Pipex - Hopeless...

leaston

Hi,

Here's one to watch. My contract with Pipex was due for renewal in July. I rang to say unless they did a deal, I'd leave. I was offered a reduction on my unlimited account from £24.99/mth to £14.99/mth with a free wifi router. I agreed. I know they aren't the cheapest, but I've been with them for years and they're reliable and have a good Usenet feed. Anyway, here's the timeline of events and who I spoke to about the vapourware router and lack of reduced payments....

Pipex main number: 0871 222 5550 - If you ring this, expect to be on hold for a VERY long time! The longest for me was just over 1hr.

Tom on Thurs 12th June pm - retention dept (offered reduction of monthly charge to £14.99 + wireless router free - to be sent within 5days). Never happened.

Carla on Wed 18th June pm - cust serv (have record of status change pending, but not router). So, I got her to put me through to retention dep't so I could speak to Tom again.

Nicola on Wed 18th June pm - retention dept (ref: 338064). She went and chatted to Tom, who remembered the conversation with me. She confirmed the reduction in payment and promised to sort the free router.

Ram - Pipex customer care. Thurs 3rd July 6pm - He confirmed the ref number, the conversation with Nicola and that the router was supposed to be sent out. He couldn't explain why I've not received it. He'd check it all out and re-action the order.

Tristram Tech Support5pm 11th July - Cannot pull up records of ref number given by Nicola. Said I need to speak to retention dep't again.

Rang number for Retention Dept: 08450722865, which pointed me to: 08712226366. Which pointed me to: 08712225550. Nice!!!!

Finally spoke to Rachel in Cancellation Dept 5:15pm 11th July - She authorised release of the router and put note on the account that it should be sent and with me within five days! I got the router.

I'm still waiting for my payment to reduce after agreeing this deal on 12th June, over three months ago! I've also just had an email today notifying me of an upcoming payment of £24.99.

So, I've fired one off to customer services with all the info above asking when I'll be getting my full refund of the overpayment.

Watch this space...

All the best,
Leaston

latecomer

when my OH moved in with me she cancelled her pipex and they continued to charge her. We didn;t notice for quite a while as I also had pipex so I was expecting to see it as a payment. We got it sorted in the end but it took a lot of phoning up and getting messed about. I personally wouldn't use them even if they were giving me their best package for free.

leaston

latecomer wrote: »

when my OH moved in with me she cancelled her pipex and they continued to charge her. We didn;t notice for quite a while as I also had pipex so I was expecting to see it as a payment. We got it sorted in the end but it took a lot of phoning up and getting messed about. I personally wouldn't use them even if they were giving me their best package for free.

That doesn't surprise me at all. I've used a few ISP's over the years and none of them have been particularly good all round. It's just better the devil you know for me.

bill888

leaston wrote: »

(offered reduction of monthly charge to £14.99 + wireless router free - to be sent within 5days).

Be aware they may have offered you a package with a lower usage allowance.

A relative had been on one of Pipex's old retention package since 2006, £17.99 for 30gb monthly allowance, was cold called by Poopex last June and offered £14.99 package but would have to agree to a 12 month contract. Suffice to say, they refused and it transpired the usage allowance on the new package was also much lower (They rarely used more than 5gb per month). As they were out of contract, they took the opportunity to ditch Tiscrappy Poopex and move to o2 LLU broadband to save money.

leaston

bill888 wrote: »

Be aware they may have offered you a package with a lower usage allowance.

Yes, that was one of the things I was very clear about. If they didn't let me keep my "unlimited" status, then I was walking, no matter how much they dropped the price. I'm a fairly high bandwidth user, so this was a must. They agreed.

leaston

Sorry to bump this thread, but I've just spoken to Pipex yet again about this problem and thought I'd post an update:

I spoke to Ed in the retentions dep't (in London, no less!!) and asked for my Mac code. He came up with....are you ready?....a deal where the price drops to £14.99 per month and I get a shiny new 12mth commitment! I explained to him all the conversations I'd had before (see my original post) and that unless it was confirmed in writing prior to my signing up, I didn't believe this would happen. He promised me it would happen and that I could ring cust service tomorrow to confirm. I refused, stating that by the time tomorrow comes and the deal hadn't been correctly recorded, or even recorded at all, I'd be into a new 12mth contract and no come back because nothing is in writing. This is exactly what happened last year and I've no reason to believe it would be any different now.

He said that it would happen and that I'd get a reference number and that the calls are recorded. That's great, so why didn't the ref number I got last year do me any good? And why, if I'm in dispute with them, didn't they go back over the recordings of the conversations? I have times and dates. Needless to say, he couldn't really reassure me!

Anyway, after a lengthy discussion, he said he could not confirm anything in writing and that he'd have to put this new deal on my account prior to my speaking to cust service tomorrow. I politely declined, giving him the names, depts and dates of the 5 people who promised me last year, from June to September, that my monthly charge was due to drop to £14.99 in September. None of those people did their job because I'm still paying the same.

In the end, he gave me a new reference number and said the Mac code would be sent out via the post and would be valid for 30 days.

To be fair, Ed was very polite and did try to help me. Sadly, as Pipex have shown themselves to be less than honest in the past, I'm switching to someone else. I've had enough of being ripped off by this lot.

Cheers,
Leaston

greenoak

My Ex wife pays just over £7 a month for her broadband for its 40gig service

no idea how or why. Just knew I got a great deal when I lived there.

I pay £17.50 for O2 for my broadband package

leaston

After reading posts on this forum and various reviews and comments on other sites, I've decided to switch to O2 as soon as I can. I'm not a current O2 customer, so will pay a bit more. But, I don't mind if it gets me away from the crooks at Pipex. The thing is, I'm not too worried about the cheapest deal so much as good customer service. A very rare commodity when it comes to ISP's in my experience!