pop telecom

ookoro

@dsm05 - Thanks for posting. I too was going to sign up as Sky had just increased their charges costing me an extra £20 a month I wasn't bargaining for.

I knew they POP sounded too good to be true. What a shame. These companies think they can rush in and take a chunk of the market share hoping people will be blind-sided by the cheapness of the product. They forget that people want quality too. I know the old adage says you get what you pay for, but surely they would just end up losing customers due to all the bad reviews.

ookoro

They've got a price list on their website but I can't include the link as I'm a newbie

Reaper

ookoro wrote: »

They've got a price list on their website but I can't include the link as I'm a newbie

I can but it took me ages to find it.

To get there I:

1) Downloaded their T&C from a tiny link at the bottom of the page (forget the promising sounding "Download our price list" link as that's business calls only).
2) Buried in the T&C in section 70.3 is a URL. It's WRONG but if you click on it then it actually takes you to a completely different web site called DTC Direct! http://www.dtcdirect.co.uk/
3) I checked and the registered addresses of both appear to match, otherwise I would have assumed it was somebody else.
4) Nearly there. In the top right hand corner press Price List.
5) Select the link on the new page it opens to download a PDF

To save you the pain here is a direct link to take you straight to step 5:
http://www.dtcdirect.co.uk/Information/Price-List

I've never seen such efforts by a company to hide the cost of a simple residential call. Why they can't put the link I posted above on their home page is beyond me.

Capyboppy

dms05 wrote: »

Well what a friendly lot you all are. I take the time to show any other person with an interest in this provider my experience of trying to enrol with them. Your comments show a real deep understanding of helping others. I guess I won't bother with this unfriendly and unhelpful forum again. It also means my opinion of MSE is reduced.

For interest these people provide serious business telecoms infrastructure. The fact you seem pleased you've never heard of them says more about you than anything. Do some research before commenting in future.

Goodbye.

dms05: I have hardly made any posts in the last couple of years due to the attitude of others. When this website/forum first started off, most people were caring individuals who did what you have done to educate and save upset and hassle of themselves going through a similar situation. I for one appreciate what you have attempted to do.

joeyjojo9658

I stuck some impressions of my "order progress" (or lack of!) in the article thread before seeing this. I'd link it but the forum won't let me yet, so here it is in full!

Just wanted to share my experience with POP Telecom after seeing it recommended on this article.

I moved to my new (rented) property on 11 July and phoned POP the same day to start the order process. I paid the £132 for line rental upfront as advised by moneysavingexpert. I was advised it would take up to 2 weeks to "take over" the phone line, and up to 2 more to start the broadband. I thought this a little long, but expected it to be less ("up to" 2 weeks...).

All went smoothly with the line rental and they sent me the free modem/router (a TP-LINK TD-W8951ND).

A few alarm bells rang when I noticed the T&Cs were clearly poorly proof-read. Most troubling they state to check the Fair Usage Policy and the Cancellation Policy online, but the URLs don't work. I alerted customer service and was thanked, but (at time of writing this) they still aren't fixed. This makes me wonder if perhaps I have good grounds to cancel the contract at any time because the complete terms weren't available when the agreement was made?

Another alarm bell rang when I noticed the paperwork had somebody else's bank details on it for the direct debit! Not the name, just the bank, sort code, and account number. When I asked about it they apologised for the "typographical error"!

Anyway, tomorrow is the final day of the second two-week period and I've had no suggestion it's going to be done on time, so I got on the "live chat" just now, only to be told it's going to go live on 20 August due to "problems with the exchange"!!!

6 weeks seems unusually long for a phone line and broadband! The customer service person said on chat that she would try and get me a refund for this month, which would be welcome.

To their credit, the customer service is good when you get them, but there seems to be a real lack of administrative quality. Whether the actual delays are their fault or due to external forces I don't know, but it's hard to give POP the benefit of the doubt...

I half expected this when I picked a "low cost" provider. Hopefully the actual internet service is good, otherwise I think I should be able to use the above as grounds to get out early scot-free. What do we think of my chances?

Of course it's a bit of a gamble going with a new provider, and maybe some of the oversights (e.g. T&Cs pointing to dead links) can be put down to that.

I'm going to stick it out for now and see how the service is once it's up and running. If it's crap, what are my rights regarding the T&Cs and key bits (the fair usage policy, and the cancellation policy) being "404" at the time the agreement was made?

SCO

seen them in the broadband section deals, anyone using them? how are they?

joeyjojo9658

SCO wrote: »

seen them in the broadband section deals, anyone using them? how are they?

To follow up - we got connected on the 20th as promised and the service has been great. The speeds are poor coming from cable but they are pretty much as estimated (about 6.3 Mbit), however it's been very stable with none of the slow periods (especially evenings) that I've had with other providers. Also the modem/router has been superb and never dropped connection or needed rebooting.

Very, very good value for £2.50/month.

P700

Nasty horrible company with hidden charges and a sharks account service out to screw you for every penny. AVOID !!!

jan111

Beware of phoning POPTEL customer services they charge you a high rate. I paid for anytime calls, but calls to them are not included in this. Would not refund me even though I was calling them about faulty router they had sent me Also took a long time to get online told it was a fault with the exchange. Will not be renewing my contract.

silvio_dante

I took the benefit of the doubt and signed up to a years contract of £2.50 unlimited broadband paying everything up front including line rental.

They took about 4 attempts at sending out the correct contract and eventually I gave up. the contracts they sent kept saying that I was signing up to a monthly direct debit for 2 years?

After 3 months!!!! I finally got connected and I wont lie the actual speed was good. about 7mbps on average and pretty reliable (although I could imagine at the property I was at most companies would get the same)

Since I had no phone connected I phoned and asked if I could delete the direct debit. I then got billed 7.99 for deleting it and another 7.99 for a late fee for something?! I asked them just to terminate my contract after only 3 months of use as it was more hassle than it was worth. They still email asking for 7.99 charges?

Phoning this company is awful - endless times I have ended up in ques from after 5pm until they close at 6pm as if the phone system has just been put on to fake ques. Often very arrogant on the phone as well.

I don't usually write a bad report on a company however in this case I was too shocked in how awful they have behaved towards a customer. rant over.