Demon Internet

While I've never had a problem with Demon's service technically, on two occasions now I've been hounded by a collections agency called First Credit, as a result of errors by Demon's (or Thus') billing dept. In the first case, in 2006, their system failed to take the monthly direct debit for several months. Instead of contacting me to find out why, Demon waited a year and then unleashed 1st Credit. Eventually they admitted it was their mistake and called them off. The second time, last year, I cancelled a hosting package and 3 months later had a letter from 1st Credit chasing payment of the cancelled invoice. Eventually got customer services to admit they were wrong and issue a credit note.

Basically if Demon makes any mistake or there is any problem with payment to your account, the first you will hear of it will be from 1st Credit, a company that was reprimanded by the FSA for bad practice. Never had an apology in either case and have now cancelled my account entirely after 15 years as a customer.

Demon support is the worst I have every dealt with, you get put through to a call centre in India, and when speaking to them they know less about the problems than I do. When I requested my MAC code they tend to just ignore you and said they will have to send it in the post and will take atleast 3 working days, but never comes. They don't give it over the phone and are not very helpful.

They tend to change their T & C without telling you and when I was on the phone with them they kept passing me through different departments which were both telling me different things.

I have been over my 50gb limit and they restricted my internet speed until my usage dropped below the accepted limit over the 30 rolling period. They wouldn't remove the restriction, said it was not possible because it was controlled by a machine and they could not manually do anything, even though this was my first time going over the limit.

Other than these issues my speeds have been good, probably because the people on my street are elderly and probably don't use the internet or have low usage.

Had a few problems when their server went down and had no internet for a couple of days, has happened more than once.

If your a high usage customer I would not recommend using Demon, but for a light user for just browsing the internet with few downloads then they are generally good.

A 90's throwback and thank god my contract is over and I will never go near these again.

Do not kid yourself with this ISP (this is a far as you should go with Demon) because it really is a mess and if your reading this then do yourself a big favour and go elsewhere. In ISP Review's list of ISP's WHY is this in the top 50 as it should be nowhere near in reality.

Also be very careful with there T&C because it changes on a weekly/monthly basis and the prices quoted for the services as of 09/04/10 are for 2 year contracts (again read the T&C as it does not state this when signing up) and there billing system is a right state as they seem to get 1st credit debt recovery company (Cowboys) to recover funds that had actually been paid and this COULD EFFECT YOUR CREDIT RATING. Do not get sucked in as you will not get out.

There Tech support (Via India - read other reviews) is the worst in the UK and you will be held on at least 30 mins Minimum at a charge of ten bob a minute.

I will give Demon 5% out of 100% and if I had a choice I would burn £20 every month, instead of handing it to Demon. AVOID AT ALL COSTS

nb

Very poor value for money
Abysmal customer service & technical support (even by Indian call centre standards)
Draconian acceptable use policy
Download speeds are pathetic if you are still on BT Wholesale Connect (thankfully I'm not any more)

I would change ISP if I had any choice in the matter (bill payer doesn't want to lose his demon email address... sigh)

While i have seen a few negitive reviews with demon on here, my experience upto now has been excellent.

My connection is rock solid has dropped once in 4 months. I had one issue with them and that was i went over my allacated 50gb allowance now they then slowed my connection to 128kbps, i emailed them asking for my mac code and saying i wouldn't be blackmailed by their so called FUP (fair use policy). I received a reply the same day with my mac code, telephoned them to tell them i would only be paying for slower speed of 128kbps access the actual price that this converts from the normal price of £17.

They state that they will throttle your account for 30 days, if this happens, however withing 24 hours i received an email stating that my speed restrictions had been removed.

Now while this was a pain i admit i did go over due to d/l for mohwaw, battlefield oh and a few torrents lol.

This has been the only issue i have had, so yes they do adhere to their 50gb per month limit, however i have found the connection to be rock solid, so i am very pleased with the product.