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So I had to leave the postoffice broadband early.............

NUT

0
4 months into my 12 month contract I had to leave and by tuesday I should be going live with sky....but now post office are getting really s****y with me and I would need advice on possibly what to do :( I talked about my problems on here before but a brief summary.

I joined september 2009 and was was supposed to go live on the 10th I think it was but for whatever reason the service was delayed for activation for a week (that was just the start of it) their zyxel router they supplied to me kept constantly disconnecting me..bascally unusuable for service. I phoned on the er......29th of september as I had had enough of it all and got told on the phone my connection had dropped out at least 70 times in 2 days. I was diagnosed as having a faulty router and got told 3/5 working days I would have a replacement. 2 weeks later and another 5 phone calls and low and behold replacement eventually arrived. Another zyxel. I thought....better luck this time let's use my service......2nd Zyxel exactly the same as the first i.e. not working. I gave up phoning and used my old NETGEAR (which is still going strong after 3 years) Now I phoned a couple of weeks ago to ask for username and password for my router as I had to factory reset and I needed the info again. I got hung up midway through the call without the information given to me! I thought that's the last straw and I want out as I can't continue with this shabby customer service. I emailed complaints and got my MAC but now I'm being threatened with cancellation charges which after all the grief I've had with customer service.....I think is pretty disgusting to be honest. Would I have a good chance in fighting this? and what would be the best option for me as I feel i've been paying for a pretty much useless service for the past 4 months.
 
I should talk with OFCOM and contact their complaints with a copy list everything that has happened to you since joining. I should also contact their ADR to complain by law they have to have one to sort out complaints like yours.
 
ADR? Do the post office have 1 of them? I'm not sure. How would I go about contacting OFCOM too? (there's loads of sections on the website I know but not sure what category mine would fall under) I was going to go to the ISPA regarding this too but I don't think they're on the ISPA :( I have emailed complaints at post office but they seem not too bothered basically and the charges still stand.
 
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If your internet was of them and that is where the issue is then http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/ select internet if its both landline also do both.

They need to be registered with one of these or they are breaking OFCOM code of conduct.

Otelo
PO Box 730
Warrington
WA4 6WU
Telephone 0845 050 1614
or 01925 430 049
E-mail enquiries@otelo.org.uk
Web site www.otelo.org.uk
CISAS
c/o Dispute Resolution Services The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators 12 Bloomsbury Square London
WC1A 2LP
Telephone 020 7421 7432
E-mail kkorubo@arbitrators.org or mekpenyong@arbitrators.org
 
Hi NUT,

Sorry to hear about your problems. We have an entire section of the site dedicated to making complaints and getting your problems resolved :) .

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/complain/complain.shtml

Firstly Kits is incorrect in the sense that an ADR cannot be started until 8 weeks have passed without resolution, at which point the ISP should issue a Deadlock letter. Also the PostOffice does not appear to be a member of the ISPA. In addition, Ofcom don't handle individual complaints but its always good practice to tell them about problems so they can keep track.

Now in this instance I would say that you have a good shot at getting your cancellation charge waived or even reduced because the service has clearly not lived up to the basic expectation of a stable connection. I’d start by writing an email or formal letter that clearly outlines your intention to make an official complaint and dispute the charge as unfair because they have failed to deliver the service. List the issues you’ve had, be polite, write clearly and ask which Ofcom approved ADR scheme they are members of (ps – I’d like to know that too).

I would also include a suggested resolution, such as how much you think you should pay or even if they owe you any money and include some basic math workings to support that position. Then see what happens. At worse they’ll send the debt collectors in after a few months but you’d be able to open an ADR before that so it’s likely to be resolved long before that stage.

We usually recommend paying the charge and then disputing it afterwards by way of an invoiced refund request through the ADR process, but it’s up to you.
 
Sorry i'm just replying now guys. Had a busy day (I'll keep that to myself) ;) I did contact complaints again and they gave me this address for ADR? Doesn't seem right...........

Mr Steven Lambert
Post Office® Telecoms
Bridge Court
The Close
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 3BA

I will contact again and be more formal :) The service itself is fine (don't get me wrong I mean when I plugged in my own router everything worked great) it's their shabby customer services and general poor attitude which all combined 2 weeks ago as I said when the phone got hung up on me (and the other things are mostly customer service related) Even any time I have contacted complaints via email (as they seem to have no speficic telephone number) it's took them at least a good week or 2 to reply. They said last time I had issues I was getting credited 1 months broadband but I didn't see that on my latest bill (was that another lie I wonder) they claimed they did but who knows. I really don't want to have to go down this nasty route but my hands been forced so it seems. I will weigh up my options over the weekend and start getting thought's regarding that email together. I will let you all know.

P.S. Just 1 worry. What if I did dispute and my bill remained unpaid could that affect my new broadband with sky? (I took sky up as we have HD and multiroom the full shebang and as sky we're doing 6 months free I thought why not)
 
That's the ISPs own internal complaints department and not an ADR. Internal complaints are where you should start anyway. I’d ask them again who their ADR scheme is though (Otelo or CISAS).

Your situation should not affect Sky, once you've moved away from the PostOffice then there's not much they can do. The billing dispute is separate. Just be careful with money matters, only play hardball with an ISP if you are confident that what they're doing is unjust.

Contracts are tough things to get around and if you have recieved a fairly reliable connection then it could be very difficult to dispute.
 
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The only problem I have? Why I mentioned why my new broadband with sky might be affected? Post office do my line rental too..........and they may decide to be stubborn and really bitchy (excuse my french) and decide that if I'm challenging what I owe? they decide to cut my line altogether.
 
of you have a BT line they cant cut you as they only provide the service, not the route it gets to you which is BTs domain, the most they can do is stop your service and you go back to BT (lm not sure if they do a call package, lm not familiar with the PostOffice broadband, l stopped being interested when l saw the limits)

the only other thing they could do is mess around with credit ratings, but just about everything can mess with those when money passes hands (tho l averted to mention about the possibilities of other actions they could take tho going to OfCom might be very apt in this situation)
 
Do you pay your line rental to the post office or direct to BT?

If you pay it to the post office, they have taken over your line from BT and can actually barr it or cease it.
 
My line rental is payable to post office. They took over everything as I joined their homephone and broadband package at the same time.

Bit of an update. Regarding what Mark said about making it official that you want to make a formal complaint? I've stuck to my guns. I wasn't nasty about it. I emailed back insisting on the correct information regarding everything. I got this response back today:

I am writing to confirm that this has now been escalated to the manager of
the Post Office® Telecoms complaints team for him to deal with.

If I get a phone call/letter back or whatever? I'll stick to my guns and insist that the whole account be looked at allover again and if you still won't consider dropping things? I'll insist on a deadlock letter so I can take my case to OTELO. I'll let you know what happens :)

P.S. Sky went live about half 9 this morning I think. All going OK so far.
 
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Just to update er.........there is no update. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Manager's not got back to me (I am hardly surprised with this as it is the post office and customer service after all) I should phone and find out but not going to as they we're never interested in me when I called them (and I called often enough) I'll sit back and wait and see what happens.
 
Another update. Letter recieved today telling me the same crap I was more or less told in my original email recieved i.e. not given them enough time to resolve the issues (They didn't resolve any issues regarding their poor customer service to me) I have told them I completely reject their findings and looks like I'm going down the OTELO route again (already going down them via vodafone with a sepearate issue) Determined to fight it out though.
 
Thanks for keeping us informed NUT, it's always useful to share experiences like this as it will help others who get into a similar situation. Though I hope nobody does :) .
 
Oh that's not a problem. If it will help people decide what to do in future then I'm going to progress all the way until this is resolved (which looks like it's going to take a while now unfortunately)
 
Now 3 weeks since the initial response that complaint was getting passed on. Last week recieved the letter saying it wasn't getting dealt with and still no word back despite the fact i've now sent a few emails. Still no response or nothing. What am I supposed to do here? I'm getting fed up with just sitting here not knowing what way to turn or go. I want it dealt with quickly but got nowhere to turn here (and this is another example of the poor customer support i've mentioned continuously)
 
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Took me a while to update ;) Today (just a few minutes ago) I have contacted OTELO. Tried explaining things to them the best I could about the whole thing. So it's now up to me to sit back and wait to see what happens.
 
Yes unfortunately there's a lot of waiting involved and given the importance of phone and broadband access I really do think that the 8 week lead time before you can go to an ADR should be reduced further. Still, before last September it was 12 weeks! Ugh. Some improvement is better than none I guess.
 
Yes unfortunately there's a lot of waiting involved and given the importance of phone and broadband access I really do think that the 8 week lead time before you can go to an ADR should be reduced further. Still, before last September it was 12 weeks! Ugh. Some improvement is better than none I guess.

EEK! Long time to wait ain't it? I've realised too having read my deadlock letter a bit more? They're basing this on I didn't give them enough time to sort out my "Technical Issues" with the company. I'm not basing this on that. It's their consistent poor customer service which you would have thought would have improved from October last year to Janurary this year but obviously not. ;)
 
UPDATE. Recieved a long/detailed response from OTELO and looks like they have somewhat disagreed with my version of events in this saga (I knew this would happen) ;) I've got some stuff to do but I'll try and explain things a bit more when I have time. Looks like I may will be disagreeing with the complaint though (Looks like the only 2 things i'm getting are a £20 credit to my bill and a written letter of apology) I'll get back in touch when I have time to read the whole report in detail and see what you all think.
 
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