ToucanSurf Unlimited? Yeah, right! (merged threads)

Fenris · 9 March 2006 at 12:05PM

Thought I'd post this as I've just had a read through other people's opinions of ToucanSurf. I have to admit, I had no idea they were in cahoots with Tiscali; if I'd have known I wouldn't have gone anywhere near them, having had a truly horrendous time with Tiscali!

Anyway, I use BT a lot for TV shows and Anime etc, so I was looking for something which was on the cheap side and was also unlimited. I saw ToucanSurf and thought that their 2mb at £16.99 was good value, so plumped for that.

Everything was fine for a few months, then I started to get reminders of their Fair Usage Policy. After the first one at the begining of February, I stoped my downloads during the times they stated as their peak periods. Then I got a second warning a week later. I e-mailed them asking that they only send warnings when warrented, they replied saying they'd made a mistake and wouldn't do it again.

Last week I received another e-mail, this one saying this:

Dear ****

We've noticed your recent levels of Internet usage have been very high.

Toucan has a Fair Usage Policy which endeavours to ensure our broadband service remains fast and available to all users at all times. Very high usage by some users results in slow speeds for our other customers. A copy of this policy is available at https://www.toucan.com/products/toucansurf/fup.pdf ; Clause 7 outlines the situation regarding excessive usage.

We monitor high usage on a weekly basis. Over the last week, your downloads and uploads have totalled 9.4 GB, which exceeds our usage threshold of 3 GB a week.

We have therefore arranged for you to share bandwidth with other high users for the next seven days. Over this period, your access speed during peak periods will be determined both by your own usage level and by the usage of users with whom you are sharing bandwidth. Peak hours are 6pm-11pm, Monday to Sunday and Bank Holidays.

At the end of this period we will review the situation and, if your usage is no longer excessive, restore your service to its previous status.

Please find below some tips on reducing your Internet usage:

* Turn off your Internet connection when you're not using it
* Reduce the number of movies or music files you download
* Reduce the number of times you share files across the Internet, and/or reduce the size of those files
* Log off online game sites when not playing.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Yours sincerely,

Pam Shergill
Customer Services Manager

So, basicly they DO impose a limit, but haven't bothered telling anyone! Also, the first e-mail I got from them said their peak times were 6-11pm weekdays and 12-4pm weekends! So, they just decided to change their peak times on the fly and not tell anyone then? Either that or their own customer service team don't know when their peak times are!

I e-mailed them back saying I'd been abiding by their policy and got this response:

Dear ****

Thank you for your email. If you are experiencing slow sped during
off-peak hours then please contact technical support.

Kind Regards

Dugagjin Qallaku

Eh? Did you even READ my e-mail? Obviously not!

Got another e-mail regarding FUP today and have e-mailed them again to say that they're breaking their own contract as I'm sticking to their FUP, but they're limiting my service anyway!

So, if you're thinking of ToucanSurf, think again!

wonderfullife_2 · 9 March 2006 at 5:15PM

Hi
Toucan are just Tiscali in disguise, I would never go near these 2 companies, they are the worst of the worst.
It just proves that you have To read the small print, and always read their Terms & Conditions, "Fair Usage Policy" for any isp.
They use to do this when I was with Tiscali, kept sending me emails exactly the same as yours, telling me that I had exceeded their download limit, garbage, I asked them to prove this as I totally disagreed with them, but of course they never did, eventually I got my MAC and moved away.
Tiscali and Toucan the pits, cheap but nasty, avoid at all costs.

Fenris · 9 March 2006 at 5:50PM

Yeah, well, like I say I had no idea that Tocuan was Tiscali until I read these boards! Had I known I'd have stayed well clear as Tiscali p**sed me about something chronic last year and I vowed never to use them again!

I've read their T&C and their FUP and neither indicate a limit! That's what's annoyed me the most. They're just making things up as they go along. If it weren't for the fact that the HDD in my laptop is failing and I'm waiting on a new one I'd install DUmeter to keep a track on my usage. I'll do it as soon as the new drive arrives then send then an e-mail with a log in. I'm not having it! I say I'm not having it!

dws_72 · 24 March 2006 at 4:32PM

Signed upi for toucans "unlimited" 2meg broadband, however anyonr thinking of doing the same "beware"

According to there website and other adverts they say there broadband is unlimited, and you can have unlimited downloads...!!!

This is not true...!!!

I use the interenet quite a lot and, i strema audio, use p2p and various other things, not a lot but sometimes, i have been with BT for many years and have never had any problems with what i can download,

However, i thought i would try and save a little money and decided to shop around for a new ISP, Spent a lot of time and effort doing this and decided that toucan would vbe my best option..!!

"how wrong was i"

Allthough they list there service as unlimited, it is not.!!!
After about 5 weeks of being with them they sent me an e-mail telling me that i had gone over there 3gb threshold and would be limiting my use.

When i called them to find out what they were on about they told me they have a 3gb per week threshold and that i had downloaded 5gb that week.

i asked them were it staes that there is a 3gb threshold and was told they have a fair usage policy, but it still does not say they have a 3gb threshold, when i challenegd them i was pretty much told, "tough"

i have now take this up with OFCOM and they advised me to file an offcial compaint, and ask for there codes of practise, i have done htis and am still waiting for a reply..!!!

"so unlimited does not really mean unlimited"

mr_fishbulb · 24 March 2006 at 4:45PM

Most ISPs have a fair use clause in their Terms and Conditions. This means they can kick you off for downloading more that what they consider a reasonable amount. As lots of people are finding, it's a problem and is probably false advertising, but I havent seen much being done about it.

For comparision, Freedom 2 Surf's "uncapped" package is 100Gig/month.

Before you sign up to an ISP, ask/read about them on http://bbs.adslguide.com

dws_72 · 24 March 2006 at 5:20PM

Trouble is they actually say on there website "unlimited downloads".

I think like you say its false advertisment..!!

Madasafish_Customer_Care · 24 March 2006 at 6:18PM

When you see the phrase "Fair Usage Policy" used in conjunction with a broadband service that advertises itself as an 'unlimited' service; you can take it to mean that the service is not a true unlimited service.

If you navigate to the bottom of the page that advertise packages for this service provider, you'll see that in the small print they mention their Fair Usage Policy and they have a click through to the terms.

TIP: On ADSL Guide, you'll frequently see 'Fair Usage Policy' abbreviated to 'FUP'.

mr_fishbulb · 24 March 2006 at 6:20PM

I still don't see how they can get away with it though

jamichi1 · 25 March 2006 at 12:56AM

I sympathize with dws_72, since I'm with Toucan at the moment. I have just checked again with their T&Cs and although there is a fair usage policy there is NOWHERE mentioned that the limit is 3 GB per week.
as i said before - people beware of Toucan!

lewt · 29 March 2006 at 2:47PM

i've just starting getting the same warning emails from tiscali. unlimited just aint something needs to be done about it. luckly tiscali aint put a limit a week but have threatened to limit my usage and move my band width between 6-11pm every day this means i cannot even use skype to call my friends in this time surley i can get out of the contract because of this??????

Fenris · 11 April 2006 at 10:58PM

OK, I've issued Toucan with an official complaint letter telling them that their service is diabolical and that I expect my MAC code to be issued and my line freed up within a week from yesterday.

They've just been moving the goalposts to suit themselves; no download limits, to a "threshold" of 3gb per week, to (a week later) 1gb per week. Never mind the original fiasco of trying to work out when their peek hours were to avoid breaking the FUP! Now they're throttling my downloads outside the peek hours to. Over the last 4 days my top DL speed has been a stagering 20kB/s. Amazing. :rolleyes:

I've told them if they don't clear my line I'll take the complaint to Ofcom on the grounds of Breach of Contract as they're clearly not providing the service I signed up for in November '05.

Anyone have any advice? Or, more importantly, know of a decent BB provider that doesn't throttle BT? I use it a lot, which is why I wanted unlimited BB.

ToucanSurf Unlimited? Yeah, right! (merged threads)

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