TISCALI BROADBAND - Absolutely the worst service ever provided to anyone

Just thought I'd share my disastrous experience to anyone looking for a
Broadband service provider in the UK - I would strongly recommend that
you seek an alternative supplier to Tiscali, as their Call Centres are
incapable of dealing with the simplest requests. If you intend to just
use a broadband service without ever having to contact them, then fine,
but if you require ever having to change even the smallest thing with
your account then save yourself a lot of hassle and got to BT
Broadband, like I am now having to do.

I learned of a price change at the beginning of the year with my
£24.99 per month package for a 512kps connection after 12 months of a
slightly expensive service but with no faults up until that point. I
phoned up customer service and changed to the new offer of £15.99 but
was still being charged the orignal rate over a period of a couple of
months. Phoned up again and was assured that I had been changed to the
£15.99 package and again, 6 months later, My bank statements still
showed that I was being charged the £24.99 on a monthly basis. In this
day and age, to pay £24.99 for a 512kps connection is absolutely
ludicrous, I am sure you will agree. After phoning up a third time to
complain about this, I was suddenly told that there had been no record
or log of me ever having called up to switch to the cheaper package!?!

In the end I did manage to switch to the £15.99 but it took 6 months
and a lot of confusion and frustration. Shortly after this, I had to
move home and decided to phone Tiscali to change my Broadband package
over to my new address and phone number. I was assured at the other end
that it would take about 10 working days and gave all my details, etc.

I waited patiently for two weeks and then when I phoned up to see why I
had still not been connected, I was told that there had been no record
of my call ever having been made. I took a deep breath and went through
the whole process again, this time being assured that it would take 15
working days. Naturally I sat patiently for a further 3 weeks and guess
what? .... still not connection. I phoned up again and was told exactly
the same thing again!!! I weould have had to go through the process a
third time and wait another 15 working days....

Naturally, it was at this point that I elected to cancel my
subscription (a further 30 days of inactivity). Please bear in mind
that during these 2-3 months of no internet I was still being charged
on a monthly basis and when I phoned up to try and get a refund, my
following phone call to chase this up revealed that the Process Code
for this claim did not even exist - the customer service agent had
given me a reference code off the top of her head without even
processing any information into her computer (not for the first time)

During this nightmare perioid - I had my time wasted by them, as well
as the amount of money spent on numerous phone calls, they had lied to
me on several ocassions, put the phone down on me (even though I was
keeping calm) and had unauthorised funds deducted from my account (pure
theft!). Every time I called someone up I found that there was usually
no record of my previous call and on each seperate ocassion I would be
told something completely different.

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 10:21:13 UTC, "jimmy_screw" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

> Just thought I'd share my disastrous experience to anyone looking for a
> Broadband service provider in the UK - I would strongly recommend that
> you seek an alternative supplier to Tiscali, as their Call Centres are
> incapable of dealing with the simplest requests. If you intend to just
> use a broadband service without ever having to contact them, then fine,
> but if you require ever having to change even the smallest thing with
> your account then save yourself a lot of hassle and got to BT
> Broadband, like I am now having to do.

Or another ISP...not necessarily BTB, who may be fine for some people
but unsuitable for others. Their helpdesk isn't reckoned to be
marvellous, either.

--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]

Or another ISP...not necessarily BTB, who may be fine for some people
but unsuitable for others. Their helpdesk isn't reckoned to be
marvellous, either.


....Absolutely, any other ISP - just used BTB because that is who I am
switching to.

i understand that their's (and other's) helpdesk aren't too great but I
do strongly believe that Tiscali are EXCEPTIONALLY bad.

I have experienced some poor service in my time but nothing as outright
frustrating and consistently cack-handed as Tiscali. Remarkably
shoddily-run business. AVOID!

On 12 Aug 2005 03:21:13 -0700, "jimmy_screw" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:


>but if you require ever having to change even the smallest thing with
>your account then save yourself a lot of hassle and got to BT
>Broadband, like I am now having to do.
>
Ah, out of the frying pan and into the fire, If you thought Tiscali
was bad - "you aint seen nothing yet".

On 12 Aug 2005 03:21:13 -0700, "jimmy_screw" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Just thought I'd share my disastrous experience to anyone looking for a
>Broadband service provider in the UK - I would strongly recommend that
>you seek an alternative supplier to Tiscali, as their Call Centres are

I agree wholeheartedly with you, Jimmy! However, before you do
anything so rash as to sign up with BT, I suggest that you check out
the excellent http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp . This
page allows you to compare the performance of up to six ISPs as rated
by their customers. If you hover your mouse pointer over the bars in
the graphs it will tell you how many people voted in each month.

When I've done this I've found that some of the best ISPs are
generally speaking not the "big names" like BT, Tiscali, AOL, Wannado
etc but smaller outfits like Freedom2Surf, Metronet, Zen Internet. You
may pay a little more but in this world you only get what you pay for.

Other sites that have useful info on choosing a new ISP:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/

http://www.blagger.com/

Whoever you decide on, check that you are not tied into a minimum 12
month contract and that they support migration so that you can always
leave without being without being without Broadband connection.

I'm just currently waiting for Tiscali to support migration (allegedly
later this month) and I'll be off to Zen Internet in doubleqick time.
Not the cheapest, but fro my research certainly one of the better and
customer focused ISPs.

Good luck mate, you're gonna need it with those Italian cowboys!

jimmy_screw wrote:
> Or another ISP...not necessarily BTB, who may be fine for some people
> but unsuitable for others. Their helpdesk isn't reckoned to be
> marvellous, either.
>
>
> ...Absolutely, any other ISP - just used BTB because that is who I am
> switching to.
>
> i understand that their's (and other's) helpdesk aren't too great but
> I do strongly believe that Tiscali are EXCEPTIONALLY bad.
>
> I have experienced some poor service in my time but nothing as
> outright frustrating and consistently cack-handed as Tiscali.
> Remarkably shoddily-run business. AVOID!

I could name a worse one.....NTL.....

They are so incompetent they can't even turn off accounts which you have
cancelled. My broadband was still working until I gave them what for around
2 months after I stopped paying & the telephone is still working (this is
around 12 months later)..

When I was a customer they always blamed the end users equipment, even going
as far as telling people to defrag their HD, reformat & re install O/S when
they had a known problem with their local loop, yes the fibre link to the
exchange had been damaged/gone faulty. Their Inktomi servers where always
playing up so some nights you had to play find the working one, the only
time you got anywhere near decent browsing was when they turned the dam
things off. I found after leaving them that the servers also blocked ports,
which they still deny. They purposely over subscribed the local network
around here resulting in that if you turned off your CM or rebooted it
occaisionally you wouldn't be able to log back in & even if you did have a
'working' connection it was slower than watching paint dry. There have been
many complaints about certain DSL usenet service, well NTL's CM usenet
service was working perfectly ok until they serviced it around 3 - 4 years
ago & from then until I left (& I have been led to believe it is still as
bad now) it is anything but better...

Yes Tiscali is dire but NTL are close if not as bad....

On 12 Aug, in article
<(E-Mail Removed) .com>
(E-Mail Removed) "jimmy_screw" wrote:

> Or another ISP...not necessarily BTB, who may be fine for some people
> but unsuitable for others. Their helpdesk isn't reckoned to be
> marvellous, either.
>
>
> ...Absolutely, any other ISP - just used BTB because that is who I am
> switching to.
>
> i understand that their's (and other's) helpdesk aren't too great but I
> do strongly believe that Tiscali are EXCEPTIONALLY bad.

That isn't _my_ experience. You obviously have high standards. I am
resigned to companies employing crap call-centre staff, getting the
image presented to their customers at dirt cheap rates, and often being
over-charged.

In the current world, Tiscali's call centre seems OK. Did you hit some
sort of out-of-hours service provided from India?

--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.

"I am Number Two," said Penfold. "You are Number Six."

snip.
... nothing has changed then.

Must be a few years ago now that I tried unsuccessfully
to cancel a dialup account after numerous calls and E Mails.

Finally BT pulled the plug on them for me just before a small
claims court action.

Chris

"David G. Bell" wrote:
> On 12 Aug, in article
> <(E-Mail Removed) .com>
> (E-Mail Removed) "jimmy_screw" wrote:
>
>> Or another ISP...not necessarily BTB, who may be fine for some people
>> but unsuitable for others. Their helpdesk isn't reckoned to be
>> marvellous, either.
>>
>>
>> ...Absolutely, any other ISP - just used BTB because that is who I am
>> switching to.
>>
>> i understand that their's (and other's) helpdesk aren't too great
>> but I do strongly believe that Tiscali are EXCEPTIONALLY bad.
>
> That isn't _my_ experience. You obviously have high standards. I am
> resigned to companies employing crap call-centre staff, getting the
> image presented to their customers at dirt cheap rates, and often
> being over-charged.
>
> In the current world, Tiscali's call centre seems OK. Did you hit some
> sort of out-of-hours service provided from India?

Make that 24 hours from India & you would be closer...

On 12 Aug 2005 20:43, "kraftee" <kraftee@spamoff&die> wrote:
>
>Make that 24 hours from India & you would be closer...
>
AOL support the other day was too... (for a neighbour unable to get access
now his connection speed has been boosted) and it seemed like the chap was
reading three pages of notes between saying each word... very frustrating,
made me wonder if he was on a 'go slow' :-)

Next step will be to try out a router on his line... Peter M.

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!