Pipex nightmare...I have never written to a site like this before, but my experience with Pipex has been so bad that I thought it my duty to let others know. Reading about the other experiences on the site, I can see I am not alone. I have an inch thick portfolio of letters and a list of thirty plus phone calls (at my expense) to show all that has gone wrong.The bones of the story are that I signed up for Pipex from Orange, with free wireless Router in April 2007. They sent me two modem routers by mistake, before the wireless one arrived. However, some 63 days later I was still not on line - their literature suggested 23 days would be a reasonable expectation. All sorts of reasons were given for this, but no positive action taken to resolve the problems. In my first bill, I saw that they had taken £55 from my account (fraudulently in my view) for the "free" router. They were also taking money from my account and I was not receiving a service. They admitted this mistake and said it would be refunded immediately. This was in June. Most calls to Pipex produced generalised reassurance and fabrications about what was happening. The customer service people clearly had no authority to solve any of the problems and were struggling. At this point I had been without the Internet and emails for several weeks. Phones 4 U, who signed me up to Pipex were horrified by the way I had been treated. They advised immediate cancellation of the Direct Debit to Pipex and to end my relationship with Pipex altogether. I cancelled that day. That produced the first practical reaction from Pipex. They started ringing me up to demand to know why I had cancelled the Direct Debit as they were no longer able to take money from me.
It is now nearly October (five months after signing up) and at last I received a cheque from Pipex, as refund for the 'free' router. I have recently offered to return the modems and router. They said I should do this at MY expense and they would refund me! This whole Pipex business has caused considerable stress and inconvenience to me. For someone with a less robust constitution or a business to run, it might have proved catastrophic.
Post script: Orange, who were my previous providers, were most gracious. They understood the problems I had had in the changeover and wrote off £22 from the last bill from them as a gesture of goodwill. And incidentally, I am now with Talk Talk. Good easy, speedy connection process. No problems at all. So far the service has been as described. I am a satisfied customer.