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Wanadoo
Becles
Posts: 13,169 Forumite
My b/f ordered broadband from Wanadoo earlier this year. It's been fine until the last month, when the service suddenly stopped working.
He called tech support based in an Indian call centre with people who speak poor English. It's not really tech support as they all read the same words from a script. Basically everytime he phoned they said they would not offer tech support as he was using a wireless router which he'd bought independantly. They said they could only offer help if he was using the modem Wanadoo they supplied. Then he spoke to a person who said it was a fault with the router.
He went out and bought a new modem. That one didn't work either, so he concluded the problem was with the ADSL line.
He couldn't find the proper Wandoo modem, so he borrowed my old "frog" modem instead and tried to connect with that, but that wouldn't work either. He spent many more phone calls to Wanadoo tech support in India, but they wouldn't help, gave the wrong advice, hung up on him, or he simply gave up due to language problems. By last Friday night, he'd had enough of having no broadband, so he called the new customer line to see if he could find someone based in England who could help.
He was eventually transferred to a manager in Middleborough. She seemed really nice. She was so apologetic about the treatment he recieved, and said she would ensure it got sorted out ASAP. She said she would set up line testing and advised him to leave the PC switched on over the weekend with the modem plugged in. She said she was off work Sunday and Monday, but would speak with him today regarding the results of the line testing. She also offered a refund of Octobers fee due to lack of service, would offer the next 2 months free and refund the cost of unecessary purchase of the new router.
He's spoken to the lady this morning, who informed him that the line was deactivated by BT who say Wanadoo told them to do this. She claims Wanadoo did not order this and accused him of contacting BT himself to disconnect it. He hasn't done this or made any changes on the voice line account.
He was then advised to ring registrations to get the line activated again, but he would be treat as a new customer and it may take up to 20 days for this to happen. He said that wasn't acceptable.
He then said to be honest he'd had enough of all the hassle and he would rather just forget Wanadoo and start again with a new ISP. The lady became very hostile then and said he was bound into a contract with Wanadoo until Feb 2006 and was legally obliged to pay for the service until then. She then said he would have to ring BT himself and sort out why the line was disconnected. He refused to do that as he believes any problems with BT are Wanadoos problems, as he's their customer and not BT's.
At the moment, he's cancelled his direct debit to Wanadoo and is refusing to make any further calls to them or BT.
By the time he gets the line reactivated, he's going to have been without service for about 2 months through no fault of his own. Can Wanadoo make him pay for the rest of the contract, if they have been unable to supply the ADSL for this length of time?
He runs a small business from home, so needs internet access as at the moment, he can only deal with e-mails and web form enquiries if he comes here and uses my internet connection. He really wants this sorted as quickly as possible due to the risk of lost business.
Any help appreciated. Sorry it's so long!
He called tech support based in an Indian call centre with people who speak poor English. It's not really tech support as they all read the same words from a script. Basically everytime he phoned they said they would not offer tech support as he was using a wireless router which he'd bought independantly. They said they could only offer help if he was using the modem Wanadoo they supplied. Then he spoke to a person who said it was a fault with the router.
He went out and bought a new modem. That one didn't work either, so he concluded the problem was with the ADSL line.
He couldn't find the proper Wandoo modem, so he borrowed my old "frog" modem instead and tried to connect with that, but that wouldn't work either. He spent many more phone calls to Wanadoo tech support in India, but they wouldn't help, gave the wrong advice, hung up on him, or he simply gave up due to language problems. By last Friday night, he'd had enough of having no broadband, so he called the new customer line to see if he could find someone based in England who could help.
He was eventually transferred to a manager in Middleborough. She seemed really nice. She was so apologetic about the treatment he recieved, and said she would ensure it got sorted out ASAP. She said she would set up line testing and advised him to leave the PC switched on over the weekend with the modem plugged in. She said she was off work Sunday and Monday, but would speak with him today regarding the results of the line testing. She also offered a refund of Octobers fee due to lack of service, would offer the next 2 months free and refund the cost of unecessary purchase of the new router.
He's spoken to the lady this morning, who informed him that the line was deactivated by BT who say Wanadoo told them to do this. She claims Wanadoo did not order this and accused him of contacting BT himself to disconnect it. He hasn't done this or made any changes on the voice line account.
He was then advised to ring registrations to get the line activated again, but he would be treat as a new customer and it may take up to 20 days for this to happen. He said that wasn't acceptable.
He then said to be honest he'd had enough of all the hassle and he would rather just forget Wanadoo and start again with a new ISP. The lady became very hostile then and said he was bound into a contract with Wanadoo until Feb 2006 and was legally obliged to pay for the service until then. She then said he would have to ring BT himself and sort out why the line was disconnected. He refused to do that as he believes any problems with BT are Wanadoos problems, as he's their customer and not BT's.
At the moment, he's cancelled his direct debit to Wanadoo and is refusing to make any further calls to them or BT.
By the time he gets the line reactivated, he's going to have been without service for about 2 months through no fault of his own. Can Wanadoo make him pay for the rest of the contract, if they have been unable to supply the ADSL for this length of time?
He runs a small business from home, so needs internet access as at the moment, he can only deal with e-mails and web form enquiries if he comes here and uses my internet connection. He really wants this sorted as quickly as possible due to the risk of lost business.
Any help appreciated. Sorry it's so long!
Here I go again on my own....
0
Comments
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Is it business service he has joined wanadoo with?Sense is not common.0
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No - he joined the residential service in March this year. The business was launched in August. The business website is hosted by a different company to Wanadoo.
The bulk of the use on the Wanadoo line is personal residential use, although he does use it to send and recieve business related e-mails.Here I go again on my own....0 -
I sympathise with you with calling Wanadoo. I have called their helplines several times and really struggle to make anything out with them because their call centres are in India.
I was having trouble with our free webspace and each time I rang up I got a different person and a different 'foreign' answer! The thing was they kept saying take it up with who you did the website with - I said thats you, I started it with Freeserve whcih is now Wanadoo so that is therefore you, but they kept repeating the same line saying it wasnt anything they could do and contact who I set it up with - I did, it was them!
In the end I put the phone down, I really begrudge speaking to the call centres in India as I can either they dont understand what I am telling them or I can tell what they are tring to say in 'Indlish'!
Bring back the customer call centres to the UK, who cares if it costs the companies more - they will keep more customers that way!
HWeight Loss - 102lb0 -
sounds like wannadoo could have been in breach of contract themselves
read the t&C if you have a bored moment and see if they have failed to meet t&c themselves
then maybe you coudl agree to call it quits
the BT disconnection thing sounds oh so convenientBaby Milk Action is a non-profit organisation which aims to save lives and to end the avoidable suffering caused by inappropriate infant feeding.0
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