What ISP is best? Not Pipex Homecall
December 14th, 2006 by Stephen
I am often asked what ADSL provider I would recommend. I usually reply that I have not researched all providers and cannot offer a recommendation, but one service provider is causing such a stir that I felt I need to warn people away from it. That is Pipex Homecall (which is actually not Pipex at all, but Tiscali).
Their deal sounds attractive. £30 per month but with free phone calls and your telephone line rental thrown in. That makes it sound amazingly cheap. Unfortunately the typical length of time before people seem to try and escape the service is about two to three months. Pipex, however, insist on a £300 payment for early contract termination from these disaffected customers.
They claim in their advertising that this is an uncapped service, but the truth of the matter is it is capped at about 1GB per week. If you exceed that amount you are put onto a “naughty pipe” which throttles your speed to about 50Kbps (yes, modem speeds) and you will be denied access to technical support.
This review is typical:
If you ever think of going with this company do some research on its heritage this will lead you to evaluate whether (so-called) cheapest is always best.
I ,and many others have realised that the stick-and-carrot of a cheap deal that gets you locked into a 12 month contract is fine so long as when there IS a problem it can be sorted out, and it can be sorted out easily and cheaply.Then you realise just WHY they have needed to lock you into the contract-there is no way to keep you otherwise,because of their notorious Customer Service.
The company was owned by John Caudwell, who previously owned Singlepoint. Research on Singlepoint ALONE will be enough to put you off them,because he took his same business core values to Homecall when he set it up,as the BBC Watchdog report depressingly tells.
History repeats itself with Home Call.-.It on average takes 3-4 months and repeated calls (0870 numbers which cost you money) to get any issue sorted out,with an average phone call length being half an hour, and 12 phone calls about average. They make it impossible to speak to a Supervisor Manager,or escalate a complaint,despite what their own complaints procedure says.
Typical low point in our relationship- was after having reported a fault, and several phone calls later having to stand outside in the cold to be kept hanging on for 45 minutes on my mobile, ( NO signal indoors) insisting,politely as usual that i speak to a Supervisor.
The CS assistant tried their best (constantly going off the line) to get the Supervisor to speak to me,then told me she was in a meeting,then finally that she had gone home.
www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/ reports/services/services_20060404.shtml. Is the Watchdog article.
Search other review sites and read the comments.Will they improve now owned by Pipex?No, its too massive a task.Their Customer service has been no different.The call takers are stillPolite-but then so was Sweeney Todd.
As for the stick and carrot-they beat you with the stick until you become a vegetable.
I thought their deal seemed good-cant wait till I am out of the contract.I will leave others to comment on the “value for money ” and the efficiency of the broadband.
Just report any unresolved issues to BBC watchdog via their email facility
So if you are looking for broadband service, don’t go with Pipex Homecall.
Too true! I want out of my Pipex broadband. I signed up in September. They took four weeks to connect me and then I have not had more then modem speeds ever since. They should call the service Pipex STM – Slower then modem. And I have called them at least 50 times, and they keep saying they will escalate the fault. We wait, and phone back and start all over again.
They won’t put you through to a manager or ven the customer liaison department. And half the time they say they won’t help you because you have gone overthe usage limit.
I don’t know how I managed to go over the usage limit. I haven;t been able to download anything bigger than a web page since September. Any ideas how I can get out of this outfit?
Andy, you could try contacting ISPA (the Internet Service Providers Association), of which Pipex claims to be a member (although your mileage may vary, as I know someone was told by Pipex staff that they were not a member! That only the business broadband was a member!)
You could also argue that they have breached their contract to provide a service to you, but you may have to ask for some legal advice on that point.
Sorry to hear of your Pipex woes.
[...] A few weeks ago I wrote a warning about Pipex Homecall. I received comments here, but I don’t want to turn this blog into a Pipex gripe site. It turns out that there is just such a site I can send potential and existing Pipex Homecall customers to. It is poopex.co.uk. Comments Tracking Services:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
Thankyou for you reply to my blog im glad to see im not the only one even though it feels like i am sometimes.
I will say in case people get the wrong idea its pipex homecall that are the problem, pipex themselves are a sister company but are not one of the same, over the 4 years i was a customer there their service was secong to none
Yes, we were customers with Pipex dial and had no problems. Homecall is in fact provided by Tiscali. However, if Pipex don’t get a handle on it, there own reputation will be damaged.
Thanks for the comment.
The more I search for Pipex in google, the more negative detail I uncover. This is not undeserved by my experiences and I have found another site http://www.pipexproblems.co.uk that has a lot of people with negative reviews.
It is a shame for me as I am stuck with another nine months of a Pipex broadband contract.
I phoned their cancellations department to cancel my account, I was told “there’s no one on duty who can cancel your account”. After I asked them why they pay people to turn up for work there I cancelled my direct debit. I guess it is now cancelled. Just get a cease and reprovide agreement from your new ISP and BT, don’t wait for a MAC code, you won’t get it.
Hi the MD of Pipex (now Vialtus) is Maria Cappella, I have been told told that there is a blogg dedicated to her and I was wondering if you or any of your readers know what the link is?
We were advised by Pipex that we would be getting our bill on line rather than paper. Fine. However, our account number was not recognised? After many attempts it just seemed simpler to request paper bills – I have been doing so – since August 2008 – To date, 14th October 2008 I have yet to receive one. Have emailed, telephoned (charged of course), and been assured the bills would be posted. Have even suggested stopping the Direct Debit but still no response – what have I got to do!!!!!
I’m currently working my way through the Otelo dispute resolution process because Pipex Homecall is dunning me for £9.04 they want me to pay for service they were too incompetent to provide.
Without going into detail, I was a BulldogDSL small business customer and PH decided to move everyone to their own platform. Tech Support at PH told me that 850+ letters went out to Bulldog customers, every one of them technically and factually useless – incomplete logins, missing ADSL parms, missing static IPs, you name it. Didn’t stop PH from billing for service.
PH is a member of Otelo and you can probably get somewhere with that: http://www.otelo.org.uk/pages/802008.php
If that does not work seriously consider litigation.
Meanwhile Pipex Homecall appears to have been disbanded, but I would avoid anything connected with it like the plague. That includes Tiscali and Orange Broadband.
hi
just to let you good persons know how the system works
you order your service from a service provider be it BT or jo bloges down the road ..they then apply to bt openreach to provide the cable from the exchange to you the end user
( that’s right you are NOT bt openreach’s customer ..you are just the person at the end of the line that uses the service )
the bt openreach engineer provides a pr of wires from the exchange main frame
to you main socket and then tests it from end to end with some sensitive test equipment if this pass’s the tests then your a service provider provides the line
( or what ever the service is that you ordered from them was )
if the line passes the high standards of the tests from end to end and you are still having a problem the fault must be
1.your wires or equipment
2 your service provider’s wire or equipment in the exchange
or 3 the link from your service provider’s equipment to the openreach exchange main frame
also even though bt openreach is part of BT it is a separate company and BT is one of its many customers
as for bt openreach charging for call outs when there is NO fault found on the bt openreach cables from the exchange to you main socket and / or the fault is PROVED to your inside cables / equipment or to the service providers equipment /wire in the exchange ( and yes we do charge BT and the other provider when its down to them )
cables from the exchange to you main socket .. you can blame OFTELL / OFCOM for that as they are the ones that tell bt openreach ( and all other communication co’s )
what to charge for and how much
so is you have a complaint about adsl speeds and getting charged when bt openreach
don’t find any faults on its line/ cables take it up with the ones that govern us (OFTELL / OFCOM ) don’t just bicker over it .. do some thing …..!!!!!!!!!!!
then bt openreach can do something .because as it is now bt openreach can not change anything with out OFTELL / OFCOM say so
( NB OFTELL / OFCOM is run by the uk government … so blame them )
i would advise sgainst pipex home call when i tried to change my provider from pipex i gave thiry days notice as stated on terms but they proceeded to cut my broadband service off completly right away and limit my land line to incoming calls only after spending £20.00 on mobile calls i had to give up and wait for my new provider but this was hampered by the fact that pipex had restricted my service they would not restore it and if you ask to speak to someone in athority they are allways in a meeting and will not call back to your retricted line
cancelled pipex last october ,no longer needed the phone,given 3 cancellation numbers,iam still receiving statements for an account i dont have as i write.iam desperate to know how to proceed as they want payment for a service i no longer have or used since last year help?
Hi Alison,
Sorry to hear it but not even remotely surprised.
Are you sure your contract with Homecall can be cancelled on 30 days’ notice? If so, and you can show that you have notified Homecall (a registered delivery letter is best) and you have paid any amount owing under the original contract, then charges for additional service are not contractual. You can ignore them. Usually Pipex will refer the account to a collection agency. Be polite but let them know the charge is illegal and will be disputed in court.
Send a final letter to Homecall stating when you cancelled and how. Can you prove you cancelled? If Homecall sent you a letter with a MAC code, or an email, that should be sufficient proof.
See the Otelo website. You can launch a claim online and should get started while you wait for the usual cr*p from Homecall. Otelo is not what I would consider robust in defence of victimized Homecall customers but you will get your money back eventually. IF Homecall offers a settlement after you have received an Otelo case number, just reply politely that the matter is now being investigated by Otelo and all correspondence should be directed to them.
Homecall are devious and they will try to intimidate you or get you to drop proceedings and pay up. Just stick to your guns. There are hundreds of people in the same position.
Best wishes,
Rick