PRIMUS and calls to mobiles

jhp

Toucan are a Cowboy Outfit.

Their Customer Service is poor. Their outbound calling is notorious.

I would not join them whatever the incentive was.

Just Google Toucan Telecom and see the number of complaints .

apwood

Yes, though its not clear in hindsight I think that's what they mean about diverted. However, I did ask specifically before signing up what would happen if I made calls using 1280 when I was paying line rental to then, since I wouldn't get a bill from BT. They incorrectly advised me that I would get a bill from BT for these calls only!

Poorly trained reps - so one bad mark for Toucan, but not really a big problem.

apwood

The crucial word here is "diverted", as opposed to transfer of exchange line to Toucan.

Yes, (although its not clear). To make things worse, their customer services told me before I signed up that 1280 calls would be billed by BT - when I asked how they could do this since I would be renting the line from Toucan, they said that BT will bill calls only!

apwood

Heinz wrote:

Having changed to Primus (CPS) last year, I checked their 084/7 charges.

Their reply showed they were in a real muddle (and, with luck, still are). They replied that they charge the same for all 0870/0871 calls and for all 0844/0845 calls - apparently not realising that they are losing money on calls to 10p/minute 0871 and 5p/minute 0844 numbers!

However, they charge (I expect Toucan do the same) BT non-discounted rates for such calls so, although it's true to say they charge BT rates, they charge the BT rates that almost nobody pays any more!

That's not true for Toucan - their advertised rates (they have a PDF giving NGN number rates) are the same as BTs discounted rates.

apwood

jhp wrote:

Toucan are a Cowboy Outfit.

Their Customer Service is poor. Their outbound calling is notorious.

I would not join them whatever the incentive was.

Just Google Toucan Telecom and see the number of complaints .

I think this is unfair. Surely this is a personal opinion, perhaps from one or a few people's experience - I can't see anything to justify not using Toucan for these reasons.

If you look hard you will find complaints for all companies. Some however stand out with vast numbers of complaints (eg TalkTalk).

I did check via Google before signing up, and I couldn't find a single complaint about their telephone service at all (quite the opposite, I could find some praise for Toucan). There were complaints about cold selling - something some of the best companies (from service to actual customers) are guilty, especially most of the gas and electricity companies. Cold Selling won't cause me any problems as a customer using my telephone, and certainly Toucan have never contacted me without me contacting them.

Certainly they have responded quickly to all my queries by phone and by e-mail. The only thing I'm really bothered about is a) the quality of their telephone service and prices and b) if I would have problems leaving them. I've seen no-one complaining about that.

I think you take too much notice of the internet, which is always full of complaints (or perhaps you've had a bad experience, but all companies give bad experiences to some customers).