Homecall/Pipex

Volvic

We signed up with Homecall (now Pipex) about 5 years ago and all was well. We use the net through a wireless router as there are 3 of us using the internet in our house and some days it's unbelievably slow. I did a speedcheck and out out we're on pretty much the lowest you can get in terms of broadband and are paying £35 a month for the internet plus anytime UK landline phonecalls included. I did a bit of research and found that you can now get a really great internet and phone package for £25 a month. Firstly, maybe a little naive of us but you'd think as a loyal customer, when Pipex upgraded their packages they'd have let us know we could have something a lot better for our money. Nope. Not only that but we can't seem to get a hold of them on the phone to speak to someone about hopefully getting a better deal than we have. The internet is some days shockingly slow, and not good enough for our household.

We don't wanna change our internet and phone providers because we like the whole phone package we get with them, it'd just be nice to speak to them and get something worth our money. Does anyone have any experience with them or this sort of thing? Would I get anything out of writing to them?

hulagirl79

hi volvic
I am with pipex and they are rubbish, i have tried to get them on the phone numerous times and either been on hold for 30 min + or could not get through.
Our service is very slow and we are having problems with our wireless as well.
when the conract comes up i will not be staying with them.

I have not tried writng to them though.
hope it gets sorted out for you

Volvic

Thanks hulagirl!

mute_posting

Hi Volvic,

Since Tiscali took over Pipex et al, I hear things have gone down hill rapido...

What may have happened to you speed is that you were probably on a fixed speed (in that you connect at a set speed - not you will definitely get that throughput) service when you first signed up 5 years ago (i.e. 512kbps or 1Mbps) this will have (probably) originally been provisioned via Pipex renting the connection from BT on your behalf.

What has happened in many cases (AFAIK) is that to save costs Pipex/Tiscali etc have started to transfer customers onto their own equipment at the local telephone exchanges (doing this means they can virtially cut BT out of the picture).

The problem often arrises because these connections are often "ADSL Max" or "Upto 8Mbps" and are NOT fixed rate - i.e. the connection tries to connect as fast as possible, if there are problems it will reconnect at a slower speed.

My folks had a similar problem 12 months ago with Nildram (which was also part of Pipex IIRC) after being moved from a 2Mbps FIXED rate service (that NEVER had any problems and always gave good speed-test results consistent with the 2Mbps speed) to an "Upto 8Mbps" speed, after weeks of dody connections the line speed was down to 30kbps (that is slower than most traditional dial-up connections!)

Nildram blamed BT, BT blamed Nildram yada yada yada...

In the end they said that because that the new "line profile" was 30kbps there was "nothing they could do" as the line was "running as fast as it could whilst maintaining stability" (this despite it running for 12 months at 2Mbps with no problems).

Suffice to say after 6 weeks mither, they left and went on Virgin Cable Broadband (which touchwood, they have never had problems with - unfortunately the Virgin TV service they took at the same time hasn't been as reliable)

HTH

MP

kkpolobear

sounds like you have now been put on the tiscali network which will slow everything down

hollydays

BEFORE tiscali took them over they were known to have abysmal customer service(then if you had a problem ,and rang them up,they made no notes of your complaint ,and never resolved it. Each time you rang up,you would have to repeat the whole complaint over..and over.. etc..)the phone package offers free local calls,and i haven't been able to find that anywhere else,so it's a tough choice. I use them so I can save members of my family money on their bills too, I can call them back night or day free of charge.Together with the new free directory enquiries number,and say no to 0870 it has saved us all a fortune.,for family calls. in particular and all calls for me.,

KILL_BILL

tiscali are crap and they alwayts have been

cozza

hi ya i was with PIPEX but i am peed off with them
i left them 31st march went with talktalk paid my final bill 17 april for £8.95
nowi keep getting god dame calls from pipex saying i have a seriouse issue with my phone they may cut me off i get about 2 calls a day i keep telling them i am not with them as i changed coz when i had a problem with pipex (when i was with them ) they never answered the phone but how amazing now they want a supposed £6.50 off me for cancetion fee they phone all the time when im ex directory i said were they can poke there £6.50 as i am not paying it i cancelled iwas with them for about 5 years so i aint paying a fee to cancel dont owe it as i am not with them i am so fumming with them

hollydays

£6.50 seems an odd amount,did you give them the required notice period to cancel?
How did you get the mac code from them if they hadn't authorized cancellation?(looking at your other posts,you seem to have had problems with 3 other phone companies?)

cozza

talk talk said they would do all the work ie get my mac code .notife pipex for me i did let them know as from 31st march i would not be with them

delakti

Worst customer service experience... I am talking from experience. They are nightmares