Please forgive the brief diversion though this can be considered a health issue as these people have put me under a severe amount of stress over the last few months. I had never before quite understood those people who complained about being treated badly by customer services, up until now I had considered that to be a character flaw!
But now I completely understand the helplessness and out of control feeling of being ripped off and not being able to do a damn thing about it and thinking that screaming down a phone will actually solve the problem....
Pipex used to be a brilliant ISP until they were taken over by Tiscali and then it all went horribly wrong. Billing discrepancies, charges for cancelling the contract when the service was obviously still in effect, promises of having sorted it out leading to more calls, emails, then back to square one.
I am not alone in this, I found several forums with similar Pipex grievances and finally complained to the ISPA which has prompted, what seems to be, positive action from them to sort out my account and refund my money though I'm not holding my breath
Not brilliant, and I will be switching at the end of my contract, or sooner if I can escape without being charged another cancellation fee!
On top of this my credit card company said they could not do a thing about it as I had given Pipex my card number and authorised them to take money out of my account. They would only act if someone had got hold of my number fraudulently. This is not right surely! Anyone taking out an unagreed amount without my consent is committing fraud in my book.
From now on I will only be using Direct Debits which I can cancel myself and will not be giving anyone my credit card number to do what they like with!
And while in ranting mode I'd like to mention premium rate telephone numbers, even my doctor has one now! I can perfectly understand them for things like technical support and advice lines but to call a company to buy something from them and pay a premium rate telephone charge on top for the privilege, that's just taking the piss.
For several years I have used http://saynoto0870.com where you can find alternatives and they have a growing database of telephone numbers you can add to and I urge you to do this! There are still a lot of old fashioned numbers out there you can use and the site is doing a terrific job, good on you folks :)
