BigBlu Broadband Blunders in Billing, Debt Collection and Support

Broadband ISP Bigblu, which supplies various Satellite and Fixed Wireless Access services to consumers across the UK, has apologised after a growing number of their customers began reporting wrongful debt collection demands, billing errors and problems contacting customer support.

Over the past few weeks we’ve received a number of reports from customers covering the problems they’ve been experiencing with the provider and a fair few complaints can also be found on social media, including via bigblu’s own Facebook page.

The issues range from incorrect billing to wrongful debt collection letters (sent to both active and former customers who were already fully paid up) and then there’s the fundamental problem of actually being able to contact somebody at the provider (i.e. some emails going unanswered, long wait times in the phone queue and sometimes calls timing out completely).

Needless to say that the combination of these factors has created quite a lot of anger among those affected and you can see a small sample of the gripes below (names and figures redacted for privacy).

bigblu complaint sample 1

I received a letter from a debt collection company claiming to be working on behalf of Big Blu regarding a debt of £**.** that I am supposed to owe them. I pay by direct debit, so I find this a little surprising. I tried phoning Big Blu’s help line to discuss and waited for 15 minutes before getting cut off. I emailed the Big Blu’s finance department, email was on my latest invoice, to ask about when this debt was accrued and was given a case number and told that someone would contact me.

So here I sit waiting and wondering why Big Blu didn’t contact me directly or if Big Blu should be allowed to send my details to a third party without my consent. I’m am posting this to try to escalate the issue because I don’t like getting threatening letters from a debt collection company regarding a service, that I feel am paying a lot for in this current climate, for over 2 years now.

bigblu complaint sample 2

We cannot get through to BigBlu either on the phone or get any response by email for several weeks to a named person. It’s outrageously poor service. We are a business customer and we are just being ignored. How do we resolve our issue? Also, when they took over from Avonline we had no hand over and no account details and they stopped sending invoices. NOT A HAPPY CUSTOMER TOO. DIABOLICAL SERVICE. AVOID BigBlu at all costs.

bigblu complaint sample 3

Having big problems with bigblu with customer service and accounting department. I have made 6 phone calls since the 3 May to resolve an overcharge issue again the second since December only to be fobbed off by customer service on 5 occasions and promised to have is resolve in my next invoice on my last call on the 7 May. Just got my latest invoice and still not resolved. NOT A HAPPY CUSTOMER

I have now telephoned their help lines 8 times now. And sent an email to their Customer Services Manager. We had a similar problem with them in December…. double billing me. Eventually we got our bank involved with a fraudulent payment issue and surprise surprise the refund was back in my bank account. I was hoping that it was an genuine over sight but it appears that it’s not.

bigblu complaint sample 4

Thanks for the demand for £*** though a debt collection agency even though I left you several years ago without missing a payment. I was never notified of any outstanding amount, so no idea what it’s for.

The ISP itself has spent the past few years on the acquisition trail (i.e. scooping up various ISPs like Quickline, Avonline etc.) and they recently re-branded from Satellite Solutions Worldwide (Europasat). All of those changes have a tendency to create quite a bit of work for admin and billing teams that need to integrate different systems and records, which have contributed to some of the aforementioned problems.

The good news is that bigblu were quick to respond when we raised these complaints and are now promising to put things right.

A Spokesperson for bigblu told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Extended Wait Times

Over the past few months we have experienced significantly increased demand for our products and services and this has meant that from time to time customers have experienced extended wait times. We appreciate that this has been frustrating for our customers and would like to reassure them that we are increasing the number of agents, extending opening hours and introducing a new telephony system to address the situation to ensure that we can deliver the best service possible.

Billing/ Debt Recovery

Part of our recent growth has been underpinned by acquiring other companies and we have been working hard to integrate multiple billing systems to ensure we can collect the right amounts from our customers. Sometime this means requesting payment from customers who have left us.

Over the past few weeks we recognise that there have been isolated instances where we may have got it wrong and for that we sincerely apologise. If a customer believes that they have been billed incorrectly please let them know that they can drop us a line at feedback@bigblu.co.uk and the matter will be dealt with by one of our management team.”

At this stage it’s unclear how long it will take the ISP to resolve all of these issues but hopefully it’s sooner rather than later. We separately note that they’ve just removed the £100 installation fee from their satellite packages, which makes them even cheaper.