Ask Primus a Question

Misswolves

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

It's a recommendation, they didn't force you at gunpoint to sign up. If I'd followed every recommendation I'd seen on the way to work today I'd have a 4 pack of John Smiths, some Tampons and a lovely new dress from Next on my desk.

Use your common sense and fully investigate any new provider before signing up - being in the legal trade you should know that of all people.

I would have thought a recommendation from MSE ( a Money Saving Expert Forum)would be close to bullet proof. Its not like i took advice from someone purporting to know nothing about financial matters.

The fact that MSE have removed Primus from its recommended suppliers would appear to endorse that view.

However, it sadly does mean that I will be more cautious when using MSE caveat emptor and all that!

bbb_uk

Misswolves wrote: »

I would have thought a recommendation from MSE ( a Money Saving Expert Forum)would be close to bullet proof. Its not like i took advice from someone purporting to know nothing about financial matters.

The fact that MSE have removed Primus from its recommended suppliers would appear to endorse that view.

However, it sadly does mean that I will be more cautious when using MSE caveat emptor and all that!

MSE recommends what's cheapest at the time and if he's aware of any problems then he does mention it.

For example, when I originally got Primus' line rental nothing was mentioned about cust serv problems but now it's mentioned in an update but I did some searching and noticed that they aren't open 24/7 type like other landline providers but as I was more concerned about cost I accepted that Primus don't have as many staff as other providers but that's prob one reason why they are cheaper than other providers (ie less staff outgoings).

Prob is I think Primus are a victim of their own success. They prob never anticipated as many customers as they have got and MSE can only go by what Primus say and feedback from customers at the time.

carmel11

Misswolves wrote: »

I joined Primus on the 4/3/2013. This was on an 18month contract for phone and broadband with a download limit of 40GB.

I have not been able to access my ebilling as I get a ' not authorised' error from your site. This on several computers, for the avoidance if doubt.

I am away lecturing in the USA and my son is the only person in the house. He works six days a week.

You have suspended the broadband service. He has rung numerous times holding for up to 45 minutes to be told that he has gone over the 40GB limit and we are due to be charged £178. This is clearly a scam by yourselves as we has the same limit with BT and never went over it.

You have not contacted me in any manner to inform me that the limit has been reached.

As a solicitor, I am happy to mediate with you to resolve this matter, by for example jointly appointing an expert in this field to verify the alleged useage you have stated.

I have cancelled my direct debit to you. I will not be paying another penny to you if I do not hear from you in 30 days( your notice period,) or if the use age cannot be verified.

I have today received an email from you stating you are also putting the telephone line prices up £1.20 from April 1st 2013.

You cannot backdate price increases, it is unlawful and in breach of contract.

I will take you to small claims court if this matter is not resolved to my satisfaction. I will also seek damages and my costs for any time I spend resolving this matter.

Once you respond I will email you my username and contact details.

This will be in contemplation of legal action.

I telephoned primus and they gave me new passwords to let me log in.alternativly they will email you.
I Use a geographical number to reach them and never have too much of a wait.
I do however have other issues I hope to get answer to today..

Primus_Saver_representative

Hi all,


I can see a lot of confusion on here in reference to our recent price increase so I just wanted to put a post on to hopefully help answer any of your questions.


So firstly we don’t want to hide the fact that we are regulated by Ofcom and are compliant with their rules and regulations.


Even with our price increase of £1 ex VAT we are still cheaper than most major providers so I would advise anyone wishing to leave due to this increase to look into the package you are on with us and look at the same package with other providers before hastily deciding to leave us to then end up stuck in a contract with another provider paying more.


To be honest, we’re not on here to go into the nitty gritty details of our terms and conditions but if you are unsure of them, then you can view ours on our website and to look at Ofcom’s website for theirs.


We are dealing with these issues as a case by case basis so if you would like to discuss this any further, if you send us an email with your MSE username and I will look into this for you.


bbb_uk – Could you also send me an email with any time you are available and I will give you a call to discuss this further.
Kind Regards,
Jo

silverbullit

I can't wait until my 18 months contract with Primus expires. It's an awful service provider - there have now been two price rises, responses to messages take an unacceptable length of time, charges for going over their broadband limit (and the failure to actually inform customers that they are close to their limit) are extortionate.

Dreadful.:mad:

Misswolves

So this is the bs response from Primus....



let me apologise for any inconvenience you may have had.

Unfortunately our systems only sent the price increase notification to about 99% our customer base, the other 1% of our customers line rental will not increase for another 28 days, you will receive further notification in regards to this.

All of our usage stats are correct and we can send you a day by day break down to show you exactly how much you have used per day, but due to data protection we can not see what you have been downloading - please be aware that we are monitored by OfCom and at no point would we change the usage stats.

We have not broken our terms and conditions and therefore if you were to leave our services you would be liable to early termination fees.

If you would like the day to day break down of your usage please let us know and we can get this sent to your email for you.

Also if you were to go to a higher broadband plan we could look into reducing the excess charges.

Kindest regards,
Jordan


So it seems their resolution is to put you on a more expensive tariff to try and reduce the excess charges.

It would appear the bulk of my email has been ignored about appointing a joint expert to verify the data used.

Clearly, there is no MAC code coming from Primus.

I have requested that the excess data is verified again, prior to the appointment of a joint expert.

I have reiterated that the terms and conditions have been breached and a new letter does not rectify the breach.

I have also highlighted again that it is unacceptable to wait 45 minutes to try and speak to a customer services department.

It is also unacceptable that I cannot access my bill via the details sent to me.

I am not prepared to continue with a company like this and I will now be taking this matter via Ofcom and then to the small claims court if necessary.


I will keep you updated, I have emailed Jordan back, but in the absence of a deadlock letter then it is a 30 day wait to refer to Ofcom.

carmel11

carmel11 wrote: »

I telephoned primus and they gave me new passwords to let me log in.alternativly they will email you.
I Use a geographical number to reach them and never have too much of a wait.
I do however have other issues I hope to get answer to today..

I am one of the 1% who allegedly weren't sent the letter apparently.

They promised to call me back today after speaking to the tech guy who was day off(do they only have one.)
They didnt.

carmel11

Primus_Saver_representative wrote: »

Good Afternoon,

Carmel11 - I have sent out a guide to help you use the Billing Portal and more specifically the My Alerts section.

Old_git - I have raised this with a member of our retentions team to give you a call and you should be receiving a call sooner rather than later.

Alixandrea - Hi Alixandrea, the reason you have not been given a break down of your usage is due to Data Protection, we are not able to see what you are downloading/uploading just the quantity of your usage. If you can send me an email with your account number on I can have a look into your account for you and check to see if everything is looking correct.

Taskerweb - First of all let me start by apologising for the delay you've had waiting for your refund, can you please email me with your account details so I can get your refund fast tracked?

Just to keep everyone up to date, we do currently only have two people working this forum - myself and Elliot - due to the success and feedback we're getting there will be some new faces popping up very soon, so hopefully we can help with any queries, questions or complaints you may have a lot quicker.

Kindest regards,
Jordan

Ok
First posted 7th march-you still haven't helped me one iota.
Not Elliot Amy jo Oliver or Jordan

I haven't received this guide, but I had already looked at the online guide. I have not had the promised help from tech support.

I think I now know why.
It appears that the "my alerts " section of your website (allows you get an email if certain calls go over a certain amount for example) which is the basis of my complaint , ISN'T EVEN OPERATIONAL YET, hence it's a bit pointless you sending me the leaflet on how to set it up,isn't it?

So, I have spent ( wasted) a certain amount of time trying to set up alerts, asking you how to do this, only to discover it can't be done.
Now I guess you knew that all along.

samsta3000

Misswolves


So...you are away, your son is the only one in the house andyou think he hasn’t used 40GB??? Streaming videos in HD will go through thatusage faster than Mo Farah running from a cheetah! Even if he hasn’t been using ‘streaming’ sitesit’s very easy to go through that usage just using the internet less than acouple of hours per day – I have been stung by excess charges before andlearned that lesson very fast!

Also, any company that provides broadband has no legalobligation to agree to a jointly appointed expert - they are already monitoredby OFCOM as I am sure you are aware.

Lastly, as many people have already mentioned recommendationsfrom MSE are just that. Recommendations. If you choose to use this info asgospel that is entirely your choice.

Having said all that, if you are still having a problem withthis company, I would definitely suggest contacting OFCOM yourself who will beable to provide more support before you decide to take it any further.

Misswolves

carmel11 wrote: »

I am one of the 1% who allegedly weren't sent the letter apparently.

They promised to call me back today after speaking to the tech guy who was day off(do they only have one.)
They didnt.

I am also one of the 'few' apparently, Carmel!

I have had another email from Jordan though which I will paste below.






We are only a small Lancashire company and as such we do not have anything in place to notify customers when they’re getting close to their usage limits and this is why I advised of an increase on your usage plan.
There are usage monitors you can download online but these only monitor the specific device it is installed on, so for example if you download it on an iPad any downloading and uploading will be monitored on that device but not on any other device connected to the network.Another alternative is to call us so we can provide you with a breakdown of your usage over the phone.
You will find attached the day by day break down in this email, please be aware that the stats are in MB if you require this in GB you just need to add the upload and download together and divide them by a thousand and this will give you the total for that particular day.
If you would authorise one of our technical team to contact your son on your behalf as you are in the USA we can try get to the bottom of the excess usage.
To be honest with you I have been working for Primus NewCall for 2 years now and we’ve never come across an appointed expert to look into the usage stats for any customer, so would not know the ins and outs of how to organise this for you, but by all means you can look into appointing one.
Currently you're on a LLU plan and to transfer away from us your chosen provider only requires the telephone number. So you will not require a MAC code with the plan you are on.

As advised it was an error that sent out the price increase notification to you, we’re not changing the dates of the increase but instead holding this back for the few customers who have been affected by this issue.

Our wait time this week has been averaging at under 7 minutes so you shouldn’t have any issue getting through to us, but our bills are due to hit this week so the wait time will naturally increase.
I have sent a password reset link to your email address so you will be able to change your password and be able to log in, if you use your account number as your username and the password you create as your password you'll be able to log in.
If you have any other questions or queries please do not hesitate to get back in touch.
Kindest regards,
Jordan

So my next step is to appoint an expert which is acceptable to both parties, but first I need to have my IT guys run a look over the figures they have provided.

I don't know about anyone else, but to me it appears that Primus are making excuses for their shoddy service. I, for one, will not put up with it. I am going to see if Citizens Advice will look into taking this forward on a policy directive as well, as they are frequently quite proactive on taking matters like this forward.