I joined Pipex in July with a broadband/ Anytime contract. It was advertised as a £6.50 broadband and £12.50 phone call package, with free connection, free modem and free antivirus.
I have a catalogue of complaints against Pipex:
1. They didn't tell me that the phone package wasn't available.
2. It still isn't available 2 months later, even though they aresstill advertising it..
1,They didn't send me my username or password by either email or letter, as they promised they would.
2. I have had to phone them continually on an 0845 number, where part of the cost of the call is paid to Pipex, and where I often had at least 10 minute waits to be connected, just to find out what on earth was happening over the past 2 months, .
3.Customer services were not very helpful and were unsilling to pass me on to someone higher up, like a Team Leader.
4.When I looked at my online bills ( they still haven't set up my direct debit after 2 months) they had over £55 on them which shouldn't have been there. Pipex had billed me for the dsl connection, the modem and the antivirus, all of which were advertised as free. The anitvirus is still unavailable from their website. In addition they had billed my broadband at £14.99, which is the charge when one receives the broadband service alone. It should have been £6.50, as this was what it was advertised as within the package I bought.
5. I sent a long email of complaint a month ago to their Customer Services but it was never answered. After reading various posts on the ASDL forum I find that they have 3000 unanswered emails for August alone.
After reading that someone who was wrongly billed for £60 had to ring them 3 times per week for six weeks to get his money back I have cancelled my direct debits and am about to send them a 14day 'time is of the essence' letter, as recommended to me by Trading Standards, as they have broken their contract with me, and with lots of other people I suspect.
A few other posts on the ASDL forum indicate that Pipex' finance dept. is in a 'meltdown', so I am not holding my breath for them to rectify my bill. I rang them about it and they put me on hold while they said they were talking to the finace dept. They then said it was rectified, but 10 days later the incorrect bill appears unchanged online. This sort of thing, from what I have read, seemsquite usual with Pipex.
If anyone wants to join them after reading this, they must be masocistic or mad. I have been in touch with other people who are in the same position as me and we can't wait to get out, sooner rather than later. Pipex is obviously in a real mess and the customer doesn't exactly come first in this situation as far as I have experienced.

Curlew

Thanks for your email, this seems very surprising given that PIpex do have a better record for customer service than many other ISP's. If you look at ADSL Guide they're usually up near the top in terms of reliability and customer service.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with Pipex? Particularly since their recent new ad campaign with David Hasselhoff?

Cheers

Jason Lloyd

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Jason Lloyd

moneysupermarket.com

I've just had this post, among many others, on ASDL guide in reply to my BEWARE PIPEX letter. It just proves that I knew already, that Pipex are still continuing to advertise and sell their Anytime phone package even though it hasn't been available for some months Unbelievable!
If you study the Pipex section on ASDL you will find lots of disgruntled customers, not all of whom have subscribed to Anytime, but who are still disgusted with Pipex Customer Service and the Finance Dept, which seem to be in the habit of billing people for things that were advertised as free, or for oversharging for other things. Talking to Customer Services is like taling to a stone wall. They know they are on the wrong but remain really unhelpful or else promise things - such as correcting an obviouly incorrect bill, but then nothing happens! Here is the reply I mentioned earlier:


tonybridge replied to your post at the site: .
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=pipex&Number=2678635

I decided today to upgrade my 2Meg service with Pipex to PipexMAX Anytime, calculating that it would save me about £50 a month over my BT contract. I'm happy with 2Meg, but the Pipex site told me that I could expect up to 5Megs, so I thought 'why not?' (Aside: Pipex-owned Bulldog tell me that I would get no more than a 2Meg connnection...)

While waiting (about 30 minutes...) for someone to answer (actually, the Pipex strategy seems to be to get someone to pick the phone up who actually can't help you, they then say, 'I'll put you through' and then you sit and wait ), I read various threads in this forum, including this one, and I was especially interested in this:

'1.They didn't tell me at the time of contract that the phone package wasn't available.'

After eventually getting to speak to a real person, we had almost completed the transaction when I asked if the Anytime free calls were actually available. 'Mumble mumble' came the reply. Me: 'sorry?' Him: 'Well, they'll be available in a couple of weeks, sir' Me: 'That's definite, is it?' Him: 'That's our estimation, Sir' Me: 'But you've been advertising the service for months.' Him:'It's taken a while to get the service up and running, Sir' Me:'Goodbye'

You couldn't make it up...

Incidentally, in the course of our conversation, I asked him why Anytime (free calls anytime) costs £24.99, while Hometime (free calls evening and weekends only) costs £27.99. He was suitably embarrassed :0

I'm not normally a Pipex-knocker, having had nothing but a rock-solid connection for about 8 years, but this is my first dealing with CS, and it doesn't fill me with confidence for the future...

Other people who have been terribly messed around by Pipex might want to write to the head man. I thought it might be helpful if I tell you the name and address. This is the letter I will post soon:


Mike Read
Chief Executive
Pipex
1 Triangle Business Park
Stoke Mandeville
Buckinghamshire
ENG HP22 5BL


Dear Mr Read,

I am writing to let you know how deeply dissatisfied I have become since joining your Pipex Start and Anytime service in July.

You advertised my package to consist of a £6.50 broadband section and a £12.50 Anytime section. It included free antivirus software for a year plus free modem and free connection.

Here are my major complaints:

1. When I joined Pipex on July 14th your representative DID NOT TELL ME that the Anytime phone package was unavailable. Two months later I am STILL WAITING for this service to be connected .

2. My online invoices show that you have charged £14.99 per month for the broadband section as if I had signed up for the 'broadband only' service, which I hadn't. Also you have charged £20 for the modem , £20 for the DSL connection and £5 for the unavailable antivirus software. Customer Service told me that they would amend my bill but could not alter the £14.99 broadband charge. For this I would have to contact Customer Care. The bill still has not been amended three weeks later.

These are more minor but very irritating complaints:

Your failure to keep me informed has been shameful and I have had to phone Pipex many times, even to ask for my user name and password and also to enquire about the persistently unavailable Anytime service.

1. I sent two emails, including a detailed one outlining my concerns, to Customer Service but NEITHER WAS ANSWERED

2. Only after many calls was I told about Customer Care and their unpublished email address, to which I have now written. It is very frustrating that this department is only contactable by email and there is a ten working day delay in getting a response. I am not holding my breath for a response as I don't expect that there will be one. With my previous ISP- OneTel- if I had a problem, I was immediately put in touch with someone with the authority to sort out the problem.

When I entered into a contract with you on an 14th July I expected the terms of that contract to be honoured, both by receiving the services and by being invoiced correctly for them. If you can’t fulfil these terms I will be forced to part company with you and change to a reliable company

Sincerely,

Good luck with the letter Curlew - I'm sure some of our other forum members will be more than interested to hear what kind of response you get back from this.

Cheers

Jason Lloyd

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Jason Lloyd

moneysupermarket.com

I’m in a somewhat similar situation.

I’ve been a Pipex customer for the best part of 4 years. During this time I was living with my parents. I have since bought a house of my own and decided I’d take advantage of the Pipex MAX plus Anytime Calls package.

This package according to the Pipex website gives me:

- upto 8mb broadband
- free local and national calls 24/7*365 days a year

So I went ahead and signed up, taking into account the good service I’d received from Pipex over the years, despite several advising me to go elsewhere as Pipex had gone down hill, I chose to ignore I trust my past experience with the company.

Anyway, I signed up for the package, plain and simple. No extra software or hardware - I didn’t need it, I had it all anyway. We went ‘live’ on the 21/09/06. At first I had a truly awful connection. Randomly dropping in and out, slow connection, slow download speed. After running some tests, the best I was getting from this ‘upto 8mb’ connection was 1mb - AT BEST! More often then not, it was below this.

After a bit of research, I discovered that for a period of 10days after connection to ADSL MAX your connection is ‘training’ and thus these speed fluctuations and disconnections are normal. I had also e-mailed Pipex about this and they confirmed the same.

So I plodded along. I’m now halfway through my ‘training’ period and STILL the best I am geting is a poor
The second part of my story is regarding the 'Anytime' calls part of the deal. I have heard NOTHING from Pipex regarding this. No documentation, no phone call, no e-mail - nothing. I have sent several e-mails regarding this to Pipex Customer Services and despite me geting replies back to other e-mails from them, they seem to be ignoring this issue. My calls at present, are still be charged by BT when I could have been enjoying free calls had Pipex delivered.

Lastly, I went online to check my first invoice and to my suprise an extra charge of £29.99 for Zone Alarm Security Suite was there! This despite me in the sign up process, specifically requesting none of the extra software nor hardware - as I already had the hardware. But to add insult to injury, they've charged me for Zone Alarm but haven't even sent the software out to me (not that I want it nayway).

I have now sent a letter of complaint to Pipex giving them a period of 14 days to deliver the services I ordered, refund that £29.99 or else I will be cancelling my direct debit and requesting my contract with Pipex be terminated due to them breaching it.

My next course of action is to log a complaint against Pipex with Trading Standards and the ISPA.

Pipex are evidently in big trouble. I cannot understand what is going on with them. They are busy buying out other ISP's and taking on their customers yet they do not have the staff to deal with customers nor the systems in place to correctly bill customers.

People will be leaving in droves. Steer well clear of Pipex is my advice. Do not touch them with a bargepole.

re your letter to the chief exec. i doubt if he will even get to see it . i had a similar problem with sky some years ago and wrote to the chief exec at his home address .result problem fixed within days ,even the sky personel wondered how i had got action so fast

I continue to read horrendous posts about Pipex. I think it is criminal that they have continued all theses months to sell their Anytime phone package with broadband, when all along they know it is still not available. Surely this is againstl the law? Here is another post I found yesterday. :

I too would love to leave Pipex. I've been with them since the 5th of August. The following is an email I sent them last Monday, no reply as yet.

"Dear Sir/Madam,

Since migrating to Pipex I have had nothing but trouble. My previous connection was rock solid for several years, Pipex haven't managed to maintain a continuous connection for 2 days so far. In no particular order my complaints about the service are as follows:

1) It took nearly 3 weeks before I could connect to Pipex and browse the Internet. Without going into too much detail, the problem lay entirely with Pipex, yet the blame was laid with BT for the first ten days, then with my own machine and then when Pipex finally did acknowledge it was a Pipex problem it took over a week to resolve.
2) In trying to resolve this I have spent many hours in queues, costing me at least £30 in phonecalls
3) When I have managed to get through (3 attempts to call on 3 separate days were met with a recorded message) support has been severely lacking, with no clear escalation procedure, and no continuity between support personnel (being asked to run the same tests time and time again is VERY frustrating)
4) Pipex provides a 24/7 service, it even defines peak periods as being up to midnight. Yet it's customer support is only available during very restrictive hours.
5) Whilst trying to resolve my initial connection problems I was promised several call backs, only one of which was forthcoming. Support emails took a long time for a response and I am STILL waiting for a response to my last email.
6) During peak periods I can expect to be disconnected at least once every two hours. This is quite frankly appalling.
7) One of the main uses for my broadband connection is gaming. I find myself constantly being dumped off servers whilst trying to play. The main culprit is World of Warcraft. It is probably worth noting that being an MMORPG and having three friends also playing from Sheffield at the same time (with no connection issues) it is highly unlikely to be a problem with the game itself (Certainly there were no problems with onetel)
8) In addition to the poor performance in games, I find that anything relying on a continuous connection is constantly having to resync, streaming radio spends a significant amount of its time recaching.
9) Since 8 o'clock last night I have been unable to connect (since being once more unceremoniously dumped from WoW) receiving error 721 on each of my attempts to connect. Tonight after a long day at work (ironically helping people connect to the Internet) I will have to go home and call Pipex. Of course there is absolutely no help on the Pipex website, nor are there any reported outages.
10) I have yet to notice any money taken from my account, yet I am quite impressed to see 3 invoices in my account, I'm not sure about some of the charges there, but I can't be bothered to call because it will end up costing me more time and money. This is the kind of feeling your levels of Customer Service has engendered.
11) And finally, I fully understand that despite being advertised as an 8Mb service it is dependant on several factors the speed you will actually get. Your online speed test predicted 5.5Mb and I usually get 4Mb (as the trained line speed). However, downloads from my own webserver, which I know to be capable of at least 4MB per second (that's bytes not bits) rarely get to 400Kb/s, usually hovering at around 200Kb/s

So it looks like I've spent £100 moving from a perfectly reliable connection at 2Mb to an incredibly poor connection with a negligible speed increase. And having being with Pipex for 40 days I've actually been online for less than 50% of that time.

So what would I like to do now?

What I'd really like is for somebody to take some responsibility for this awful service, and put some effort into responding to my complaint. I would like a response to all of the above issues, and compensation for my time and effort. I would like a prompt and comprehensive response, my three emails from Pipex to date have all started with "Apologies for the delay" with the exception of one which started "Appologies for the delay" (with "Apologies" being Pipex's favourite word you'd think it would actually be spelt right...) Basically I'd like somebody to prove to me that Pipex is a company worth dealing with.

If this cannot be done then I would like a MAC code and a full refund. In all honesty this would be my preferred option right now.

If this cannot be done then I will be pursuing the matter with CISAS.

I have just received this info from another ASDL forum member and I'm posting it in case anyone else wants to complain personally to directors of Pipex. Peter Dubens is the Chairman. I want Mike Read's address too - he is the Executive Director - but it looks as if I'll have to pay for it.

(address moderated)

Curlew

Before you send a load of letters off to the head people at PIPEX I'll try and help you out first. If my efforts draw a blank then feel free to send letters to these guys.

Send me your email address and I'll liaise with you direct off this Forum - jason.lloyd AT moneysupermarket.com

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind Regards

Jason

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Jason Lloyd

moneysupermarket.com

Pipex are rapidly becoming the pariah of the internet service provision industry. Customer service is almost non-existent, overbilling is commonplace and deceit is the order of the day.
I am a customer of four years and the last year or so has seen a wonderful service develop into a vipers pit. I am currently attempting to obtain a MAC but am faced with emails not being replied to and a minimum of a half hour wait on the CS number only to be cut off when I get to speak to someone.

Avoid Pipex at all costs!!!

I thought I would post the reply Pipex customercare eventually gave me 16 working dats after wrting to them. Maybe this can be warning as to what potential customers may be letting themselves in for. Of course they may eventually sort themseves out, but you have been warned! I have refused their offers as outlined below and I'm leaving as I don't trust them any more: Here is their email, recieved 9/10/06:

I am writing in response to your complaint, I would firstly wish to apologise for the delays in my response.

It is my understanding after reading the various documents containing your complaint that your dissatisfaction stems from the following issues:-
Pipex did not send you the username and password via post
The long wait times in Pipex’s contact centre call queue
Pipex’s use of an 0845 number for customers to contact our customer services and technical support departments
Pipex agents are not adhering to the escalation procedure
Your e-mail did not receive a response from Pipex
Pipex are incorrectly invoicing you
You are still awaiting your Pipex Anytime service
Pipex are not withdrawing funds amassed on the account from the Direct Debit you set up


Currently Pipex are experiencing a range of system issues following a recent internal system refit. Part of these issues included some of the processes used to automatically create the welcome letters. It appears that you retrieved these details over the phone on the 20th of August. I wish to apologise that Pipex were not able to proactively provide these details. If you wish to have these details in writing, I would be more than happy to manually create the welcome letter for you.



Due to the aforementioned system issues Pipex are currently experiencing, Pipex are receiving large volumes of calls from customers who are affected. Unfortunately this boom in calls and the length of calls due to the content of the conversations was unforeseen. Pipex are currently employing new staff to deal with the increased volumes. Once the training is complete for all of the new agents, there should be a drastic improvement in the queue times. In the meantime Pipex’s system development team is sorting out the problems with the new system. This, after completion, will in turn reduce the volumes of calls to our contact centre.



Many service providers employ 0870 and 0900 numbers which are far more costly to the consumer, Pipex do not. Pipex employs a 0845 number for our contact centre charged at the local rate from a BT line. Unfortunately it is not financially viable for Pipex to sustain a free phone 0800 number for contacting customer services & support.



It has become apparent over the last few weeks that some of Pipex’s agents have not been adhering to the Pipex escalation procedure as defined on http://www.pipex.co.uk/legal/code-practice.php. A training meeting was called to discuss this procedure with Pipex agents. Also all agents have since been sent training documents to fully verse those who are not fully aware or have since forgotten the escalation procedure to prevent this situation from arising in the future.



It is the most basic requirement of Pipex customer service & technical support teams to respond to each e-mail received. If in the case that the query needed passing to another department it is a requirement to respond to the e-mail to inform the customer of this action. After searching through the e-mail logs for your e-mail, it appears that your query was forwarded to the technical support department regarding the lack of the ZoneAlarm Anti-Virus & Firewall package. Technical support did not respond to this e-mail. The customer service agent should have confirmed this action and responded to your other complaints. This matter has been raised with both departments and increased vigilance will be used in future.



The aforementioned system issues are also affecting many of our invoicing systems. The full list of billing issues that have arisen are as follows:-



Some customers are being incorrectly invoiced for free items such as ZoneAlarm Anti-Virus & Firewall, broadband set-up/connection fees, migration fees and the broadband starter kit.


After customers perform a regrade from one package to another, subscription for the first period at the new rate is not automatically being credited with the overlap of the previous payment made.


Some customers are being invoiced for an additional monthly subscription fee on top of fixed fee cancellation charges.


The discount prices for our bundle packages are not automatically being actioned with the exception of the first billed month


Your initial invoice has been amended; credit has been set against the incorrect amount of £62.36. The credits were raised as follows:-



£23.50 for the incorrect invoicing of the connection fee


£18.99 for the incorrect invoicing of the broadband starter kit


£5.88 for the incorrect invoicing of the ZoneAlarm Anti-Virus & Firewall package


This left the amount of £14.00 which includes:-



£6.50 for the monthly broadband subscription fee


£7.50 for the postage and packaging of the broadband starter kit


Your next two invoices currently on the account will also be credited to amend the incorrect invoices of £14.99 to their correct £6.50 price. Your rate will also be manually amended for future payments.



The issues also affected the set-up of customer’s direct debits. Pipex employed a company CCSG for additional manpower in order to correct this problem. You will need to re-establish your direct debit, as I can see from your complaint that you have cancelled your direct debit, before Pipex can take the outstanding £27.



In addition to the above problems the system issues are also currently affecting orders for Pipex Anytime. Pipex has attempted to place the orders manually in the meantime, unfortunately this has been met without success. Once this particular issue is resolved your Pipex Anytime order should not be subject to further delays provided that you are on option 1 BT line rental and do not have any other phone calls service orders pending. The other alternative to awaiting the resolution to this system issue is that Pipex can cross provide your services with the assistance of our sister company Pipex Homecall. Pipex Homecall are the result of Pipex’s purchase of Homecall earlier this year. Pipex Homecall provide the same calls service Pipex Anytime with their Line Rental. The costs of this package would be as follows:



Pipex Start £6.50 (as you are currently paying)


Pipex Anytime £12.50 (as signed up for)


Pipex Homecall Line Rental £10.99


This would mean your broadband and phone service would cost a total £29.99 and the phone order would take approximately 14 days to complete. Please reply to customercare AT pipex.net should you wish to go ahead with this option.



Pipex, as a service provider that values quality of service and product reliability, understand and fully appreciates that this situation is unacceptable.



Pipex are proactively combating the problems with intention of:



Sending phone package orders successfully as was possible before the internal system refit


Being able to issues letters and e-mails keeping customers constantly informed of their account as was successfully achieved previously before the new system was installed


Reducing call queues back to their former 0-2 minutes with long term aim to have a call centre without queues.


Having a billing system that bills accurately in any given situation as was previously the case before the new internal systems


I would like to apologise for the inconvenience that is currently being caused. In addition to my apologies Pipex would like to offer a credit of two free months as a gesture of good will. Your continued support and patience is much appreciated in this matter, we will attempt to keep you informed to the best of our abilities. In addition if you notice any further issues not mentioned above please inform us via the contact details below:

Thanks Curlew, it's your decision to leave at the end of the day.

At least they tried to resolve your situation but they did take rather a long time to do it and by then your trust in them had gone already.

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Jason Lloyd

moneysupermarket.com

I agree that Pipex have treated their customers appalingly. I am in the process of trying to cancel mine. It's a long story but my bank have at least told pipex not to take payments because they have failed to provide a service. I suggest you also use the small claims court if they take money they should not.

Hi - Good luck with your sending a message to the head man (Mike Reed, CEO). I hope you have more luck than I did. I sent a letter to him by recorded delivery on 26 September, together with a copy letter to Dominic Crolla, MD (also sent by recorded delivery) and neither of them thought it courteous to write back to me. Instead, I received a short, pathetic letter from the 'Customer Care' department. I received it yesterday, 13 October, even though Pipex state on their website that all written letters will be answered within 48 hrs.

My complaint was that I was still not able to install ZoneAlarm due to Pipex's on-going 'essential systems maintenance'. I was still waiting for this service after 4 months. I pointed out that the whole point of my signing up to Pipex in the first place was because they provided anti-virus software through a proxy server which is imperitive since my connection is ADSL and therefore more vulnerable to bugs, etc. I didn't want to install separate software as this can sometimes corrupt the hardware and I thought if I could get it through a proxy server it would work properly.

Anyway, this is the response I received (verbatim):

Dear......

Thank you for your letter received on the 25/09/06. I have investigated the circumstances surrounding your complaint and can now respond to your letter.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the distress and dissatisfaction caused to you as a result of our service. We are sorry that you feel we are deliberately misleading our customers and can assure you that this is most definately not the case. We are constantly training our sales force to ensure they have the required knowledge to provide current and potential customers with the excellent standard we expect from them.

I hope this resolves your complaint to your satisfaction. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.



As you will note, the reply I received is totally useless. Mr Tuckett failed to mention anything about when the anti-virus software would be up and running again, or why I have been paying for only half a service for the past 4 months. Mr Tuckett has the cheek to say that he hopes this resolves my complaint to my satisfaction, when he does not even acknowledge what the complaint is about or when it is likely to be resolved.

Admittedly, on 2 October 2006 I checked mypipex.net and noted that - at last - the anti-virus software was available to download and install. Talk about coincidence eh? I send a letter threatening them with legal action and hey presto, I can activate the anti-virus software, finally, after 4 months!!

What annoys me though is that Mr Tuckett's letter failed to tell me that I can now access the software - I found this out myself by going into mypipex.net and checking as I always do for any updated news on their 'essential systems maintenance'. Unfortunately, as I use Windows ME, the anti-virus software is incompatible. What annoys me too is the fact that when I signed up to Pipex, someone there told me that the software would be compatible with Windows ME and even though there would be no microsoft support for ME after July 2006, that if I installed ZoneAlarm before that time, it would continue to run smoothly on ME because for the simple fact that I had installed the software before end July 2006.

I don't what to believe about that, but if this is true and I could have had ZoneAlarm working properly on Windows ME before end July 2006, then I have a further fault with Pipex because if they hadn't delayed the software by 4 months, I could have had it installed already.

Finally, I noted in this forum that other fed up customers have also been misled with Pipex advertising for packages that are not technically up and running at present. The letter I received from Mr Tuckett at Pipex states that they are not deliberately misleading customers, but after reading posts in this forum, they most definately are!! They know it, yet they have the cheek to write to me and others I suspect, and tell us otherwise.

You know, I rang OFCOM and trading standards, but all they say is to give the company a chance to explain. Well I have, and so have many others I would imagine, but Pipex don't seem fazed by complaints or with threatening them to bodies like OFCOM and CICAS. I wonder why this is? If you look at the contract, they seem to have themselves pretty well covered in the event of them not providing a full service at times. What everyone needs to do, including myself, is to send their complaints to Watchdog. Not only might they be more willing to act (unlike trading standards who, to my mind, don't seem all that concerned) and more importantly, they just might be able to get someone at Pipex to explain his / her actions on TV.

I think I will write in to Watchdog today actually because I am really annoyed with Pipex and the fact that no-one will take responsibility. If you think about it, so what if customers threaten to cancel their direct debits and rescind their contract? All Pipex will do is send them a bill for not honouring a full 12 months. They are really not bothered by customers threatening them - it seems that way, in any case.

PLEASE - I WOULD URGE ALL OF YOU WHO ARE NOT HAPPY WITH PIPEX'S SERVICE, TO WRITE IN TO WATCHDOG. THE MORE COMPLAINTS WATCHDOG RECEIVE, THE MORE LIKELY THEY ARE TO INVESTIGATE, AS YOU KNOW.

Well, that's all for now.