Hi all

just thought i'd join in on this one as I have been having my own nightmare with Tiscali since last October & I understand that they are connected to Pipex. They certainly share the same useless, pricey 'Customer Services' (what a contender for false descriptions that is!!) & billing etc

I have had my phone cut off for 2 weeks, through no fault of my own & they were absolutely useless, shunting me from dept to dept (mostly abroad) with each dept blaming another. By the end I was tearing my hair out & in desperation, trawled the internet for any telephone numbers I hadn't tried. It was then that I realised what a huge problem Tiscali/Pipex are & just how many customers are having similar problems. There are literally hundreds! The problem started for me when I stupidly thought I could save some money by taking them up on their offer of changing my line rental to them, saving £10.50 pm on the BT rate. Huge mistake. Once you do this, they have got you over a barrell & I have heard of other customers who have literally had to pay to have another line installed to escape. It's outrageous. Their broadband is absolutely useless anyway - I don't know if thats just my area (Dorset) but it is incredibly slow (my previous dial up service with Aol was honestly faster!) It freezes at least every 15mins & I have to completely restart my pc (not funny when you are trying to work) & the connection breaks frequently also. I guess i'd just got used to it sadly but when I was round my mums last week & asked to use her pc (Virgin) I was astounded by how fast it was & it finally dawned on me that i'm paying for rubbish!

I only got my phone reconnected after contacting High Level Complaints & was offered £100 compensation, although I have still not received this money (surprise!) At this stage, you could get through to them without an extension number but has someone correctly stated earlier in this thread, if you don't dail one in when prompted nowdays, they just cut you off. Obviously can't handle the amount of disgruntled customers. However, i'm not one to give up so easily, so when I had to contact them again this week (they cut my internet off with no warning or explanation & a charming woman in Manilla I think 'Customer Services' again, was incredibly rude to me, lied to me three times, refused to let me speak to her superviser & then hung up on me) I flipped out. I rang Tiscali HQ, a london number, told the rep that I had an ongoing High Level Complaint & needed to speak to my case worker (I had his name from his previous letter) but I had misplaced his ext number, could she give it to me please? Bingo!! Got you now. Hence I am back online - but most definately moving on to pastures new.

So that would definately be my advice to any of you having problems. Don't even bother with any of the depts sourced abroad, they are beyond useless. I am happy to give those details to anyone that needs them but don't think it wise to post them here - don't want any trouble - but i'll find a way if you let me know you want them. This High Level Complaints does def handle Pipex also cos I was asked the 1st time I rang them which of the two I was with.

Another way I had some joy with a problem once was to ring an 0800 number I found on a sales flyer for existing customer upgrades etc. This way you get through to a British person & because a lot of these staff actually worked in Customer Service/Billing etc before those depts were moved abroad, they are very knowledgable & helpful. At the very least, they can bypass the foreign depts & expedite your problem to the relevent people over here. If you are nice about it & tell them how desperate you are, this usually works. & of course it's a freefone number, which always helps! Try 0800 107 9000.

Hope this info helps some of you. But in the long run, i'd follow me & get out. It's just not worth the aggro!

Good luck.

Michelle.