hi michelle
how exactly did you manage to get into contact with high level complaints do you have an extension number.

we have had our line down for 2 months now. thanks

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.

Don't you just love getting letters from Pipex, if nothing more than for amusement value.

Today I got my latest letter threatening to cut me of if I dont pay my oustanding bill.and restart my DD.I need to ring them with my bank details as (I quote) "We dont have the facilities to accept payments"So how did I manage to make a payment over the phone by debit Card???.

I have now decided that I will be ending my contract with PIPEX in June, 5 months before the end of my contract. It will be worth the £30 penalty to rid myself of them and going to O2 for broadband and You Call for phone service.

In the meantime I am looking forward to getting more letters from Indonesian based PIPEX UK just to keep my spirits up

Well, to update again. I have made my formal complaint to CISAS and Pipex were given until this friday, 30th to sort it out. What do you know, I get a letter from Tiscali High Level Complaints dated 20/1/09 apologising and saying they will clear the 'outstanding debt' (which only exists in their fictional minds anyhow) as a measure to restore my faith in their company (yeah right!!) and they have instructed Pipex credit control to cease all contact with us (I'm suprised you didn't all hear my whoops of joy from wherever you are) - silly me........

I then received a letter from the lovely John Cox of Pipex Credit Control dated 23/1/09 threatening to cut off my services (oh yeah they've already supposed to have done that and I'm not even with them!) and that if I don't set up my direct debit again or ring them to pay in the next 14 days it will seriously affect my credit rating (thanks, I've done nothing wrong). Oh and then the phone calls have begun again, you know the ones, the recorded message saying we need to ring credit control urgently about our account - like I would spend another single penny ringing them on the phone that they say they have already cut off anyway.

Back to CISAS I went with my update so they are perfectly aware that what Tiscali / Pipex / Homecall promise is not what they actually do, only for them to inform me according to them, Pipex haven't even tried to resolve my 'problem'. And the saga continues..........

What I would really like to know is why they can in theory easily take us innocent people to court (not that they would dare I think) but when I contacted a solicitor I was told that although I had a good case they wouldn't take it on because it costs too much for a small claim - so what would happen if a group of disgruntled ex-customers got together to take them to court for harrassment, breach of contract - whatever - can that happen or would it still be dealt with as separate cases???

How can I put this? Oh, I know. :-)

Leave Pipex, get out, vamoosh, exit, run away... go to O2. Tell them your service is breaking the trade descriptions act and that you won't pay for something that doesn't work. A month in advance? Bad idea.

Oh by the way, just in case you think of taking my advice beware that they still bill you even after you have left. Hotel Calinfornia was a breeze compared to the joys of Pipex. Particularly Intolerable Payment EXtortion, well I think that's what it stands for.

Latest Update

Paid my bill today at 09.00 Ok it was 8 days late!, but to show good will I also paid my next bill in advance. The advisor on the other end gave me a reference number and confirmed my payment had been accepted.

2 hours later they cut me off.

I now have to wait up to 48 hours for these reprobates and utterley useless (select choice of words) to reconnect me

Latest update;

Last night I paid off the balance of my bill with Pipex. I asked for conformation of this by both e mail and letter. No problem said Gurgita. This evening when I called to find where the e mail, "I'm sorry she shouldn't have told you that we can't send conformations by email,"

Then I try to discover why after a week I still haven't been reconnected. The girl says the bar has been lifted but I still can't dial out (dialling tone but then a constant hum and no connection.). This apparently maybe a fault at my end!!! Obviously it was only a conindence that this occured at exactly the same time as I was disconnected. They are now saying that I may have to have a BT engineer come out to check. Cost to me £85.00.

Have checked all the numbers above and have discovered that all of them either don't work or connect you back to India/wherever. Could someone here please post the most recent address and contact details for Pipex/Tiscalis MD as I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

Hi, I know nothing I can say will make you feel in the slightest bit better but I truly do sympathise with you. The more I hear about the way this company are harrassing innocent, normally quite sane and calm people and turning their worlds upside down and making them a misery is beyond belief. How come OFCOM has not managed to close this company down. They cannot be allowed to carry on in this manner. I don't know if your letter was from the infamous John Cox of Credit Control but he's the one who signs all my threatening letters, does he really exist because I for one can never actually contact him??.

Just in case anyone wants to try and contact Homecall/Pipex/Tiscali Without using the 0870 or 0844 numbers try these

I cant promise you will get through as they may have got wise to them

Customer services 0203 3028403/04/54

Customer services 0800 1076532

Credit Control 0161 4515334

High Level Complaints 01438 765494

I called this last number back in late October Made a complaint and was promised a call back in 48 hours 3months later I am still waiting!!!

I tried to call again and an automated voice asked me to input the required extention number Obviously I dont have one so I was cut off

Here's my little saga. It would appear that Pipex have started the new year off with a bang. This is basically the letter that I sent last week that I still haven't received a reply to.

I would like to complain in the strongest possible terms about the treatment that I have received recently from your company.

At the outset let me perfectly clear that until 01/01/09 I never had the slightest issue with your company and have been very happy with the service that you have supplied. However since then the treatment that I have received as a loyal customer of yours for the past eight years has been appalling to say the least.

On the 02/01/09 I received a letter from your company (Ref number RCC_PM1/L4326440) that was signed by yourself. Please be aware that as the person who signed that letter I hold you fully responsible for the events that have followed.

This letter stated that as I had not changed my method of payment as instructed my internet and phone connection would be suspended. I actually found the tone of the letter that you signed to be offensive in its demands as its arrival was a complete surprise to me. As my method of payment at the current time was debit card this led to a great deal of stress for me as I thought that perhaps my bank account was empty. Upon phoning the number on the letter (0871 222 6608) I discovered that I was supposed to have received a letter earlier that informed me that your payment terms were changing and that from now on I was going to have to pay by direct debit. Before we go any further please let me make two points totally clear so that there can be no misunderstanding.

1.) At no stage whatsoever did I receive any notification that your payment terms were going to change either by phone, letter or e mail.

2.) If I had received this notification I would have been more than happy to change my method to direct debit as I have already explained I have previously been very happy with your service.

I therefore explained that I thought that it was more than a little unusual that your company would send such an aggressive letter to a satisfied customer. I then asked to speak to someone with who I could take this issue further and was refused. I paid the amount outstanding mentioned on the letter of £22.88 by my debit card (ref number 6041). The girl that me served on this occasion was Evelina.

Imagine my surprise then to discover the day after I had paid the balance I came home from work to find three threatening home phone ‘texts’ instructing me that my home phone would be disconnected if I did not set up a direct debit immediately. As you can imagine I was very shocked by this as I had assumed that as I had just paid the amount owing and the letter that you had signed suggested that the preferred way of setting up the direct debit was by sending your back that letter. I had already filled out the form in expectation of sending it back to your company. When I rang up again to complain about this new issue I was told to email your Customer Care Department. This I did and received an email back on the 05/01/2009 numbering the complaint as 090105-004882 instructing me to email this department back with more details, this I did straight away. I was then sent another e mail asking me to send the same details on again on the 06/01/2009. I did this straight away. On the 09/01/2009 I received a phone call from your Customer Care Department @ 12:14am. As I was at work this was rather pointless. The number which your company used was 0207 028 4567 and I have tried to reply on a number of occasions but have been informed upon dialing it that the number is no longer in use. On the same day I was asked to send my details again via e mail. This I did by return. I rang again to see what progress had been made on the 10/01/2009 and got no clear answer. I rang again on the 11/01/2009 and got no clear answer as the only numbers I can use are the accounts department in India.

On the 13/01/2009 I called your accounts department again to try and find out an answer to my outstanding issues and was told that someone was due to call me within the next 48 hours, obviously I’m still waiting for this. The girl I spoke to then was Cressa. On the same evening I sent yet another email to your Customer Care Department outlining my outstanding issue to which I’m still waiting for a reply

At this point I would like to summarize the events on this so far.

You give me no notice that my method of payment had changed either by phone, email or letter.

When you did send me notice of the change of payment it was in the form of a threatening letter.

That you sent me three threatening texts after I had paid the outstanding amount

Your accounts department in India cannot deal with even the simplest complaint and operates deliberate interference tactics in order to get customers off the line.

Your Customer Care Department is not able to respond to any customer complaints within a given time and would appear not to read emails already posted to it listing customer’s details.

Remember all this is over the issue of change of payment and why I received no notification of that in advance, that’s all I wanted to know. It then became why I had received threatening texts asking me to pay a bill that I had already paid. It has now become something else entirely.

Late last night I received a phone call from your company. Great, I thought this will be the explanation as to why I have been treated so poorly. No, it was in fact a young lady asking me to pay an outstanding balance immediately or my account would be disconnected. The amount of the outstanding balance was 0.12pence. Let me type that again just in case you think I’ve made a typo, 0.12 pence. This is when this gets even better. According to the girl on the phone the letter that you had signed (RCC_PM1/L4326440) and is therefore sent out with your personal approval was asking for the wrong amount. It should have been for £23.00 pounds. When, as any right thinking individual would under any such circumstances, I exploded with rage, she informed me that she would erase this figure from my balance and that would be the end of it, bearing in mind that I still hadn’t received any correspondence, phone call or email with regard to my original complaint.

At 12.00 today your company turned off my internet and home phone. When I rang your accounts department I was told that it was due to the non payment of 0.12 pence. So just in case you are not totally getting the point here; You have just cut off phone and internet access to an already enraged and very angry customer for the sake of 0.12 pence and one of your employers lied about removing the balance from my account. I have now paid this sum, which by the way will have probably you cost you more to collect that the actual amount and I’m currently waiting to have my internet reconnected within the next 2 to 48 hours.

Let’s make this crystal clear so everyone understands where they are;

I expect a full, unreserved and complete apology from a very senior member of staff in your company by phone within the next 48 hours. I can be reached on my mobile () at all times. I also expect a serious offer of financial remuneration with regard to my account or I will be closing it immediately. (not yet received)

I expect a letter with a cheque for £100.00 to cover the outstanding mobile phone costs, inconvenience, stress and my time with regard to this issue. (not yet received)

Within in that letter I expect to see a complete reassurance that in no shape or form whatsoever has my credit rating been affected by the non payment of 0.12pence and the disconnection of my phone services.

If I am requested to pay any further fees due to the cancellation of my account, do not receive the amount quoted above to cover my expenses or my credit history is affected in any way by these events, I will be taking legal proceedings through the UK courts against Pipex UK Ltd, Tiscali UK Ltd & yourself personally as you signed the letter which was a bill for the wrong amount and which has resulted in this massive inconvenience to myself over 0.12 pence. Please also be aware that a copy of this document has been sent to both the BBC’s Watchdog programme and the UK Internet & Phone Service Provider regulatory body.

Since then I have received one phone call from their customer care department which got cut off in the middle and a number of phone calls during the day while I'm at work where no one can be bothered leaving a message for me. My internet is still working perfectly but my phone line is still barred from making out going calls 5 days since they told me that it would be re-connected within 48 hours.

This morning I received another letter asking for another £28.00 pounds, this months bill. I'm now going to ring and check my status and I'll let you know what happens.

Their maintenance line when you ring and its closed, is still giving out its Christmas opening hours.......

Just to update if anyone is still reading. I have now received a letter from Pipex informing me that they have had no choice but to bar my outgoing calls as I have failed to respond to their latest demands for payment. What a joke, my phone and now internet are both with BT, I have checked with them and they have confirmed that Pipex are unable to bar any of my calls. We are still repeatedly getting phone calls from Pipex telling us we need to ring them urgently (how could we if they barred our outgoing calls)! As I am concerned that they are going to take matters further and I will end up with bailiffs turning up, I have made an official complaint to CISAS and am awaiting the outcome.

I shouldnt be surprised at the number of complaints against this shower of a company.4 years ago when my account was with homecall i had no issues.My problems were dealt with at a Manchester call centre quickly and efficiently. Now homecall ar epart of the pipex/tiscali comedy show (although I'm not laughing) things have gone all down hill.

My problems began in August when I rang to state i was moving home. I ordered a new number as it was free of charge and gave them a moving date. A couple of weeks later I rang to inform them I had put the move on hold until late October and was transferred to 3 departments in Indonesia and nobody could seem to grasp the simple concept that I was not moving on Sept 20th but 30th October. On 6th October I called to finalise details and was told I would be charged £78 for an engineer and £38 for my new number. I tried to explain that I didnt want a new number and a line already existed at my new address and so an engineer wasn't required. This cut no ice with the subnormal neanderthal i was speakng to. The following day I recieved a call from an Irish gentleman who said he was from Tiscali house moves department.He confirmed my phone would be cut off at my existing address on the 24th October and would be live at my new address on the same day. This was to allow time for my broadband to be up and running by the 30th (the day of my move) I asked him about the charges i had been quoted. He told me this was complete rubbish.no engineer would be calling and I would only be charged for transferring my number. I went through the same process of trying to explain i wanted a new number and he said he would sort it out. On the 24th October my line was indeed cut off at my old address I went around to my new home to continue decorating and tried the phone The line was live but I had recieved no notification of my new number. So I rang my mobile and hey presto my existing number came up. I got on to Indonesia and began talking to a robot who just kept repeating that I was aware of the charges at the time I placed my order, despite my repeatedly telling her I had ordered a new number. After 15 minutes of this banging my head against the wall she put me on to a supervisor who proved to be just another robot. I asked to speak to a senior manager.I was told an order would be placed for me to recieve a priority call back within 24 hours. 48 hours later no call back (surprise surprise) I rang again and was told priority call backs would take up to 48 hours but they had no record of my requesting one. I slammed the phone down and looked on a website called "saynoto0870" and found a UK landline number for "high prioriy complaints" I spoke to a chap called Jamie and he took my details and promised a call within 24 hours. I am still waiting for this call Further more it is now impossible to contact Pipex by this landline number as you are asked to input the correct extention number .When you cannot do this you are cut off. I recieved a call from Home moves askng if my broadband had been activated ,it hadnt and wasnt until16th November. I was also informed that as i had line rental from Pipex i had a new 12 months contract!!. Although financially the deal for broadband and phone is very good i was subsequently charged the £38 for keeping my existing number and am tied to a foreign call centre based contract. On the 30th October this year I will be changing my supplier without fail. Preferably to a UK based operation with low or free customer service calls even if it costs me more. At the moment it looks like O2 are coming in good with free calls to UK centres and £7.50 for broadband with free router.

My Pipex days cannot end quickly enough they are a bloody disgrace. I normally mark down days on my calendar towards my summer hols This year Im marking them down towards disconnecting Pipex. They even have the nerve to call themselves Pipex UK!!! I am just concerned that when I call Pipex for a migration number, further barriers will be put in place. How long before the expiry date of my contract should I request this?

Since I have been with BT and seeing that BT are the OWNERS of the line I don't see how Pipex can block your calls - I've not had any problems. The idiots still keep on sending me emails letting me know that my bill is ready to view online, even when I was with them and they took over the accounts from Bulldog I couldn't see my bill.

Put it this way, Pipex can send all the emails they want, I have not used their services for almost 3 months and as far as I am concerned BT are my phone providers. Any lines that Pipex get belong to BT and as I said in my earlier email, I got my line reconnected with BT by asking them to connect me on the "Back to Donor" option.

You say that I sound calm, well I can tell you that moronic Pipix almost had me smashing up the phones in my house because I got so angry but basically once I got back with BT I felt much happier. I don't care what threats Pipex may want to issue - I haven't received any yet as I really don't take to bullying by anyone or any company very lightly, basically I tell them where to get off. If I feel that the company I have a grievance with has treated me in a respectable manner then I do my best to clear up whatever problem there is otherwise it's just a case of ignoring their phone calls "mute" button and using their correspondence in the cat litter.

Hope all goes well and remember don't get stressed, life is too short, if you pop your clogs because of high blood pressure just remember that you may be gone but the money grabbing greedy companies will still be here.

Well this all does sound familiar!

I joined Pipex (broadband and phone) and from the start had problems with their billing. I think it began when Tiscali bought Pipex and it gradually got worse, as did the broadband performance. I didn't get billed for 3 months and then they wanted it all in one go!

After listening to Pipex woes from a friend who they had cut off, for no apparent reason other than he was a customer, I decided that (although they owed me money for changing my service without asking me) i would get out. This was after, like you, months of calling customer services and the credit control departments in what I thought was India, chasing my refund.

I obtained a MAC code, transferred to O2 (what brilliant service!) and was informed by Pipex, when requesting the MAC code, that my account would close when the service transferred to O2 and that my calls would revert to BT. Oh sure it did, NOT. The broadband transferred OK but the account didn't close even though they agreed no calls were being made. I gave up and asked BT to take back the calls, which they did but guess what? I've just received a bill for £70 from Pipex which I can't read because their system won't let me download it. Oh deep joy. At least I still have hair.

Pipex was once one of the premier ISPs in the UK, congratulations to Tiscali for trashing it.

Hi and thanks for that, you sound so calm something I don't remember being since all this started. Now I am probably being the stupid one here but since I supposedly sorted this out the first time with Pipex and got my MAC code I DID go back to BT so as far as I know Pipex have no authority over my telephone line does this mean that it is Pipex that are being stupid (just for a change) CAN they still block my calls even if I am not with them?

I called OFCOM again today and they said to ignore Pipex's threats because even if they do cut me off and the matter goes further, Pipex won't stand a chance as I have it in writing from them that I owe them nothing. I have also finally managed to make an official complaint to CISAS today and so am waiting to see what they have to say.

Pipex should be closed down, they should not be able to make so many people's lives a misery and continue to get away with it.