MSE News: Primus customers hit by service woes

momist

Hi,

I've been a Primus customer since 2009, and was reasonably happy with their phone service. I was using another company for my broadband at the time.

It all started to go wrong when I added broadband from Primus, and found to my cost that I had locked in to a poor service in terms of contention and speed, and customer service. In order to get round problems with data restrictions (I had underestimated how much I need) I changed my contract to "unlimited" (Ha!) and now am locked in until June 2014.

Recently, I had a line failure that I eventually traced (myself) to a fault within the house. I had reported this to Primus, a process which took about a day of trying, and then heard nothing for three days. When I eventually managed to again get though to them, they then told me that they had investigated and the fault was probably at my end. Why did they never tell me this before?!!! This took about five emails and fifty calls from my mobile (line not working remember?) No emails were ever answered, and when I asked why, they stated that emails were currently two weeks(!) behind.

I will escape whenever I can and go somewhere else. The customer service is just unacceptable. As another respondent here has in his sig, a good service is not that nothing goes wrong, but what the company do when it does go wrong.

analyst_2

momist wrote: »

. . . now am locked in until June 2014 . . .

Not necessarily so, although a scurrilous bunch of rogues might do everything in their power to infer that.

You agreed this "contract" on the basis of an expectation of a certain level of service (as advertised). If it becomes apparent that they are not delivering that level of service, as agreed, it it THEY who may be in breach.

They cannot hold you to an unreasonable contract just because it says so in their "terms and conditions". The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 and Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 render unfair terms in contracts unenforcible, so it doesn't matter what they say.

You should follow the Primus Code of Practice, there is a link on their home page, and should that fail (as may well be likely) you can ask them for a deadlock letter and elevate the complaint to CISAS.

taskerweb

Well back in January I read all the info on the MSE site about choosing the right package and went for the promoted Primus deal as advice on MSE has always been pretty good in the past.

Being technically minded I don't normally need much in the way of customer support but a company that ignores most attempts to contact it is something new. They took the money happily enough but despite several attempts to contact them or the parent company NewCall telecom, the only response, after an hour of the call waiting, was a confused gentleman, talking something about a team of engineers, who said he would sort it out. Since then no response to phone or email.

I've lost 111GBP to them with no apparent way of getting it back.

To MSE I would say it would be better to think about the wider cost implications when saying something is a good deal. A great deal on Snake Oil is still not a good deal.

Perhaps the guys at MSE should update their article with some advice on how we can extract ourselves from the situation they have stuck us in.

I will certainly be more careful in future before trusting advice from this website.

DonnySaver

Never had a problem with Primus or Newcall telecom until they moved me over to their new billing system. Ever since that happened I've be unable to login into my account and therefore have not been able to view any of my bills.

Have sent numerous emails on the matter because nobody ever answers their phone. I sent my last email 7 weeks ago and I've still not received a reply. I've now issued them with an ultimatum to fix it or I take my complaint to OFCOM and/or leave.

Used to be a good company but they provide terrible service now.

athomick

I ordered a package in late December and they took the advanced fee of £111. I canceled a few days later and received an email a week after that confirming the cancellation and saying they had requested the upfront fee refund. Since then no money and they have stopped communicating with me. As others have said they don't answer the phone.

Hilariously a rep did call me a couple of weeks ago to tell me that they were ready to install my line! While I had him on the phone I made him check the status of my refund and he said it had not been requested!

Anyway I was suspicious that they would steal my money so I contacted Barclaycard a few weeks ago and asked for a chargeback which came through yesterday. So although I have my money back I would warn anyone not to do business with this company if you can avoid it. They act like a bunch of scammers.

Chemist

Just joined Primus - only swapped the line rental as I have a call package with SKY. Now Primus are charging me for calls.....

Oh well, into battle!!

:rotfl:

macman

If you were on an LLU service with Sky then moving your line rental will have cancelled your calls package. All Primus tariffs include some calls element.

StevieJ

DonnySaver wrote: »

Never had a problem with Primus or Newcall telecom until they moved me over to their new billing system. Ever since that happened I've be unable to login into my account and therefore have not been able to view any of my bills.

I think it moved to a new sign in page and password sometime in November, I am pretty sure I had an email about it. I have had no problems with the new system, in fact it is better as it now gives you a breakdown of recent calls. Maybe you missed the email, try checking your inbox for Nov/Dec?

DonnySaver

StevieJ wrote: »

I think it moved to a new sign in page and password sometime in November, I am pretty sure I had an email about it. I have had no problems with the new system, in fact it is better as it now gives you a breakdown of recent calls. Maybe you missed the email, try checking your inbox for Nov/Dec?

I got the emails but have never been able to login as my details aren't recognized. Have sent them emails in the past and they have reset it etc but STILL unable to login. Can't reset it myself as it says my account doesn't have an email address attached to it. Looks like they never ported my details over correctly.

StevieJ

DonnySaver wrote: »

I got the emails but have never been able to login as my details aren't recognized. Have sent them emails in the past and they have reset it etc but STILL unable to login. Can't reset it myself as it says my account doesn't have an email address attached to it. Looks like they never ported my details over correctly.

I remember now, I had to validate my email address, good luck with that anyway