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Pipex and HomeCall

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Having been a Pipex user for about 4 years on very low-speed broadband, I was recently invited to upgrade to a faster broadband package for £5 a month less than I was currently paying, along with free phonecalls for certain time-periods. Normally, I am very astute and sharp-witted, but unfortunately the sales-call caught me in a period of considerable illness, and I had to concentrate very hard on what was being said to me.
The connection has now been upgraded to 8Mb (4mb useable), BUT........what I wasn't aware of (and wasn't told at the time) was that by accepting the package, I would be switching telecoms provider from the usual BT billing to Pipex. I didnt know this until today, unfortunately, when an email came from Pipex to tell me.
I never received any email or written communication from Pipex, following the sales-call, and just before the end of the 14 day cooling-off period I contacted them to ask "where's the confirmatory letter, then?"
The response came, but only a few lines.....and even that content was wrong with it's pricing, I had to correct their own mistakes.
I don't suppose it will hurt to see how the Pipex HomeCall works out, because as a family we are very low-volume telephone users. But I'm having to assume that it's a usual 12-month contract, etc etc....there's STILL nothing in writing. Why don't they do it properly?
 
What relevance did that response have to the original post?
 
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I would presume a 12 month contract but it could also be an 18month contract as some have lengthened the contract time recently.

Pipex has been bought out by Tiscali and by end of February all tech suipport will indead be handles in indonesia the last of the homecall staff are redundant end February as I have friends who work for homecall and they finsh then.

Apart from you contacting them reminding them they have not sent you through any details but doubt they will release you early from the contract.
 
They don't do it properly because they're a terrible ISP.

I left them a couple of months ago.

As has been said, Tiscali are in charge now, and providing the services, which is bad enough.

Here are some of the problems I had with Pipex Homecall...

Incorrect bills. Charging me for services I wasn't receiving.
Blocking ports. Not throttling. Actually blocking. Blocking the remote desktop port, so I couldn't remote into an external machine. Remote desktop, that bandwidth hog! </sarcasm>
Being told I'm downloading too much, and to download less - but not being told how much is too much, and what amount is ok to download...
 
Hi there,
You have my sympathies. I, too, was a customer with Homecall using broadband and telephone in an all in one package for about £30 per month. Whilst I was with them, via Tiscali servers, I used to get this sort of service:

weeks%20rx%20Homecall.jpg


Come about 5 at night and finishing about 11pm the speeds went down to aroung 0.5 Mb/s. In the early hours of the morning the speeds were nearer to 7 Mb/s so you can see that my line is a good one. During my spell with Homecall I could'nt wait for the years contract to expire. At that time a couple of people, who actually worked for this firm, used to participate in the DSLZone forum. They informed me, one by private message, that the (unofficial) cap of 0.75 Gig per week during peak time was imposed. Peak time was 5 to 11pm 7 days a week. Overshooting this put you onto one of the "bad boy" servers where download speeds were even worse 24/7. I watched my downloading like a hawk and only downloaded anything of any size during the early morning. They throttle like mad during peak times because they have to. They oversubscribe something rotten and this helps to explain why they are so cheap.

But they were reliable for me at least and they were cheap too! If all you need is the odd Email or a bit of web browsing I would'nt worry too much. Mind you I'm only 1km (actual distance, not as the crow flies) from the local exchange.

I phoned them a couple of months before my contract expired and asked them about leaving early. I was told that I'd have to pay the remaining two months at £30 per month and £80 for the modem they had provided me with initially. £80 for a rotten USB modem!! Anyway, I finally got away and, as you can see from my signature, my speeds have rocketed, I've about a 500 Gig per month cap and it only costs me £10/month. Goodbye IPStream suppliers forever (I hope)!
 
Well, hopefully I can get through a contract period without too many serious issues....I will be having to write to them in the New Year if I don't get any more paperwork from them. In essence, one realises that the contract is only verbal....it seems gone are the days when everything had to be physically signed. Surely if no paperwork is ever sent out, one questions whether the arrangement is even legal.
I live, unfortunately, at the extremes of our exchange so am unlikely ever to get full benefit of 8Mb. The family uses email, University websites, and we also look after a few websites, so we are not heavy users; but it's things like this that place big question-marks over the whole business of Broadband supply in the UK. It seems, having read many forum-posts elsewhere, that consumers get pretty poor treatment, and it's not funny having to keep changing providers every couple of years because of poor support and aggressive takeovers. Pipex has been pretty good since I started with them awhile back, but I never even knew until recently that Tiscali had bought them out......I've been too busy with other aspects of life....and if I'd known then, I would have left.
 
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Pipex-the pits!

I signed up to a pipex deal last year and after two months, they hadn't connected me. Large numbers of emails and letters of complaint were ignored. When I cancelled, they billed me for 'services' I had not received and put a debt-collection agency on my case when I refused to pay.

It's hard to see how Indonesian staff can be any worse than the shoddy UK bunch of indifferent layabouts.

After several months of unremitting effort, I eventually received an apology from Pipex and a cheque for £75, which just about covered my postage costs....
 
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