Hi,

I empathize with your situation and sincerely hope it is brought to an end very soon. It really is a nightmare dealling with these people. It is like a weight on your shoulders you just want to unburden.

I have spoken with several lawyers and each of them says that in their personal opinion Supanet are corrupt in selling a 12 or 18 month contract over the telephone and (without warning or notice) at the same time actually tying you into a 24 month contract (£39.99 charge).

If I had more time I would write to OFCOM or the Offices of Fair Trading to try and get this company looked into further.

Hope it goes well.

I am in the same boat. So are alot of other people. I can't post a link but have a look at the ThinkBroardband forums for Supanet problems.

They changed their T&Cs half way through my 12 month contract. I cancelled after 14 months and received a demand for £39.99 cancellation fee for cancelling in less that 24 months. Apparently they sent an email regarding the change in T&Cs. I never received any email. Have spoken to others on the ThinkBroardband forums and some-one sent the email. It is one line at the bottom of a junk email advertising how fantastic Supanet are.

I'm not going to pay it. It is now £85 after adding debt collector fees. I'll see them in court and let you know how I get on. Doubt they will take me though. I will win and I think they know that.

I do hope Damon wins this, but I have a feeling Supanet will keep increasing the amount as they await any court proceedings.

After a while trying to point out to them they were wrong, and them threatening me with a debt collector and putting another £20 on, I paid £39.99. (I didn't include the extra £20)

They still wanted over £85 on top of that, and my solicitor told me to pay up or they would just continue to up the total.

So I have paid them a total of more than £125 for absolutely NOTHING.

I can only hope many people see this, because the only way you can beat them is not to join them in the first place. I win in the end though, because I used to pay Supanet £16.99 a month and now Sky broadband is in my area I only pay them £5 (my husband had sky already for the football etc.) for exactly the same service. If you have Sky TV I can recommend the broadband.

I simply don't know how the people at Supanet sleep at nights.

Well someone has to stand up and fight.

There is also the matter of The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999...

"A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer."

Just because they have writen it in their T&Cs it does not make it law. I can't see any Judge finding in their favour. Especially after finding out the sneaky way they introduced it.

Me thinks your solicitor gives up to easily.

I agree with you entirely, but he happens to be my step-son!! and he was free, apart from the £125 I have paid Supanet. Otherwise he's the best step-son anyone could have.( He also may read this.)

I need to keep the peace................and I am too tired to fight as my husband has been very unwell since this started, and I am old and grey!

I DO HOPE YOU WIN AND SEND MY VERY BEST WISHES FOR THE OUTCOME YOU DESERVE. PLEASE LET US ALL KNOW HOW YOU GET ON.

Hey folks,I haven't had too many problems with supanet, except about a year ago when they were changing over- intermittent service for about 6 weeks, but as they were reluctant to tell me what was happening (or didn't know), I managed to argue them into sending a new wireless router for free. In case it helps reduce the phone bills of those currently arguing, I got this number from BT recently. Its a freephone number for Supanet Cust Serv. 0800 915 8183, Good luck all of you,

Well eeyore, you are the minority. Not so Supanet have a very bad name all over the internet.

You obviously don't do on-line gaming. With Supacrap many severs won't let you play as your ping (latency) will be too high and you will slow everyone else down. This is that main reason I left them.

Also, if you cancel they will want that router back in perfect condition and any other equipment they have sent you or they will charge. When I cancelled after 14 months they wanted the "free" modem back. Luckily I never used it and it was still in its original box. And unless you have been with them for 2 years they will want £40 too.

They also throttle speeds at peek times as they can't cope with the amount of traffic. They are are the worst ISP. Have a look at any survey.

My advice would be to get out as soon as you can.

I hope you keep fighing Damon... It ashames me to say but I used to work at Supanet... just for your general information if they ever try to keep you in contract for a verbal agreement I don't think I remember a single one being recorded and most of the sales team lie on the phone... It amazes me that they are still allowed to trade tbh. Most of the billing team to my recollection are awful at their job and wouldn't know a law if it hit them on the head... They very rarely win so just keep fighting!!!

Dinger,

As you may have seen I am in a similar situation re. debt collectors etc.

Did it ever go to court?

Anyone ever been taken to court by Supanet?

I've told them where to stick their disconnection fee, and their debt collecting friends. We'll see what happens.

Thankyou all for your kind comments too.

I've had a measure of victory over Supanet today.

After they decided to cap the unlimited service at 40Gb/month under the guise of their fair usage policy and I didn't have a big problem with this. However, when I strayed over that cap one month (courtesy of an over-exuberant session on the iTunes video store!) they were supposed to email me a warning before I did so, but, predictably, they didn't and I've ended up with half a month of less-than-dialup speeds, rendering my internet service unusable.

I decided that a change was in order and would use the fact they breached the agreed contract and capped an unlimited service without sending me a copy of the amended contract to sign and accept the changes as a good enough reason to cancel and take my business elsewhere. I called up their customer service number, esplained the issue and after trying to flog me extra bandwidth at a charge, unsuccesfully, I might add, and they rather-speedily referred me to their cancellations team. This was a surefire sign they knew they were in the wrong and had been dealing with this issue for a long time. Anyway, after speaking to the cancellations team, they instantly said they would waive any remaining months charges on the account (another sign they knew they were wrong, as I had 10 months of an 18 month contract left) in exchange for me paying a £39.99 disconnection fee. I contested this and they said they would action the cancellation and I would have to take up the fee with the billing dept in 24 hours. So I left it a day and called the billing team and spoke to a very helpful fella (very rare for a supanet call handler) who said he would discuss with a senior member of staff as to whether they would waive the disconnection fee as well and call me back in a few hours. Sure enough, 3 hours later, I got a call from the same handler who said there will be no further charges from Supanet other than the final month of service which had already commenced. I had no qualms with that and thanked him for the help and managing to do what it would surely have taken four or five other phone calls if it were any other handler answering the call.

So I'm now switching to either Be broadband or O2, both of which are truly unlimited service, recommended for heavy users and gamers (I fall in to both categories) and it's a similar price to Supanet, only with a free wireless router (of which I need a new one anyway).

I won't call it a total victory until this final month has been paid and I am connected with my new provider but if anyone is really struggling to get out of a contract with Supanet, they know they do not have a leg to stand on if you say they have breached the contract by capping an unlimited service without you signing an amended contract.

I will try and keep you updated, hopefully the next time I update will be on a morally-superior provider. To be honest, Hitler Telecoms Ltd would seem morally superior to Supanet.

Just remember...

The Law is a double edged sword, use it to fight back.

Hi guys,

I've recently moved house and had my internet fitted. Supanet are my ISP.

So being a nosey little sod I thought I'd check out there hype now I'm back online. Would have been great to look see before hand, but time really wasn't there.

And I find it's not good, that the gossip surrounding this company sounds a little poor.

But I've had no trouble myself and been on now for about 3 months after a quick and efficient connection that sorted me out with cheaper calls.

So can anyone really give me the low down, as this bad press seems old, most of it a good five years. I don't want to tempt fate but I do want to know the score and figured this was the best place to ask.

Cheers gents.

Have you read this thread? I think the clue is in the title.

Have a look for yourself. Supanet come bottom of most surveys. I think you have just made a bad decision... and you will regret it for a further 24 months (unless you are still in your 7 day "cooling off" period)

Check out.. http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=supanet

The link above may get removed so Google "thinkbroadband forum" it comes top of the list. Then find the Supanet specific forum. Have a read and judge for yourself.

Also try pinging BBC.CO.UK (type PING BBC.CO.UK on the command line), I just did and my time is 24 milliseconds (24ms) I bet yours is much higher. Also check for packet loss. Both of these mean you won't be able to play online games.

I guess if you only do some shopping and read your emails you might be OK. Supanet is totally out of the question for any serious user. And as you may have read in this thread already, they try to con money from people. Hope you have read the small print in their T&Cs!

Maybe Supanet can cope now so many people have left them?!?

Don't let me put words in your mouth though, have a good search around for yourself. Thinkbroadband forums are a good place to start. Good luck.

FOOTNOTE...

I wrote to Supanet & their debt collectors telling them where to stick their cancellation fee and that I am quite happy for it to go to court (I phrased it better and threw in some legal bits). This was over 3 weeks ago. Haven't had any letters since.

Hi guys, I've just come across this forum and you all seem a little miffed. I've got to say, I left supanet about 5 months ago and I didn't have any issues. I sent the modem back and the billing team were really nice. I moved house at the time and had cable and because BT wanted over £100 to install a line I decided to give cable a go.

I've got to say, the supanet connection was a lot more stable and faster and I'm considering paying BT so I can go back to Supanet. Obviously I'm in a contract like some of the members in this forum so will have to pay to leave or put up with it for a few more months.

I'm certainly going back to supanet.