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MAF is crap(busy tones)

stu

0
hi all
is it just me or has maf got worse over the last week it took 30 times to connect tonight and there is busy tones every time i go to log on i phoned there tech line and they said they had a problem and was looking in to it this was 4 days ago!!! please someone else say they have the same problem? just thought those with e-mail problems i dont have any!! anyway thanks
stu
 
don't worry stu,

I have the same prob's. can't connect between 7pm & 10pm. I have sent them an e-mail (over a week ago) telling them to cancel my account but no reply. I have my original worldpay account No. so I will just cancel the account myself. Been with MAAF for years but they suck SOOO bad these days.
Vote with your feet people & go somewhere else. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />
 
Do not be afraid your not on your own . I have had problems with the Fish for the past week.Last night could not log at all. Today the same and finally gave up and called the help line. They told me the problem only surfaced TODAY. [Tuesday]When i ask about the problem last night and the previous week it suddenly went quiet on the phone.
Please tell me it will improve when i pay another £2 a month to the fish fund.
 
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I think someone out there is playing funny buggers with them dos attacks ect?
Their service outages could surly not be to high demand?
Cos it neaver used to be this bad.Emails on and off.... which is all i usem for cos i now have tele2 for an isp....
Out of the slow lane at last in with the high speed! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
 
hi all
thanks guys at least it wasnt me!!! today(wed)no busy tones!!! i wonder if the problems have been sorted out? i will wait till 6-7pm then we will know for sure!! anyway thanks for all the replys lets hope this is the last problem we get with the fish!!!..p.s email is working as well now!!!
thanks again
stu <img border="0" alt="[Shrug]" title="" src="graemlins/shrug.gif" />
 
Well I have an evening set aside for emailing and surfing tonight .. I'll post my results in the morning as well .. Glad I'm not alone !! :p
 
I've been with Madasafish now since they first came on the scene. Initially as a pay per minute customer, then subscribing to their 'off peak' unmetered service, and now currently on their unmetered 24/7 service. So as you can expect I've experienced all the highs and lows of this ISP.

The current problem they are having is not one of the worst they've had by a long shot. But it has happened at the very worst time for Madasafish when they have informed all their Timezone customers of an increase from £12.99 to £15.99.

The current problem started Monday around about 4.30pm and persisted for the rest of the evening up to about midnight with constant BT auto messages: 'The number you have called is busy. To use ringback please press 5' or 'The service cannot be connected'. If you configure your browser settings efficiently the best strategy is to auto connect to Madasafish and then let your browser auto reconnect for you upon each failed attempt. My experience over the last few days is that you usually get online after 12 - 30 attempts. Extremely poor I know but in the meantime just go and have a nice cup of tea and a chocolate bun to amuse yourself as you will eventually get online. Madasafish themselves advise this.

What is unprofessional of Madasafish is that on their homepage there is a system status page that was intended to inform its users of any problems the server platform is experiencing at the moment. As everyone here will testify and as Madasafish themselves acknowledge, there are big problems between 4.30pm to late evening hours which their engineers are currently working on to resolve. But has there been a mention of this at any point on their 'system status page'? Not at all, it still carries a message that states that there are no known problems with their service. What's the point of having a 'system status' page when you have no intention of using it. This is wrong! Look at a system service page like that of Tiscali or Vispanet and you will see lots of update information on what problems are currently occurring, but on the Madasafish homepage it has now become a redundant feature.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been with 'da fish' for a long time now. As I subscriber I've stuck with them for the last 11 months. As an ISP they have a cyclical nature of performance. Everything is ok for a few months then problems occur, customers leave for these reasons and then the problems disappear. So my philosophy has always been if I stick with them they will eventually sort things out and performance will improve. The £12.99 factor has also been a large factor in me staying with the fish people.

But now, the battlefield has changed. Madasafish 24/7 Timezone will be increasing to £14.99 like many other of their competitors. For that reason the motivation to 'stick it out' with da Fish as I have done in the past 11 months may now have to take a back seat. An ISP like Vispa Internet offers the same service for the same price, more reliable, much faster and with a national rate tech support service. Customer feedback is far superior to that of fish so it may now be time to move on. I'd prefer to stay with Madasafish because I do like them, but in the current situation the poor performance, uncompetitive subscription price, extortionate premium rate tech support phone calls, and inability to actually get online with them points me in the direction of Vispa Internet. Vispa Internet seem to be an ISP that emulates what Madasafish used to be like in the beginning with their emphasis on fast performance, cheap tech support and reliable service.

Madasafish is far from being a bad ISP, but it has lost its competitive edge and is now merely just another ISP.

Cheers

Dionysus
 
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Addendum!

Madasafish's Timezone unmetered 24/7 service is to increase to £14.99 as opposed to £15.99 as I incorrectly stated.
 
Dionysus,

there's a few ex fish people at Vispa, myself included.

Vispa are very much like the early MAAF - great speeds, not sure about gaming as I don't and reliable connections. Support is great.

Worth a try if you're looking for another home.
 
Well I had no problems last night .. I phoned Peter Brady at Brightview yesterday afternoon to ask where the extra 2.00 a month was going .. not surprised to hear that it will be invested into the service .. Hmmm ..He did drop some hints about the future and at the moment I quite happy to stay with the fish .. although the 2hr cut of it a real pain especially as I like to play online every so often
 
hi all
well the service is good again at the moment all they need to do now is sort the tech guys out on the 50p a min line.they are terrible i have 2 accounts with maaf (well did) i wanted to change my cli number and they messed it up so badly i had to cancel it!! after they had changed the number all i got was invald username/password..10 mins went bye and they could not fix it so in the end i had to cancel it!!..lot of good that was!!!..lol <img border="0" alt="[Laugh]" title="" src="graemlins/laugh.gif" />
stu
 
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<All is still not well in the fish pond>

Re: Pete Zab: Thanks Pete for the advice on Vispa. I have heard good things from them and for the same price I'm going to have to pay at Madasafish for a slower, more unreliable service with premium rate tech support instead of national rate call charge I think I would now be a little foolish to loyally stay. Unfortunately Fish has now lost its edge.

Yesterday (Wednesday) it took 12 attempts to get a connection

Today (Thursday) It took 20 attempts to get online. This scenario has persisted since Monday when this fault began. The good ol' system status page indicates that everything is working fine though which is ironic. I may stay with them for one more month though before climbing out of the fish pond finally. We'll see.
 
You know why they having problems look on their system status page :p
YES IT REALLY HAS CHANGED!
Any way just on quiry i tryed to dl me email and when i tryed from maaf somin else kicked in which my firewall blocked some wierd caracter li .
looked like a strange s........I ponder as to what it was as i have not had it happen again.
 
Hi All,

The Madasafish access problems/email problems will not last for long. It`s worth reading one of the articles posted on this site some time ago, which basically said that there`s no way an ISP can provide 24/7 u/m access for £12.99 per month and retain any degree of servcie level. The price hike will pay for more webports, which will give better access. This will all happen very soon indeed, but the email problems are slightly different methinks. I`d ride it out for now, the extra cash injection will help feed the fishes.

The 08089933078 number is the ONLY madasafish u/m dial up number, the other 0808 is the Jings one. You used to be able to use both, but that`s changed recently.
 
Yes but a service is better than no service .. I tried several times to get on over the weekend with no luck .. had to revert to my freebie freeserver account just to serve .. I feel a call to Mr Brady gain is in order after all I had to pay extra to surf ... <img border="0" alt="[Crap]" title="" src="graemlins/crap.gif" />
 
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by petezab:
<strong>Dionysus,

there's a few ex fish people at Vispa, myself included.

Vispa are very much like the early MAAF - great speeds, not sure about gaming as I don't and reliable connections. Support is great.

Worth a try if you're looking for another home.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've was with Madasafish since day one. I signed up to the unmetered service when it first came on the scene. Then I signed up to the second generation unmetered service (Brightview). It was when Brightview appeared on the scene everything went pear-shaped.

Earlier this year I decided to leave Madasafish. I contacted Peter Brady and he closed my account and I signed up to Vispa. I'm pretty sure they're the best ISP in the UK - they're certainly the best I've tried (over 15 ISP's) and the support is excellent.

<a href="http://www.vispa.com" target="_blank">www.vispa.com</a>
 
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Theres not a lot more I can add.

I was with MAAF for a good year and a half, and I just got sick of not being able to connect for weeks at a time, never having working pop3 email and when I rang the expensive helpline, getting fobbed off with 'it's a BT problem'.

Like all these companies, all you can do is vote with your wallet and leave.

I was very disappointed with the sniffy emails I recieved and the general obstructiveness from the previously very chatty helpline when I tried to cancel my account, but I was speedy and managed to kill it off before they (very efficiently) fleeced me of another £15.

Rubbish.
 
I've voted with my feet as well.

E-mailed MAAF to give them 30days notice but never recieved any message back from them. Emailed Worldpay who gave me a link to Brightview. Canceled my account & went to Lobsterpot, which is the Dial up version of Nildram. Connect first time EVERY time, lower pings than MAFF when playing games, decent download speed. Haven't needed to call their help line yet so don't know what they are like. There is some talk of not been able to reconnect for ten minutes if you exceed the two hour limit but it hasn't happend to me???

Take my advice peeps & go elswhere, MAAF was a superb ISP when I first joined(before Brightview/FRIACO) but now there's better for less out there.
 
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