How Many Cats and Dogs? My Pipex Tech Support Hell

macman

I had my call and line rental with Toucan, which has now been transferred under the Pipex brand. Always found Toucan customer support fairly good and easy to get through to.
Not so Pipex: just wanting to report noise on the line, I spent nearly half an hour being transferred around different depts-got through to Pipex phone support, who told me I needed Toucan phone support (which apparently still exists), but put me though to Pipex broadband support (I don't have Pipex broadband), etc etc. 4 transfers later, I reached someone who could actually help me. It then took me a further 15 mins to convince him that I had already swapped the handset, swapped the ADSL filter, plugged into the master socket etc. I informed him that I wanted him to arrange for the line to be tested and the fault investigated. His next question...'do you have any cats and dogs in the house?' Why? 'In case they might have chewed through the wiring'...
I fondly remember the dim distant days when this was a BT line and you could report technical faults in about 2 minutes via their website...
Is Pipex always like this or was I just unlucky?

avantra

'is Pipex always like this or was I just unlucky?'

Yes and so is all the other Tiscali brands, badly managed business.

Cut your losses and run. BT or O2 will be my choice.

macman

I will with pleasure but unfortunately I'm now locked into a contract until August. Next time I will consider other facors than just the price.

macman

Just an update for those who believe in schadenfreude...I've now had 3 calls in 3 days from 3 separate people at Pipex, each one asking me to swap my handset, change my ADSL filter, plug into the master socket, shoot my (non-existent) cat and dog etc....what part of 'please escalate the fault to BT' do these people not understand?
PS: amusing to note that Toucan have not yet got around to informing their call centre staff that they are now under the Pipex brand, so each of their charming operatives still signs off with 'thank you for choosing Toucan'-I wish I hadn't.