V21 - Whats The Service like ?

theloft

GeoThermal wrote:

From Fast4's website: "Fast 4 is a subsidary of the familiar V21.co.uk. Fast 4 was launched to give users a "no nonsense", straight forward unlimited connection to the Internet, "
Fast4 advertise an unlimited service but I got my dialup account cancelled for overuse. Is V21 any different?

I am with Fast 4 on dial-up waiting for that "offer I can't refuse" to go BB. But reading on FAST4 CONNECTION DIARY2 about users getting their accounts cancelled for over-use despite them advertising "unlimited", I decided to send them an e-mail asking them why they advertised one thing and did another. To date I have not had the courtesy of a reply. The thing about the V21 offer, is if the contention ratio becomes too high and as somebody pointed out, heavy users transferred over, then the service will deteriorate. But as it is a monthly contract,not too serious, except for the charge for leaving, that's really naff!! They are not 'top of the pops' on the IP review sites.

theloft

Aletank wrote:

I see https://www.V21.co.uk are offering a 512k uncapped for £12.50 a month. http://www.ispreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/news/viewnews.cgi?id=EEEFVyVyAVZjXTkAcO
Has anybody any experience of their service etc ?

Checked this offer out on V21's website this morning and it is NOT a very good offer. The £12.50 rate is capped to only 60 hours usage per month. For unlimited hours the cost remains at £16.99 per month and i for 512kbps service. Not up with the best deals.

nemo183

Before signing up for this, apart from closely checking the (new) fine print of the contract, to quote the V21 website, what you are getting is -

V512k - Lite Extra - Unlimited bandwidth/10x faster/60 hrs p/m surftime £12.50

So, as far as I see it, 2 hours surftime a day. This doesn't exactly seem to meet my idea of unlimited.

Dek_Fisher

ggustar wrote:

Go careful they have just charged me £30 for a MAC code as I wanted to leave them and go elsewhere. Its in their agreement they can charge, also when you want to leave them you can only do it by phone 0870 number and needless to say they keep you waiting a long time then spend ages trying to talk you into staying. I'm leaving them next Monday THANK GOODNESS.

At times I was trying to connect to them for hours.

I have been suffering with the same problem ie extremely poor service. I Tel. for a MAC No. on the 0906 No. (50p) a minute and then after waiting for confirmation from the Supervisor was told to call the 0870 No. which is restricted in it's operating hours.
The problem is that if you don't make a keystroke in a given time period your cut off and when this happens for some unknown reason I have to re-boot the PC!!
The connection speed is very poor even though I signed up for broadband I invariabley find that I am being connected via dial up.
I'm looking forwrd to getting my MAC No. (even if it does cost £30.00) and returning to a decent ISP. I suppose it's the age old saying `you get what you pay for`

Catz

Dek_Fisher wrote:

I have been suffering with the same problem ie extremely poor service. I Tel. for a MAC No. on the 0906 No. (50p) a minute and then after waiting for confirmation from the Supervisor was told to call the 0870 No. which is restricted in it's operating hours.
The problem is that if you don't make a keystroke in a given time period your cut off and when this happens for some unknown reason I have to re-boot the PC!!
The connection speed is very poor even though I signed up for broadband I invariabley find that I am being connected via dial up.
I'm looking forwrd to getting my MAC No. (even if it does cost £30.00) and returning to a decent ISP. I suppose it's the age old saying `you get what you pay for`

Fax them on 0870 442 9601 after 9am weekdays. After 4 months with V21, I am returning to Force 9 ( which I am sorry I ever left ), pay the £30 and be wiser

plasma258

I have been with V21 for about 6 months now and like a lot of 'great deals' they are fine until you have a problem or want to leave.

I have 512 broadband, £16.99/month, which is great when it is working. When you sign up (1 month contract) they give you dial up internet for free for time when BB isnt working, which thinking back should have been a sign that its not too reliable. Customer service is open from 9-5 it is the cost of a national call and my averavge wait time has been about 25mins. After office hours there is technical support at 50p per minute (enuff said), there is also the sytem status line, which is a recorded message at national rate again.

After the connection being down for most of the day a few days back i decided it was time to leave. They charge £30 for a MAC code (with most there is no charge) or 28 days notice then pay for reconnection with your new provider! The person who answered the phone at V21 didnt make any effort to try and keep my custom (maybe because they feel like they are flogging a dead horse).

My experience in a nutshell, what appears to be cheap is actually false economy and costs a lot of time/money/frustration to get sotred out.

Lets hope they dissapear soon!

Catz

Plasma,
I couldn't agree more, I faxed them on 18th April 2005 saying that I would like to give 1 months notice and could they please send me the MAC key and BT product, They WROTE back on the 5th May saying there would be a £30 charge for this service and if I ever wanted to reopen my account( I don't think so) they would give me the best deal possible and the best service.

I still havn't heard anything as yet and I feel I will get the Mac key on or around my cancellation date, so I will be paying £30 and it will be too late to migrate, so I will have to pay £58 to have my line enabled again for ADSL.

I think that if you never need customer sevices and you never want to migrate you will be fine, I tried to ring customer services today but gave up.

I am returning to Force 9 and I can't wait, I have given up with V21, I will just wait until I have no internet connection and contact Force 9.

I hope this helps anyone thinking of using V21, of course if you don't choose to believe me, you could always try them for yourself

2 Hours Later

I have just phoned Force 9 (local call) and to activate my account will be
free with a MAC key and £11.75 without one, without the key I will lose
my connection for about 7-10 days, hey, I can live with that


Very happy indeed :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

gregh_2

I too am having a nightmare with V21. I had been with Eclipse for 18 months - £23 per month, unlimited, 1 month's notice, free MAC. Not the cheapest but I never had a problem and their customer services/tech support were always easy to get and helpful.

Foolishly I decided to try and save a bit and, following the recommendations on here, decided to migrate. How sorry I am.

- Customer services are nigh impossible to get hold of (excuse - "oh we are understaffed").
- migration was poorly handled and at one point is looked like it was not going to work
- staff are not interested and fail to return calls despite giving a clear undertaking to do so
- and to cap it all the connection is lousy - in the two days I have been with them it has been down and much as it has been up.

Steer well clear - sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Not a very happy customer.

Catz

My account ceases with V21 tomorrow, 19th May and today I received notice from V21 that they have taken another £16.99. It just amazes me how this company survives, it seems that everyone there is doing their own thing in their own time( response times are around 10-12 days and it takes around 3 days to actually assign a contact us note.

They contacted me on Tuesday 16th May asking if I still wanted the MAC key( are they serious? ) it just beggers belief, My ADSL line will cease tomorrow because of the lack of customer service in providing me with the key in reasonable time.

I phoned Force 9 last Sunday, around 5pm, after the recorded message had finished, the phone was picked up in around 35 seconds, amazing, I then asked if it was possible to have my old user name and email address, no problem was the response, and I was called Sir, I was then signed up over the phone in no time, with nothing to pay, and all I have to do now is wait for BT to enable my line and I can start using Force 9.

This is one ISP I will stay with. £14.99-2Mb

I have never been so happy to be rid of this company

sco0ter

Force 9 have the same restrictions as TalkTalk during peak hours, Actually I think thiers is worse as they restrict downloading in general not just P2P and as its another part of the Plusnet group it can be unreliable as well.