E7even - service. (merged threads)

mike_paterson wrote:

Martin, I posted the original e7 referral thread andf I know that many signed up to e7even because of my recommendation. Up to the end of last year e7 had provided an incredible service (I have been with them for 20 months now) and they were absolutely the best telecoms company I had ever dealt with - faultless in every respect - speed, support, price etc.

Then it all went wrong - it seems that due to their growth they were unable to provision services fast enough to support some of their customers in certain areas. They signed a contract with NetServices plc and transferred most customers to that service. Unfortunately it didn't work. So many people had problems that e7 support could not cope and as a result this dragged on for weeks, and whilst they are gradually getting things back to normal, they still are under resourced to cope with the number of people complaining.

I think that they have unsuprisingly lost all support from their customers and expect that their name is now so bad that they will go under soon.

The danger with referrals and recommendations is that you also share some of the responsibility for the problems that occur later.

A lot of people originally criticised the model that e7even held to as being both unprofitable and unsustainable and were heavily critised for saying so. That coupled with the 12 and 24 month prepay system, and generous referral packages, meant maybe that from now on lessons ought to be learnt - sometimes cheapest does mean worst.

I think one lesson is, go with referrals by all means, but go with people or organisations you trust - not ones you know from the internet by bulletin board only. Martin makes an extremely valid point, that sometimes the BB is like a pub and if some geezer comes up wanting to sell something cheap - sometimes you just have to pass.

If you're on Broadband, the settings to connect to e7 should be in the modem. Can't help with set-up if you're using USB, but for a network connection between moden and PC:

on IE: Tools, Internet Options
Go to Connections tab and set Never Dial
then click the Lan Settings button and tick Automatically Detect Settings.

Further developments are eagerly awaited ... however, my service has been almost 100% over the last couple of days

normanmark wrote:

Its not sensitive information, as part of the BTW Ofcom team we've been informing customers of this very situation thanks.

I don't mean to seem rude but since when have BT Wholesale / Openreach ever dealt with residential or business users, your customers are, after all, the ISPs who buy your services and not the customers who buy services from the ISPs.

Infact I'd have to say that if you were informing residential customers that their ISP has gone bankrupt you'd be in some trouble as it really is none of your business as E7 aren't your customer anymore, nor is it BT's place to give E7s customers any news at all let alone commenting on the state of their business whether they are a customer or not.

I can see why you'd think E7 have gone out of business. They've stopped buying services directly from BT and have transferred their customers onto resold packages from Tiscali / Netservices. They've almost certainly done this because they couldn't afford the upfront payments that BT require for BT Centrals, selling products below cost does that. However they would be legally obliged to inform customers and Companies House if they were unable to continue trading.

I'm fairly sure that E7 are still trading. If they aren't then another member of the Kevin Wall / Charlotte Mitchell household might be up in court for fraud. Continuing to trade while knowingly an unviable entity is illegal, transferring ownership of a company without informing the relevant authorities is illegal.

Going by their increased outsourcing of first connectivity and then billing one has to consider them getting towards rigor mortis but still ticking along and by the looks of it preparing to go to sleep in as smooth a fashion as possible for their customers, which does deserve some credit considering the 'family history'.

Edinburghlass wrote:

Can I just remind all users that the title of the thread is E7even - service and lets not get into the legalites of what appear to be unsubstantiated rumours.

However, as someone has stated what most people would accept to be the case, namely that someone claiming to be from BT Wholesale does not speak to retail customers, and should be contractually obliged not to disclose commercially privileged or sensitive information and so on, it is fair to point out that this person's claim to be committing professional misconduct in order to do people a favour might be treated with scepticism.