other people
>> have already seen (or it predicts based on links from pages seen etc).
>>
>> Has its limitations, but its not "just a cache"
>
> I didn't say it was ... if you read properly.
>
> --
> The Caretaker .........

I read it properly and you are still wrong.... well, disingenuous at
least...

it is a proxy, and they do (obviously) utilize a cache, but this is
incidental. They use a proprietary compression method to that pages and
images are drastically compressed and thus dont take as long to download
from their server. every ISP caches pages, but they dont acheive a 5x speed
improvement do they?

"The Caretaker" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:ygTlf.182$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Dongle Widget wrote:
>> Onspeed sounded great. It got fabulous reviews and. So last Nov I signed
>> up.
>
>> So towards the end of my subscription year, I uninstalled it.
>>
>> I thought that was the end of it.....not so
>
> Snipped tale of woe and customer stupidity.
>
> How can anyone in this day and age enter into an agreement with an ISP (or
> anyone for that matter) without reading the small print first?
>
> Dimwittedness of the highest order.
>
> --
> The Caretaker .........

I COMPLETELY AGREE ! And he comes here to boast about it? Jeez !!