E7even - service. (merged threads)

sasparillo

Lucky old you, getting some of the service you paid for. I haven't had any connection for about a month now and have had to pay for a dial up connection as the MAC migration code they sent me was a dud. Before I had a connection for about 10 days but was off for a couple of weeks before that.

The 0800 number which I have also paid for does not allow me to hold because apparently of "ICSTIS regulations" and I'm blowed if I'm going to hand over more money to E7even and try the 0870 number or the 09 number. The way this is being dragged out makes me suspect this is even (no pun intended) bigger than e7even itself. Notice there is a press release on the net with the name Charlotte Mitchell as "managing director". There is also a Mike Todd involved and there seems to be a Michael East also connected with E7even. These people are not untraceable.

If OFCOM is the "industry regulator", it's time OFCOM told BT to take markers off the lines of everybody who needs to migrate and has either received no migration code or a dud migration code and it's time OFCOM told all other ISPs that OFCOM will pay for the new user connection. OFCOM has allowed this situation to reign since the beginning of this year and it is not for the cheated users to jump through hoops and be put in what seems to be a deliberately humiliating and costly position, having to beg the authorities to act when the same authorities should never have allowed this situation to occur in the first place. And if a few OFCOM people have to lose their jobs to pay for this, tough.

PS By the way, I think I have found a current address for managing director Charlotte M Mitchell in Shadoxhurst, Kent from the electoral register. This seems to tally with the details I can glean from the company details obtained by ISP Review. Having done a search on the internet, it appears the property in question is a council house under Ashford Borough Council which has just had its kitchen refurbished by the council.

lympus48

I am sorry to hear about your continuing problems; I 'pasted' my newly arrived MAC into my new ISP online application yesterday and it worked so I am keeping fingers crossed. I had about another 3 months or so to run on E7 but I will hope for some compensation.

I think the end of E7 is very close now and the article referred to on ISPreview (see Rex-Mundi above) is likely to be authoritive.

alictait

Yeah my MAC code worked aswell fortunately, are you sure you havent mistyped it ?

Got connected to AOL 1mb monthly contract this morning and I had two years left to go with e7even - so the refund better be good !!!

Good luck all

Ali

shafeeq

Hi

I tried to go to e7broadband.com website but it's not working, I hope it's not bad news.

Shafeeq

maniac886

working fine for me

shafeeq

maybe problem at my end then, it's not picking it up from work.

Shafeeq

sasparillo

The problem with my line (no connection) is with E7even providing no connection. It appears as one IT journalist has put it we are in "a vice like grip". The vice like grip appears to be primarily https://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk, a government agency, which purports to be representing trading standards but is chanelling everybody towards OFCOM not Trading Standards.

OFCOM is the regulatory body of the industry. It only deals with the industry. It is not set up to deal with the individual who gets trapped by a rogue or an incompetent ISP.

That is Trading Standards.

OFCOM is set up purely to deal with the company on an industry basis in a way that does not admit that there can be a rogue ISP because it is a trade body. It is not dealing with trading standards.

The vice like grip appears to be the government agency consumerdirect deliberately channelling individual customers towards OFCOM and BT which apparently allows companies to put what are called "markers" on the line meaning that the individual customer is penalized financially when a company does not give out a migration code at all or gives out dud migration codes while the company gets off scott free.

Why is this allowed to happen at all? Where is Trading Standards in all this? OFCOM appears to be a diversion, a red herring for customers. It is only investigating:

"whether E7even has contravened General Condition 11.1, which prohibits Communications Providers from billing customers for services that have not been provided.

"whether E7even has contravened General Condition 14.2, which requires Communications Providers to establish and maintain complaints-handling procedures that conform to a Code of Practice. "

The brief is very narrow and is not about a substandard service or no service at all being provided. It's only interested whether it can fine the company or not and not about the individual customer. This "investigation" by this bloated quango only seems to be about the GENUK billing situation and the "complaints handling". Not about trading standards and the internet connection itself and the fact that many customers not being provided a broadband internet service at all.

The person leading the investigation is in the "competition group" because OFCOM seems to be only about the industry and whether there is sufficient competition, not about Trading Standards.

It is quite reasonable to suspect that a group of lawyers and accountants are setting up companies which then fail and then set up another company on the same lines. They can hold up two fingers to everyone because of the corruption of the system represented by consumerdirect (part of the Office of Fair Trading/Department of Trade and Industry) which is diverting individual customers towards OFCOM instead of making sure that trading standards are maintained for the customer.

scotty

I would have thought General Condition 11.1 would cover the GENUK case, the advance payments for upgrades that never happen, failure to provide the contracted service (as you and I have experienced) and charging for non-existant help lines.

General Condition 14.2 is fairly important as a major concern has been the inability of E7 to resolve problems. Argueably, a working complaints procedure would have helped.

However, I agree that it has taken too long for OFCOM to intervene, the scope of the inquiry is too narrow and the past record of OFCOM on such cases will hardly scare E7!

scotty

This is how it went when OFCOM investigated Bulldog for similar infringements of 11.1 and 14.2:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/comp_bull_index/comp_bull_ccases/closed_all/cw_854/
Bulldog promised to do better and to tell OFCOM monthly (for the next six months) that they were doing better, so that is alright then. Investigation closed. Pass me another can of whitewash please.

scotty

Further developments on the E7 / Easynet front being reported here:

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2640

This related to users of LLU (username with ending @e7even.com) whose service was stopped last Wednesday.

This statement does not tie in well with E7's statement on the subject:

"Current Status
Update: 17:42:48 24-04-2006.
After further investigation into the problems affecting LLU network users, those who’s username is in the format of USERNAME@e7even.com, it is estimated that the outage may last for at least another 2-3 days. Based on this, we are going to be moving the small number of users affected by this issue to another part of the network as soon as possible over the next few days. We will be emailing all users concerned advising them of their options. If you can not get access to your contact email, please call Customer Services for further details.

Update: 10:31:51 21-04-2006.
We have now identified the problem with the LLU network and action is now being taken to remedy the problems this is causing for the ADSL customers currently on this network.

We apologise for the continued delay in getting this problem resolved and will provide another update once we have a definitive time scale for the problem to be resolved.


Update: 17:59:30 19-04-2006.
Due to a technical issue beyond our control, the upgrade procedure has not gone to plan and has caused an outage on our LLU network, engineers are
currently investigating the outage.

In the meantime, if you require access to the internet, please use this free phone dial up number instead, you can use your normal broadband login username and password. Dial up number: 0808 178 2770.

Update: 09:15:33 18-04-2006.
Due to a technical issue, the planned upgrades could not be completed over the weekend and have now been rescheduled for 18/04/2006 - 21/04/2006.

During this period you may experience intermittent loss of access to the Internet.

If you experience any loss of access, please use this free phone dial up number to connect to the Internet instead, you can use your normal broadband login username and password. Dial up number: 0808 178 2770.


Description
Over the Easter weekend break we will be performing essential maintenance to the LLU network router and switch. This may result in intermittent loss of access to the Internet for some or all LLU users.

If you experience any difficulties, please use this free phone dial up number to connect to the internet instead, you can use your normal broadband login username and password. Dial up number: 0808 178 2770.

The maintenance work will start today at 14:00 and should complete no later than Tuesday 18th April 2006 at 06:00

Symptoms"