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Xilo - Review Unfair?

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I have been with Xilo now for year, I must say they are the best ISP I've been with, I questioned the latest review with Xilo to see their side of the story, and to say I feel they have been treated unfairly by "Robb" is an understatement?

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/726.html

As for the mods comment at the end of it -

"This experience just further shows how poor the customer service is, and Matt + Co need to accept negative comments as well as compliments and stop acting childish."

What a load of *****. Matt & Co have got it spot on and anyone on a personal level I have recommended them too have been thoroughly impressed, perhaps its the brash attitude of the mods, also most of the edited sentence left at the end of the review really doesn't make sense.
 
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That is a funny one, and yes, I did question the authenticity of the review as I didn't agree with what was written because of many inconsistencies within the original text (and that are also still there).

We've still not gotten to the bottom of the issue but it appears Mark is still investigating the points we've made to him.

Matt
 
I am glad for the reputation of Xilo you are following this one through, if you did have a bad egg every now and then, I could understand the fact that you would have negative feedback, even if on the odd occasion.

But given all of my dealings with you guys I will stand by what I said on behalf of myself and others that I have recommended, I and they can't fault you.

Whenever I have had any issues or questions, you have replied in a accurate and helpful manor.

The ****** poster states "terrible service!", in the year I have been with them I have had 2 connection losses, which were both down to the C&W network locally being affected due to fibre optic cable strikes, on both occasions their status page has been updated promptly keeping me, the end user informed of the situation. Any other issues such as email servers or anything within the cpanel, they have been more than patient enough to guide me through in a step by step process, that's why posts with no weight such as that one royal me up so much!

In all honesty, if the moderators on here are just going to make a mockery of what this site is meant to be about, you'd be better off getting on some more legitimate review site with less imperceptive and more astute moderators.
 
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Why on earth do you think the final comment comes from the moderators and not Robb? The edit is Robb's.
Moderators here are scrupulously fair and comment under their own names. Why are you ****-stirring? Can't understand your attitude, especially as you're anonymous. :shrug:
 
"Edit : At the request of ISPReview Editor-In-Chief,"
Not BY, but "AT THE REQUEST OF"

I wait to read Marks conclusion, I suppose the screen shots that "prove" the issue could be faked, but why bother??

9 times out of 10 the issues are caused by the persons PC or line, not the ISP, if they are too far up their own rear ends to contemplate this fact, sodit, let them go and pester another ISP.
(and I say that from my own issues; only 2 have turned out to be external to my PC network)

It would be interesting to know if his new ISP threw up the same problems; I dont suppose the Rep would be able to find out who the mac code was sent to?? or if Mark is still in contact and can ask for a review of the new ISP
 
A very odd anonymous post indeed, smells funny to me, and the IP comes from Poland before resolving after sneaky redirection to some Pipex range. No doubt there will be a convenient explanation to follow. Also, to the OP, masked swearing and personal abuse words are against the rules and just because your service has been fine doesn't mean to say everybody has the same "perception".

Regarding the review, it's obviously edited by the author and not us doh! At Matts (Xilos) push I in turn requested that the review author (whom seems to have gone a bit overboard) adjust the support times while investigating the review following a complaint by Matt against the review in general. Since a recent court ruling we cannot now touch the content of a review without becoming totally liable for it. Silly law but that's the way it goes.

I am not going to waste more time going over the details of said complaint, but suffice to say Matt/Xilo think the review is fake or inaccurate and I had to waste hours trying to investigate it and play "man in the middle" while facing increasingly angry emails from both sides.. lots of fun but sadly its almost routine with some ISPs :) .

ISPreview is not a police force and just like every review site on the internet we can only investigate so far and have to reach a judgement. In this instance "Robb" supplied screenshots of his PayPal account, which appeared to match his explanation, albeit through the eyes of a customer unfamiliar with the normal processes of an ISP.

The author did not strike me as being dishonest and indeed much of the earlier confusion was caused by a misunderstanding over the connections status (I thought he had left when in fact the connection was still live but under somebody else's control). Matt indirectly confirmed earlier on that a customer within the same time period had experience some of what "Robb" had said to me, albeit with different perceptions of the experience from both sides.

In any case ISPreview is a free consumer ISP information website. It is not our job to judge a customer's technical interpretation or perception of an ISPs service. This was not an easy one to tackle, ultimately with our limited resources we felt comfortable enough that "Robb" had been a Xilo customer.

Sadly "Robb" ended up being angry at me for sending him so many messages (I did get a bit pushy because Matt was pushy to me, very sorry about that Robb!) and Xilo was angry at me for not doing more and removing it. I ended up feeling tired and stressed after the whole experience, and somewhat sympathising with the customer in that respect. "Robb" now ignores my emails so we've moved on lol.

One good piece of advice for ISPs who want to complain about a review, it's far better to start off by doing as the big providers usually do and ask if the customer needs more help first. A little politeness goes a long way. You can't expect every review to be 100% correct, a person's perception of their experience can often be different from what happened but that's life.

It's a shame because I think Xilo are an excellent ISP, easily one of the best right now, but this experience has damaged the relationship between myself a Matt.

Another hour of my other day job wasted to this.
 
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Mark - I am sure we all appreciate your time but you must know yourself, a site won't run itself.

I asked for the issue to be looked in to, as in the past with other reviews that have also had inconsistencies, you've acted swift to investigate them.

If you recall Mark, I have asked you to pass on messages before, which you've declined to do. So I think it's a little unfair to post what you have here with that being a contrast of what has been said in the past via email.

As I have said in the email to you, I am happy to accept fair comment when it is factually correct but in this instance, over 80% of the review was not - which in part, you even confirmed in your last email to me. I agree, we had not asked you to judge a customers interpretation of the matter but to allow factually incorrect information which can easily be proven otherwise, seems slightly bizarre.

I know that we (and others) have asked for some sort of right to reply, which you have said has been passed to your development to review - which is great but even now, you're unable to do that, even though the actual text from the reviewer has not changed - much like when you add the [editor] tag for your comments - also discussed via email.

I accept all feedback, good and bad when it is honest and factual, as not one company can satisfy every single person; and with that feedback it makes us learn from our mistakes and ensure that they don't happen again.

Matt
 
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If you recall Mark, I have asked you to pass on messages before, which you've declined to do. So I think it's a little unfair to post what you have here with that being a contrast of what has been said in the past via email.
Not entirely fair, I'll pass messages on where appropriate but every situation is unique and you must remember that it is not my job to act as third party customer support. Most of the time when a message is passed on then I'll just leave it up to the customer to respond.

Also you often didn't give me a message to pass on in the first place, you just asked for me to effectively form it myself. Other ISPs have given me a precise wording to forward, which is easier.

As I have said in the email to you, I am happy to accept fair comment when it is factually correct but in this instance, over 80% of the review was not - which in part, you even confirmed in your last email to me.
As above, it's not our place to tell a customer what their percieved experience of a service should be or to judge that; freedom of speech. Also the last email was about me saying that "we/i/ispreview" (and you too, to some extent) missunderstoood what his situation was. I wrote:

"This could potentially explain some of the conflicting information due to incorrect interpretations of the situation."

Maybe I should have written it like this to make that doubly clear but had assumed the context was obvious:

"This could potentially explain some of the conflicting information due to OUR (yours and my) incorrect interpretations of the situation."

I agree, we had not asked you to judge a customers interpretation of the matter but to allow factually incorrect information which can easily be proven otherwise, seems slightly bizarre.
It's not really incorrect in his eyes though, that's their opinion of how they were treated. It's just not practical to expect us to mediate, with precise perfection, every individual claim, quote or comment a person makes about their ISP. I don't know how every individual ISP works, manages its charges or processes or what "Robb" experienced.. only he/she knows that. I can't second guess their right to have an opinion of how they were treated.

Sure I can agree that claiming he was refused a MAC doesn't sound right but on the other hand, how can we judge? We didn't hear that phone call or see his context. It's your word against his.

I know that we (and others) have asked for some sort of right to reply, which you have said has been passed to your development to review - which is great but even now, you're unable to do that, even though the actual text from the reviewer has not changed - much like when you add the [editor] tag for your comments - also discussed via email.
This thing called a discussion forum is giving you a "Right to Reply" now :D .

Also we generally [editor] tag something when it contains personal abuse words or similar offensive material, which is where we have no choice but to edit a review or forum post as leaving such material is against our rules and too risky.

I accept all feedback, good and bad when it is honest and factual, as not one company can satisfy every single person; and with that feedback it makes us learn from our mistakes and ensure that they don't happen again.
Good to hear, of course the internet is also like the wild west. Just look at all the other review/product comment sites, nobody is ever going to be 100% technically perfect when they put their feelings into words. Opinions are personal, often heated when they're bad, and often may not be fair but we do live in a society that allows such freedom.
 
Sure I can agree that claiming he was refused a MAC doesn't sound right but on the other hand, how can we judge? We didn't hear that phone call or see his context. It's your word against his.

Definitely but as we don't know who the user is to date, we can't say what happened.. but one thing is sure, we never refuse to issue a MAC and we give all customers the tools to do this via the site - including offering more than one way to obtain it.

However, from the history, if he paid the cease fee - he did not migrate, he cancelled service outright which means he did not pass the service on to an existing house/flat mate - that is just an impossibility.

This thing called a discussion forum is giving you a "Right to Reply" now :D .

I'd disagree. It's not linked to the review or can be seen by would-be customers. This is something that all ISPs should be able to do on, or below the review in question. As we've discussed before, the default ISPr setting is to have email notifications off for PMs - which means when we do try and contact a customer the only way we can without your intervention (and wasting your time, as you say), are unlikely to be seen.

Being able to add a reply to the review, maybe in block quotes in a different colour with some explanatory text saying it is a reply from the ISP would not only clear problems up like this, would not waste your time or require much, if any effort or assistance from you?

Matt
 
i am with xilo and agree with matt's post above, that review now being second in the list is now bad publicity for them? the review smells fishy considering the number of dealings I have had with them without any problem also given the number of satisfied customers - "that's their opinion of how they were treated", perhaps you should investigate further.

you state mark.j

"One good piece of advice for ISPs who want to complain about a review, it's far better to start off by doing as the big providers usually do and ask if the customer needs more help first."

thats precisely why i am not with a big isp, most of them couldnt care about there customers my point being:

talktalk
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/471.html
great reviews.... not

orange
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/208.html
more great reviews.....

sky
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/534.html
marginally better

AOL
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/172.html

get a grip " it's far better to start off by doing as the big providers usually do" i am glad xilo do nothing like the big boys do and actually have customer service, just a shame that sites like this give the wrong impression when they let that type of review through.

the only current isp that do not have the negative vibe of all the big boys is o2 and thats only through llu. if your on access you may aswell forget it too.

on a side note, if it took you an hr to write your post, i would suggest getting out of it.
 
I think the trouble is too many uneducated people on 50year old phone lines not designed for broadband so as soon as there is a fault they blame the ISP.
 
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I think too many ISP's blame uneducated people and their computer equipment etc. rather than accepting that they occasionally provide poor service.
 
You have my sympathy Mark, no matter what you say or do, someone is going to be upset.

I think that Xilo have gone over the top a bit; yes it is a bad review and maybe the info is wrong; but is is only ONE review; as mentioned, everyone gets a few bad ones, there are some real plonkers out there who do nothing but complain about everything.

From what mark was saying, it could be this person was Polish, so they may have returned there by now, a lot of them have left during the meltdown; so the chances are he/she will not crop up again.

Xilo should step back, take a deep breath, count to ten, and realise that this thread is not helping them.

PS. I agree with both the Guest posts above.
 
Poland was about the forum post that started this topic Capt ;) .

get a grip " it's far better to start off by doing as the big providers usually do" i am glad xilo do nothing like the big boys do
Sorry I didn't know it was wrong or bad customer service from ISPs to ask if somebody posting a negative review might need help with their gripes/problem first, I just assumed that was good practice because nearly everybody else does it. How silly of me to presume such a thing and in the future I will indeed try harder to "get a grip", thanks for being constructive :p .

on a side note, if it took you an hr to write your post, i would suggest getting out of it.
Well I am Dyslexic and take a lot longer to write and proof read than most people but again, thanks for your constructive remarks lol.

Being able to add a reply to the review, maybe in block quotes in a different colour with some explanatory text saying it is a reply from the ISP would not only clear problems up like this, would not waste your time or require much, if any effort or assistance from you?
I put this to my legal friend over the weekend, as previously stated in our private emails, and he wasn't sure (not an internet focused lawyer) but promised to get back to me on Friday. We use to do this sporadically before the court ruling but never had a firm rule for it or process, I've usually tended to avoid editing peoples reviews to save wider conflict.

There is an issue surrounding "adjustment to the body of content" that needs clarification as to whether or not we become liable for the WHOLE even by adding a remark that doesn't conflict with the original word structure. According to one ISP who already tried to use the court ruling against us, we do or should, but according to some "opinions" we don't.. its grey.

Should know on Friday and like I said before, just be patient.
 
To the last comment, I am ;) I've only replied to this as I felt that some of what was said needed clarification and is only fair to give our review on it.

Matt
 
Well I am Dyslexic and take a lot longer to write and proof read than most people but again, thanks for your constructive remarks lol.

Apologies *feels bad now* you do ensure your posts are spot on and you wouldn't know any different, again apologies.

Just feel a bit for Xilo as that review that is posted on their, seems really, really, uncharacteristic of the way they operate.

In comparison it would be like Hitler being nice. You just don't expect - it not without suspicion anyway.
 
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Or too early.

I seem to remember Kansenji went through a stage of finding ancient threads and posting a reply to them.
Some were so old they were written in Sanskrit :D
 
Sanskrit . . .

sanskrit.jpg

:laugh:
 
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