Warning - The Cloud WiFi service

greentrader

I travel a lot on business and need wi-fi to update clients etc. I have 3G but some of my regular haunts don't have very reliable 3G coverage. I therefore thought I would give The Cloud a try. It was the biggest mistake I could have made.

The instructions on how to setup your laptop and other wi-fi devices were sparse, in fact they don't even send you a welcome e-mail. You just get a payment receipt from WorldPay and a message that if you have any questions you should contact The Cloud via the e-mail provided quoting the WorldPay transaction ID....that's it!!

I thankfully work in IT based businesses so thankfully I could trawl The Cloud website and find how to connect. Without being condescending I am not sure other non-IT people would be so lucky.

I was in Carmarthen at a well know burger outlet and tried to use wi-fi from the cloud. A total farce with the connection dropping, slow speeds when it did connect which meant I could not submit my report on time. In the end I had to go and sit in my car and use my 3G connection (it wouldn't work indoors!)

I came home and tried to contact the Cloud to ask how to cancel my account. Have you tried using their site...Martin (or admin) if you are reading this then you really should check it out. The site is awful and you just cannot find a way to contact them. I found e-mail addresses but they never reply, there are no phone numbers. I tried the e-mail from the WorldPay e-mail and still had no reply.

Finally I did get an e-mail back and it was part of a ticket support system that is very common these days. There was a link that should have taken me to a page to cancel my account. The link didn't work and I got an error message "session expired". There was also a ticket ID and it said I could log in to my support account and answer the ticket. I DO NOT have a support account so I cannot log in to view the ticket. I created a support account and still could not see the ticket. I created a new ticket and it said I would receive an acknowledgement and a new ticket ID. Well I have still not received the acknowledgement or the ticket ID!!!:mad: The e-mail came from the same one I had contacted via WorldPay so I replied to accept their offer to manually cancel the contract. I had no reply.

I had an e-mail this morning from WorldPay advising my they had taken another £9.99 as payment for The Cloud :mad:

ULTIMATELY I AM TO BLAME.....i did not realise that I should cancel through WorldPay, I read the instructions and it said ...DIRECT QUOTE

For all enquiries about your order, such as delivery, cancellation, duplicate payments and refunds, please email your merchant at [EMAIL="support@thecloud.net"]support@thecloud.net[/EMAIL] quoting the agreement ID shown above.

That is what I did, but The Cloud never sent me the information I needed. I replied to them accepting their manual offer to cancel but that didn't work.

I then looked at WorldPay and there is a cancel option which I have now undertaken. If you find yourself in the same situation then do not go through the grief I did...cancel via WorldPay!!


This is crazy, they must operate in Cloud Cuckoo land because you cannot contact them and therefore cannot cancel your contract. I have now paid £19.98 for something that has never worked! They must know this is happening, I cannot believe I am the first person to fall foul of this?!

I advise everyone to stay away from The Cloud service until they sort out their support system and deal with the issues.

Freddie_Snowbits

You could try the techie bored.

OK my provider on the road, BT ANYWHERE, is much easier. When I first try the internet to view my posts here and my mail etc, the first screen loads up asking for my password etc.

Mins you in certain areas of the internet etc, I am minded by the fact that they do make things confusing just to make money

bcl999

Sorry to hear about the rpoblems. i had to sign up to The Cloud just last week when I tried to use the wi-fi in Pret-a -Manger but I didn't get charged anything. Do they have both a free and a subscription service?

Bongedone

bcl999 wrote: »

Sorry to hear about the rpoblems. i had to sign up to The Cloud just last week when I tried to use the wi-fi in Pret-a -Manger but I didn't get charged anything. Do they have both a free and a subscription service?

Yes. McDonalds, Wetherspoon and others offer the service for free.

I use it everytime I am in the pub. You still have to sign up but no money/card/Wordlpay needed and can use the username and password anywhere that is free.

Wetherspoons provide their own leaflet on how to set it up so I never tried Clouds (lack of) instructions.

ManAtHome

You get free Cloud WiFi if you're on O2 mobile BB. Haven't used it a lot, but can't remember any problems setting up (was a 'one time' registration a while ago) - O2 Connection Manager seems to handle all the nasty stuff.