Cancelling broadband early due to provider's fault

Carrot007

PawelK said:

Mind sharing which ones are those in your opinion? I moved to them from talk talk as their customer service and broadband they provided was very bad. It looks like I changed one rotten apple for another.... 😢

I can share my entire viewpoint on VDSL.

1. Provider (only going with openreach ones here).

If you have a problem AAISP as mentioned.

If you do not plusnet (or BT if you are not comfortable diagnosing your onw porblems and only using online chat to get past the call centre who know nothing about proviging internet).

2. Router.

Buy your own. There are good chipsets and bad ones. I am with plusnet, I would not touch the router they gave me with a barge pole. I bought one of the best for £30. I would have proferred without wifi that I am not going to use but with (very useless) wifi was cheaper!

3. WIfi.

This is your issue, even with guarantees. Only ever report issues after you have plugged the router direct into the master socket and are using a cable.

I use a mesh. If you have any solid walls this is a must. It is probably a good idea anyway.

4. Customer service.

If you have to ring up people on 909.9% of ISPs these people have no knowledge of the subject matter and are there to convince you to go away. Online chat and forums, and maybe repoting from your billing online page make things a lot easier. It is also good it you understand what yoiu are talking about.

5. Always have a backup.

There are 3 mobiles in the house. I have 135gb I could use for backup in the allowences. This would cover me easily for a month if I stopped large downloads which are not a priority.

Jenni_D

Yes - the layout and construction of the property can also affect Wi-Fi.

born_again

So can the Op confirm that the issue they have is with WiFi dropping? Or given the previous comment about Talk Talk they have a actual issue with the line.

I would get a Ethernet cable & connect direct to your router. We have to do that ( and can only use a WiFi connection in emergencies. So that means a WiFi hotspot from a mobile.)

At least that way you rule out any WiFi issues. 

PawelK

born_again said:

So can the Op confirm that the issue they have is with WiFi dropping? Or given the previous comment about Talk Talk they have a actual issue with the line.

I would get a Ethernet cable & connect direct to your router. We have to do that ( and can only use a WiFi connection in emergencies. So that means a WiFi hotspot from a mobile.)

At least that way you rule out any WiFi issues. 

Hi. The issues are two. WiFi dropping but also low speed which would be due to what I described earlier about me being in wrong profile 40/10.
The tests with ethernet cable were already done and didn't find the problem. The last OR engineer suggested that low speed need to be resolved by Vodafone putting me on 80/20 but also they need to replace that old cable. He said WiFi dropping may be to do with the router or whatever is causing the problem between the master socket and the router but that part is Vodafone's responsibility.

Carrot007

PawelK said:

Hi. The issues are two. WiFi dropping but also low speed which would be due to what I described earlier about me being in wrong profile 40/10.
The tests with ethernet cable were already done and didn't find the problem. The last OR engineer suggested that low speed need to be resolved by Vodafone putting me on 80/20 but also they need to replace that old cable. He said WiFi dropping may be to do with the router or whatever is causing the problem between the master socket and the router but that part is Vodafone's responsibility.

You are either paying for 40/10 or 80/20.

Back when I signed up for plusnet it was 40/2 or 80/20 which was annoying (and designed to get you with BT) and becuase my connection apparently would not get over 40 I had to specially ask to go on the 80/20. After upgrades they say 60 min now and after if went lower and I complained OR came out and I did get 80/20 for a while (and it is alwayas above the guaranteed minimum).

I do think due to advertising clauses they have to call the 80 76 these days for ridiculous reasons (why not the max, people get told their max on sign up).

Wifi dropping is 100% nothing to do with voda. Unless the router is also losing connection, which can be seen by checking the uptime. It's best to ignore what many people say as they will tell you anything to get you to go away. (It arguably is if it is the router, but it is more liekly that the router is no good(for your purposes) and you need to buy one yourself (thankfully voda allow that these days afaik).

pulliptears

Carrot007 said:

TELLIT01 said:

As others are saying, if the problem is with the physical cable/fibre, changing provider isn't going to fix your problem.

Unless of course OP moves to these https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/ They have quite the retutation for fixing bad internet. Of course OP may also be shocked at the cost required for competent  service.

I'm with them.
Could have written the OP.  Lost the will to live with BT and Open Reach and home working was impossible.  Eventually BT got to the point where they couldn't be bothered anymore and offered us the out.  We accepted, moved to Andrews & Arnold who are much more proactive with Open Reach and really are like dogs with bones on them to fix faults.
The result was within 2 weeks A&A had solved 6 months of problems with a combination of badgering Open Reach to investigate certain things, and actually talking them through what to look for when they were working, and tweaking some line settings.  It had never run so well.

Six months later my dearest husband decided that as all was now fixed we'd go back to BT.  He gave notice to A&A and swapped.  The day it changed it was obvious from the second it went back over, drop outs, poor speed both up and down.  It was awful.
I resisted the urge to say "I told you so" as he cancelled BT within the cooling off period and we are now back with A&A and have the best speeds and connections we can get in our area and with the lines.

Cannot fault them.   Wont move again and it's worth every penny tbh.

PawelK

Latest update.

On the phone twice with Vodafone today. They will let me leave without paying anything and once I switch they will discuss compensation with me. 
Hopefully this will encourage others who are in a similar situation and feeling trapped with their ISP.
Thank you to all for your comments and supportive messages.
Now, off me go to find another provider...

vea44

PawelK said:

Latest update.

On the phone twice with Vodafone today. They will let me leave without paying anything and once I switch they will discuss compensation with me. 
Hopefully this will encourage others who are in a similar situation and feeling trapped with their ISP.
Thank you to all for your comments and supportive messages.
Now, off me go to find another provider...

Can I ask how you managed this please? Vodafone are denying I have internet problems and told BT engineers they are wrong. I've been going round in circles for months and complaints never get resolved. They won't let me out of my contract.

PawelK

vea44 said:

PawelK said:

Latest update.

On the phone twice with Vodafone today. They will let me leave without paying anything and once I switch they will discuss compensation with me. 
Hopefully this will encourage others who are in a similar situation and feeling trapped with their ISP.
Thank you to all for your comments and supportive messages.
Now, off me go to find another provider...

Can I ask how you managed this please? Vodafone are denying I have internet problems and told BT engineers they are wrong. I've been going round in circles for months and complaints never get resolved. They won't let me out of my contract.

Hello.

I think in my case the turning point was when I eventually said to another representative fro. The 2nd line of their support team that I'll be looking to leave them without paying the remainder of the contract, claim compensation for no shows and for my payments towards the service I wasn't receiving PLUS that if you will be told no, I will take them to court if I have to (apart from reporting then to ofgem). The person made those notes on my account and said that of I decide to leave even without paying the remainder, they can't issue me any compensation as I need to be their customer to do that. I said this sounds like a blackmail and mentioned I was lied to few times by them, had few broken promises and couple of no shows from OR. Only then she passed me to someone senior and from then onwards, I finally started talking to the person with common sense. We're in touch now regularly, he opened my complaints case on their website and provided me with the log in details so I can track the progress and add anything if I need to.
The current situation is that as I'm switching providers on the 15th, we agreed for him to call me on that date to confirm credit applied to my account and discuss the compensation once for all. Please familiarise yourself with the Automatic compensation scheme which has some good explanations and if you believe you're due any of that, you should mention that to them too.

I wish you all the best as I know how frustrating, time wasting this can be, even impacting your relationships within the household as a result of continuous stress and anger.

vea44

PawelK said:

vea44 said:

PawelK said:

Latest update.

On the phone twice with Vodafone today. They will let me leave without paying anything and once I switch they will discuss compensation with me. 
Hopefully this will encourage others who are in a similar situation and feeling trapped with their ISP.
Thank you to all for your comments and supportive messages.
Now, off me go to find another provider...

Can I ask how you managed this please? Vodafone are denying I have internet problems and told BT engineers they are wrong. I've been going round in circles for months and complaints never get resolved. They won't let me out of my contract.

Hello.

I think in my case the turning point was when I eventually said to another representative fro. The 2nd line of their support team that I'll be looking to leave them without paying the remainder of the contract, claim compensation for no shows and for my payments towards the service I wasn't receiving PLUS that if you will be told no, I will take them to court if I have to (apart from reporting then to ofgem). The person made those notes on my account and said that of I decide to leave even without paying the remainder, they can't issue me any compensation as I need to be their customer to do that. I said this sounds like a blackmail and mentioned I was lied to few times by them, had few broken promises and couple of no shows from OR. Only then she passed me to someone senior and from then onwards, I finally started talking to the person with common sense. We're in touch now regularly, he opened my complaints case on their website and provided me with the log in details so I can track the progress and add anything if I need to.
The current situation is that as I'm switching providers on the 15th, we agreed for him to call me on that date to confirm credit applied to my account and discuss the compensation once for all. Please familiarise yourself with the Automatic compensation scheme which has some good explanations and if you believe you're due any of that, you should mention that to them too.

I wish you all the best as I know how frustrating, time wasting this can be, even impacting your relationships within the household as a result of continuous stress and anger.

Thank you for replying. This is so good to know. I will look into that scheme and prepare myself for their next call. 

It is infuriating. I've literally been told every lie going and I refuse to pay to leave them when they are useless. I'm so glad to hear you are moving supplier and hope its an easy transition and a much better service. Thanks again.