First of all, I would like to say that I was a longstanding Pipex customer, dating right back to 1994 when I was using their dial up a system on a PC running Windows 3.01 and the Macintosh Performa. I stuck with them through the teething problems with their FRIACO and Broadband service because back then they were a good ISP with helpful staff and a good product (for example back then they were one of the few ISP's to provide connectivity for the Mac.

However, I find it hard to credit how low the company has fallen. Simple things like customer care and information have gone south. In my case, I think it first started back in 2006 or so when I changed credit card numbers. After repeatedly giving them the new card details, they were still not withdrawing funds to pay for my subscription. I set up a direct debit (four times in the end) and again funds were not being withdrawn. It got to a stager where I had to call them up every few months or so and insist the take a card payment to settle any due funds.

Things really started to go downhill from a customer servide side when I changed phone numbers in 2007. Naturally, I informed Pipex of this and didn't pay it any mind after that. After all, how difficult could it be for someone to update customer records on a system huh?

Things started to go belly up when lo and behold I was unable to connect to the broadband service in September. After three days backing and forthing to what passes for techincal support and customer services, I discovered that Pipex had cancelled my account for reasons known only to themselves. No-one could explain why my account had been cancelled nor could they committ to a date when it would be reactivated.

Anyway, after three days of being on hold or listening to support staff reading from prompt cards to cover their refusal to help, I finally managed to force one of their customer reps to listen to everything I said and talked her through reactivating my account (it was a simple procedure that anyone with initiative could have done in thirty seconds).

However, three months later I am back in the same situation. Actually this situation is worse because not only have Pipex again cancelled my account for unknown reasons, they are now unable to reactivate it as for some reason their systems will now view it as a new account and they are no longer accepting home accounts.

Now we go back to the call I made to them in 2007, informing them of my new phone number. It seems that the information was not updated, as Pipex have somehow removed their tag from the old inactive number and not from my current number, the upshot being that their product, a product I can no longer access, is still sitting on my line at the exchange and stopping me from mopving to a new broadband provider.

I will not go into detail about my experience dealing with the customer support staff, as I am sure anyone who has had to deal with Pipex in the last few months will know exactly what I mean. As usual it involved ages spent on hold, support staff refusing to do anything beyond read from their prompt cards, notes not being taken by support staff, scheduled call backs not being made, emails not being replied to and calls being treansferred to Tiscali, who promptly tell me it is nothing to do with them. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I am without broadband (and out of pocket) due to an error by my ISP and furthermore, it looks like I am unable to sign up with another provider in the immediate future.

What about MAC codes I hear you say! Surely you can get one of those and be on your merry way to BT or someone else.

Ah but if it were only that simple.

After having a very in depth conversation with the supervisor at Pipex Cancellations and explaining in the situation to him about the phone numbers and phantom cancellations etc in detail, he somehow managed to request the MAC code against the wrong phone number. After five days the request was rejected.

Not to worry though, says the supervisor at Pipex. He can rush through a request using their offshore Remedy system and I should have a MAC code in a few hours (he had to do that because he accepted that he made a monkey-up on the original process). Yet somehow, after 48 hours I am still without this code. Furthermore, the request that could have been fulfilled in a few hours at the start of this week (apparently) will now take five working days and to judge from the conversation I had with Pipex this morning.

Also, I get the feeling that the Cancellations Supervisor has again ordered the MAC code against the wrong telephone number. I asked him to confirm the number against which he had ordered the MAC code and the number he gave me was the number that had been changed back in 2007. When I told him that this was the old number, he mumbled for a bit before he started to read out a second number that is my office number. Following that shambles, he claimed getting a code using this Remedy system meant that it does not matter which telephone number the code has been ordered against. I dunno if that is true or not but he did not sound convinced by what he was saying to me.

By the looks of it, my request for a MAC code will take ten working days. Even then I would not be surprised if the request is again rejected because Pipex have supplied BT Wholesale with duff information.

Ten working days? Now why does that sound familar? Oh I know. During my first conversation with the Cancellations Supervisor, I suggested that it would be easier if he sent someone to the telephone exchange and got them to remove the Pipex tag from my line. I was then informed that it would take ten working days for that request to be processed and getting a MAC code would save everyone a lot of time.

If the new MAC code has been ordered against my old number or office number, Pipex suggest they will send an engineer to remove the tag from my line, the same thing I suggested they do nine days ago. However we are back to that ten days magic timeline again and to judge from that, it will be around the 19th of December that the line will be tag-free.

I have been in contact with CISAS, who said I should put in a claim for any out of pocket epxenses. These will have reached £91 by the time I hear back about the new MAC code. Then throw in a potential £70 at the most if the MAC Code request is rejected because Pipex have again given BT Wholesale the incorrect information and another potential £70 before I get a new service up and running. After speaking to BT, it would actually be cheaper and quicker simply to get a new line installed and get braodband provisioned on that during the installation.

And what is the long and short of my experience? Pipex were a good ISP. They were one of the best when I first signed up to them. Now though, a shocking level of customer support means I would not recommend them to anyone. Perhaps it is fgor the best that they are no longer accepting home customers but businesses should beware and the same goes for anyone looking to leave them.