How Eclipse treats its customers...

[byeeclipse]

A story how how eclipse treats its customers...

Eclipse suddenly disconnected my ADSL on Monday morning around 10am. After rebooting and checking my systems, I concluded Eclipse had a technical problem. So, I called them.

Eclipse argued many things, thowing me dubious reasons to hide the fact they do not control anything and are totally in the dark regarding their billing:
- Eclipse claimed the monthly payment was rejected by my bank. I called my bank, which looked at their logs and saw no payment request from Eclipse since June 7th. They advised me it could be Eclipse's "merchant bank" who had a technical error and could not process Eclipse's request on my debit card.
- Eclipse claimed they had both sent me a letter and an email to warn me they were not able to collect their £17.99 more than 1 week ago. I received neither one.
- Eclipse then argued my card had expired. It's true it expires in August. But this is 14th of July. I checked with Eclipse's customer service whether we were still in July or not. They were not amused. Me neither!
- Eclipse of course claimed there was not enough money on my account. I checked my statements, and asked my bank for the minimum amount around the alleged collection attempt. At no time I had less than £1000 on my account. I asked Eclipse's customer service rep if that was enough to pay £17.99, in case my maths was wrong...

These are the main arguments I received from Eclipse's various customer reps over the course of 2 days. None of them holds. But they still feel it was normal to disconnect me!?

One rep also admitted they do not check anything because "looking at customers [ciscumstances] takes too much time"! Love ya Eclipse... NOT!

I wasted at least 1 hour over the phone at my charge for a fault I am not responsible for.
I also got frustrated with their "dont know, cant do" attitude.
I was also forced to go to a local Internet cafe when I needed to access the Internet and my emails.
So in term of time wasted and cost, I was really not happy!

Everytime I was promised my connection would be back up, it wasn't. I called them everytime it was due, and everytime I received another excuse to justify another delay... They are quick and capable when they need to pull the plug, but correct their mistakes rapidly, they can't.

In the end I asked them for compensation. Well.... Should I be surprised here?... Even if they admit they should not have disconnected me, I will get nothing in compensation. Nothing at all. Zilch. Not even a little something to demonstrate they really are sorry!

I have requested they close my account, seeing how much they care about their customers. Guess what? I have to pay £5 pounds as a cancellation fee, even though I have been with them for more than 4 years on the same contract... I was tempted to argue but I didn't argue (too much). Seeing such crooks and liars, I wanted just 1 thing: to get out!

For 4 years I stayed with them by habit, even though I noticed their broadband service gradually getting slower all the time. I am disgusted by how they treated me. Imagine how they treat customers locked into a 12-month contract!!

Seeing how they treat their customers, I have just one advice to you:

LEAVE ECLIPSE !
DO NOT JOIN ECLIPSE !
AVOID ECLIPSE AT ALL COST !

PS: Eclipse is just one of Kingston Communications' brand names. So be wary of any company or branded service controlled by Kingston (www.kcom.com).

 

[Old dude]

They slowly started going downhill since kingston took over. Now it appears they are hitting rock bottom. Such a shame, though Im glad I got out when I did.

They also charged me to cancel the service, even though I had been with them for around the same time.

 

[Mark.J]

Which ISP are you moving to? Just so we can help make sure that you pick the right one this time .

 

[twds]

Eclipse & which ISP

I suggest fast.co.uk. Since migrating from BT Business Broadband for poor customer service, fast.co.uk have been absolutely brilliant and most helpful. The people who answer the phone actually want satisfied customers, and it shows.

 

[wheeles]

I totally agree about Eclipse going downhill since Kingston took them over. When I joined Eclipse I was on an unlimited package, but (stupidly) switched to their 8Mb Evolution packaged as it was (a) cheaper, and (b) promised faster speeds.

What I didn't realise was that Eclipse would throttle the speed back all day so that I never got anywhere near 8Mb. Most of the time I got 1-2Mb and only got 5-6Mb after midnight, when they unthrottled the speeds. It's laughable to see the sudden step change increase in speed as the clock hits midnight.

So, for a small drop in price I got a capped service, and, given the change in Terms and Conditions in August, I am highly likely to hit my package limit each month. I would have to pay more for the next package up, which is about the cost of the unlimited package I had in the beginning, but is still capped and throttled back.

This month I have exceeded the rate of usage that would lead to me hitting my package limit, so for the rest of the month I have to endure 256k download.

Over a year ago I requested that Eclipse had some way of showing how much a customer had used for that month. I was told that they would be implementing something, but nothing has ever come of it. Instead we have this nonsense of being able to tweak how you allocate your bandwidth, but never showing how much you are using.

I am now hunting around for a new ISP.

 

[nodrog]

i was with eclipse flex 100 package for around 2 years, until june this year

eclipse were getting slow at peak times but i put up with it because i was unlimited, asked several times if i could get free upgrade of speed to say 2mb without changing to evolution as i knew the cap limitations would be close to usage now and again, the joys of 3 teenage kids using msn and bebo
eclipse refused upgrade without changing to evolution, i quoted other isp speeds and prices which were better eclipse rep said if you want aol speed and price then go to aol or whoever else is faster and cheaper

so requested mac code which i recieved easily within 2 hours of request(had to wait till monday since customer service only work 9 - 5 monday to friday)

migrated to sky on the unlimited max package £10 per month so £7.99 per month better off and getting 13mb on adsl+2, Never looked back

eclipse were my first adsl broadband isp but i have no sympathy for them

 

[benkid77]

I agree with the above comments.

As already stated, Eclipse ISP changed their T&Cs yet again back in August making things even worse for the user.

The main change was the extension of so called "peak time" to now cover all day and all evening.

Since I'm always in bed after midnight I never ever see fast speeds with eclipse.

Really, for the price it is a very poor deal when compared to other ISPs.

Whilst I understand the need for some speed throttling (obviously to keep costs down and profits up) - this is just ridiculous.

I'm getting a 2GB cap for 15 quid a month. Which means that apart from about one or two lucky days at the beginning of each month I'm actually getting a constant 256kb/s restricted speed total on ALL traffic all of the time I use the Internet. (not just P2P - I mean everything including surfing the web).

Plus they moved me onto LLU last year - for what benefit, apart from saving them money?

I can't ever use streaming like the BBC or youtube. Online gaming is ruined by the slow speeds. Truthfully - I may as well be on dialup.

The only reason I haven't left yet is because I cannot afford possible Internet disruption of any kind until January due to currently being involved in hosting an online event this year.

Next year , I 'm off somewhere else - you won't see me for the dust. :laugh:

Seriously, avoid Eclipse at all costs- they've just moved the goalposts way too far in favour of themselves and away from the customer!

 

[benkid77]

I would also like to add that if Eclipse had these current T&Cs back in 2006 when I joined I would certainly not have joined them.

There should be some law preventing ISPs from changing their T&Cs for existing users or some such arrangement.

This is the third broadband ISP I have now used which I started off happy with and then they went and shot themselves in the foot making me yet again have to jump ship.

Really, I hope I can be "4th time lucky" next year with my next ISP.

I just want an ISP that doesn't change their T&Cs on me after I have joined. Is this even possible?

 

[scrumpyjack]

Eclipse Bill after 17 months

Yes, that's right . 17months after kicking that shower into touch they decide to send me a bill allegedly for early termination.:laugh:
Unfortunately I have no paperwork after all this time so have had to pay my bank for copies of my statements for that period:hrmph:
They said they had contacted me which is total:crap: When I rang customer disservice they even admitted to having my email address--why didn't they use it???
Having read some of this forum I thing that they are in the :crap: and are clutching at straws . Ialso wonder about my bill --is it true,or just more incompetent eclipse ?
I don't think I want to pay after all this time

 

[benkid77]

Ialso wonder about my bill --is it true,or just more incompetent eclipse ?
I don't think I want to pay after all this time

It could be true - it depends on which package you went with.

Some of their packages have a twelve month contract with the customer liable to pay the entire twelve months even if they leave before the twelve months are up.

I was on one like that, but I've been with them over two years now..

I noticed though that some of their packages only have a one month contract, so if you were on one of them then you shouldn't be liable to pay any more.

You need to somehow find out the exact name of the package you were on and check it out on the site to see which of the above applies, although I think they re-jigged some of the package names over the last year or so.

I'd just make sure that the package you were on did definitely have a twelve month minimum before paying, otherwise it could possibly be a mistake after all this long time.

It does seem strangely a very long time since you were with them that they are now asking for the money!

 

[wheeles]

About a week ago I switched to O2 and have to say that I am very pleased with their service. Speeds are about 4-5 times faster than Eclipse and that is on O2's home access account, and there are no usage caps. I even managed to get on O2's birthday promotion which gives me £7.50 off a month for a whole year. With an O2 mobile, that means it costs me just £10 a month.

The only thing I missed from Eclipse was access to their news server. However, this was cured by taking out an account with AstraWeb which gives me 110GB of data transfer for $25 (about £17), which should last me 18 months to 2 years on current usage. So, that all comes in still about £7 a month less than Eclipse.

Yesterday I got another bill through from Eclipse and despite not having service with them since 25 November, I am still being billed for service until 17 December as they have a 30 day notice period. So, unless you can time the switchover to another provider to come near the end of the notice period you'll still get billed for service you don't get.

This shower have definitely lost my business forever.

 

[byeeclipse]

It seems things have not changed based on what I read on broadband forums

 

[Old dude]

A workmate recently left eclipse after having extremely poor speeds. He now gets almost twice the speed on plusnet.

 

[akbray]

Its a shame - Eclipse used to be really good. I used them in the past and only left when LLU became the best value for my usage. Glad I did now.

 

[Old dude]

They did, I and many friends used them, and now we have all moved due to poor speeds, and ever devolving support.