Comments on: What ISP is best? Not Pipex Homecall

By: rick

rick — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:34:50 +0000

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

By: alison hall

alison hall — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:56:24 +0000

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?

By: danny

danny — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:43:42 +0000

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

By: dave nesbit

dave nesbit — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:26:11 +0000

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 )

By: rick

rick — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:01:24 +0000

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.

By: Phyl

Phyl — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:33:53 +0000

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!!!!!

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:39:42 +0000

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?

By: Colin

Colin — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:15:52 +0000

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.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:13:08 +0000

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.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:49:17 +0000

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.