Primus Line rental

fabbman

So I see Primus currently offer £7.99 line rental with the ability to keep existing number, My calls are routed via virgin as part of a boradband/calls bundle, will this cause a problem if I dump BT line rental and sign-up to Primus?

Jonny45

im Looking to d the same thing, my broadband is with o2. I get it for 7.50 a month but if i take o2 land line which costs around the same i need to take a new braodband package. So, i'll get the cheaper line rentle but pay an extra fiver for the same braodband i have now, grrr. They say i can not just add a home line, i need to take home phone and broadband together even though i already have braodband. So, i might try this bunch as i only use my landline for the internet anyways. Hopefully someone else has used them.

Heinz

fabbman wrote: »

So I see Primus currently offer £7.99 line rental with the ability to keep existing number, My calls are routed via virgin as part of a boradband/calls bundle, will this cause a problem if I dump BT line rental and sign-up to Primus?

Virgin is currently your CPS calls provider. You can only have a CPS calls provider if you pay line rental to BT (BT is required to allow such a facility and, surprise, surprise, no other line provider allows/facilitates it) so yes, it will cause a problem - in fact it won't be possible.

vicardave

Enticed by the idea of cheap line rental from this site I undertook the offer with Primus - BIG MISTAKE.
The worst possible customer service you can imagine - they cannot bill correctly, cannot take correct direct debits, failed to bill for three consecutive periods despite assurances it would soon be on its way. And even worse, they cannot speak English and don't understand what you are saying, they interrupt mid-sentence and get the wrong end of the stick every time. They promise call-backs that never happen, refuse to let you speak to a manager or anyone in the UK.
In the end I took my complaints to the ombudsman (Otelo) and Primus even failed to bother to respond to Otelo. I won my case by default and Otelo required Primus to pay the compensation and rectify the account within 28 days. Still waiting - and not even a letter of apology.
Remember this - if you choose to go with Primus: If they don't even respect the Ombudsman, what chance do you think YOU have of being respected?
Primus = CHEAP and NASTY. Don't get involved. Pay another £1 or £2 and go with anyone else that is UK based and do what they say on the tin. Primus is a communications company that cannot communicate.

Update 16th April:
Still no response from Primus to the Ombudsmans Final Decision. They have failed to respond to telephone calls and emails from Otelo, despite the requirement that they provide the remedy within 28 days (that was at the beginning of January).
My opinion still stands - AVOID PRIMUS - the communications company that doesn't communicate!

Heinz

vicardave wrote: »

Enticed by the idea of cheap line rental from this site I undertook the offer with Primus - BIG MISTAKE.
The worst possible customer service you can imagine - they cannot bill correctly, cannot take correct direct debits, failed to bill for three consecutive periods despite assurances it would soon be on its way. And even worse, they cannot speak English and don't understand what you are saying, they interrupt mid-sentence and get the wrong end of the stick every time. They promise call-backs that never happen, refuse to let you speak to a manager or anyone in the UK.

You must be mistaken. Primus say they win awards for the quality of their customer service.

http://www.primussaver.co.uk/help.html

nogginthenog

I can only comment on my own personal experience I have been with primus for 2 years now.

No problems so far! On the odd occasion i could not understand a operative on the phone i just asked to speak to another peron, No problem.

Being Irish maybe i can understand them better, i don't know if that is right or not.
Bottom line,No problems so far

spike7451

nogginthenog wrote: »

I can only comment on my own personal experience I have been with primus for 2 years now.

No problems so far! On the odd occasion i could not understand a operative on the phone i just asked to speak to another peron, No problem.

Being Irish maybe i can understand them better, i don't know if that is right or not.
Bottom line,No problems so far

I've just moved from the shower of useless sh:mad:te that is BT to Primus,everything went smoothly with no problems with my broadband..Unlike BT who tried to throw everything they could in my way.:mad:

~Chameleon~

vicardave wrote: »

Enticed by the idea of cheap line rental from this site I undertook the offer with Primus - BIG MISTAKE.
The worst possible customer service you can imagine - they cannot bill correctly, cannot take correct direct debits, failed to bill for three consecutive periods despite assurances it would soon be on its way. And even worse, they cannot speak English and don't understand what you are saying, they interrupt mid-sentence and get the wrong end of the stick every time. They promise call-backs that never happen, refuse to let you speak to a manager or anyone in the UK.
In the end I took my complaints to the ombudsman (Otelo) and Primus even failed to bother to respond to Otelo. I won my case by default and Otelo required Primus to pay the compensation and rectify the account within 28 days. Still waiting - and not even a letter of apology.
Remember this - if you choose to go with Primus: If they don't even respect the Ombudsman, what chance do you think YOU have of being respected?
Primus = CHEAP and NASTY. Don't get involved. Pay another £1 or £2 and go with YourCalls.net or anyone else that is UK based and do what they say on the tin. Primus is a communications company that cannot communicate.

I switched to them last month too and having received an erroneous bill for three times what it should be I've had a similar response to you above. Totally useless shower!! :mad:

TerryGB

vicardave wrote: »

Enticed by the idea of cheap line rental from this site I undertook the offer with Primus - BIG MISTAKE.
The worst possible customer service you can imagine - they cannot bill correctly, cannot take correct direct debits, failed to bill for three consecutive periods despite assurances it would soon be on its way. And even worse, they cannot speak English and don't understand what you are saying, they interrupt mid-sentence and get the wrong end of the stick every time. They promise call-backs that never happen, refuse to let you speak to a manager or anyone in the UK.
In the end I took my complaints to the ombudsman (Otelo) and Primus even failed to bother to respond to Otelo. I won my case by default and Otelo required Primus to pay the compensation and rectify the account within 28 days. Still waiting - and not even a letter of apology.
Remember this - if you choose to go with Primus: If they don't even respect the Ombudsman, what chance do you think YOU have of being respected?
Primus = CHEAP and NASTY. Don't get involved. Pay another £1 or £2 and go with YourCalls.net or anyone else that is UK based and do what they say on the tin. Primus is a communications company that cannot communicate.

I have had MASSIVE problems with Primus, anything goes wrong and they are completely useless. I had a line fault in December where the broadband was working but the phone not and it took them 2 weeks to get it fixed, when eventually I spoke to their technician (I had to borrow a mobile to do this as they would not use email) I was told that if my broadband connection was working then the line was perfectly OK and if I wanted BT to attend I would be charged a 140 DOLLARS callout fee. NOT TRUE!
I have been battling with them ever since as they keep demanding a contract early termination fee even though they are clearly in breach of their own terms & conditions, as I have pointed out to them over and over. Their latest demand for payment was received this morning.
I moved my line rental to my ISP Zen, had a fault of no broadband or phone a few weeks ago, was up and running again in less than 3 days.

Do not get your line rental from Primus whatever you do!

Thank you vicardave, I was not aware of Otelo _ I'll be in touch with them straight away.

fabbman

Heinz wrote: »

Virgin is currently your CPS calls provider. You can only have a CPS calls provider if you pay line rental to BT (BT is required to allow such a facility and, surprise, surprise, no other line provider allows/facilitates it) so yes, it will cause a problem - in fact it won't be possible.

Well as it turns out I negotiated a new contact with Virgin and they have taken over the line too!

vicardave

TerryGB wrote: »

I have had MASSIVE problems with Primus, anything goes wrong and they are completely useless.

Do not get your line rental from Primus whatever you do!

Thank you vicardave, I was not aware of Otelo _ I'll be in touch with them straight away.

Sorry you've had trouble with them, they are very frustrating. You need a deadlock letter to get Otelo involved or for 8 weeks to have elapsed since making your complaint. You'll never get the deadlock letter because they will pretend they don't understand you. So you'll have to wait 8 weeks, but being a Primus customer you'll get used to waiting for things to happen. The Ombudsman are very helpful but due to the level of complaints they are receiving they may take time to reply, but stick with it. Because Primus won't reply to the Ombudsman, you'll be waiting for the statutory response times to elapse and then for further chasing from Otelo, but this is because they give them every opportunity to respond. It will get sorted, just not as quickly as it should because Primus are so inefficient and useless.

It's a shame there are no stats produced from Otelo about how many complaints they get for each member, I'm sure Primus would have the most.

Primus are one of these companies that, so long as nothing goes wrong its ok because they're cheap. But when you need to speak to someone it all snowballs into frustration and inconvenience....and then you wish you'd paid for a professional service....

Good luck!