# B*@!*!! Tiscali



## Scrit (28 Jul 2006)

I have just "finished" an 25 day period with no Internet, emails or phone (most opf the time) thanks to that wonderful company, Tiscali. We are now arguing about the £36 or so charged to me in calls to their un-help desk in largely futile attempts to rectify the problem(s). Anyone had similar problems who can advise me? Or will that just result in another 3 or 4 weeks running round in circles? Also could anyone recommend a Broadband ISP who have an English-speaking help desk? I've just about had as much as I can take of Indian help desk operators!

Scrit


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## Noel (28 Jul 2006)

Although they get (or used to get) poor reviews I've generally been happy with Virgin. Been with them on dial-up and broadband for nearly 10 years. And their help desk is UK based.

Noel


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## Anonymous (28 Jul 2006)

I switched from NTL because I didn't want the TV anymore, to tiscali, all was fine for 3 days then I had no service for 10 days. Shower of ****, the call centres told me everyday I would be on within 24hours.
I think I received a massive discount of £4.50!!!!, what a load of rubbish.

Don't even get me started on indian call centres, all I'll say on the matter is that my wife was sick and tired of my rantings about call centres to anybody who would listen, I think I became "a call centre bore".


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## Evergreen (28 Jul 2006)

Scrit

I've been using Freedom2Surf, which got a good rating in Which?, for about six months now. So far, so good.

Regards.


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## pewe (28 Jul 2006)

Have a look at TalkTalk from Carphone warehouse. (www.talktalk.co.uk)
8meg Broadband and all calls (inc line rental) for £21 per month.


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## Nick W (28 Jul 2006)

senior":136z4zi8 said:


> I switched from NTL because I didn't want the TV anymore



I use NTL, but dropped the TV bits when I got Freeview boxes, with no probs. Did you have another reason for changing ISP (apart from the ethnic call centre perhaps)?


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## RogerS (29 Jul 2006)

Zen...without any hesitation. English speaking and very, very helpful...they assume the customer is right and not a PCchallenged illiterate!


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## Shady (29 Jul 2006)

I can also recommend Pipex: not the cheapest, but consistently good service, and yes, English technical support staff - and good ones, too.


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## ike (30 Jul 2006)

I can't fault Plusnet (Broadband Plus). They are always sending me emails on how, when, what and why they do what they do, whether it's an improvement or an explanation when something is below par. I like companies that are proactive and keep their customers informed without the bull***t. Plusnet do that.

Ike


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## Pecker (30 Jul 2006)

Evergreen I was with F2S for 3 years. Until last Dec they were bril. Then Pipex took them over. Absolutly dreadful. Just go to adlsguide or freedom2support and see the comments. (That said I apprecaite some will always be happy there).

Zen are Excellent, but a bit pricey - there again you get what you pay for. They get excellent reviews all round.

Talktalk is suffering from too much too soon. As many predicted they have shot themselves in the foot and currently cannot cope with demand.

After MUCH searching I went to Firefly Internet ( www.fireflyuk.net ) a small scottish outfit where the MD and team will actually talk to you both on phone and by their forums. (mind you they speak scots not English :lol: )

WWW. ISPreview.com
www.adslguide.org.uk

are both good websites with user forums that will give you loads of insights.
Sorry, I've been on the 'net for about 14 years now and Like to think I know a fair bit about the various Isps etc.

Regards
mark


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## Losos (30 Jul 2006)

Senior - I'm with you 100% on overseas call centres. My view is that if you have a call centre in the HQ of the comapny (Where presumably all the decision makers are located) then, assuming you pester the 'junior' who always answers the call first you can either:-
a) Get him / her to go & speak (face to face) with someone intelligent or
b) Get him / her to transfer you to said person

The 'remote' call centres (wherever in the world they are) can never do (a) and hardly ever do (b) so you're just stuck with some illerate who can often hardly speak English & who can only tell you what's on his computer screen. They have no authority to get things done, they have no knowledge of the suppliers business, they have no real interest in your problems ........................Hmmmmm better stop now while my blood pressure is still below 'explode' on the dial


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## Scrit (31 Jul 2006)

Losos":3r3vuni3 said:


> The 'remote' call centres (wherever in the world they are) can never do (a) and hardly ever do (b) so you're just stuck with some illerate who can often hardly speak English & who can only tell you what's on his computer screen. They have no authority to get things done, they have no knowledge of the suppliers business, they have no real interest in your problems ........................Hmmmmm better stop now while my blood pressure is still below 'explode' on the dial


Precisely! I kept a log of all my calls to Tiscali and frankly they downright lied to me on sevarl occassions - that's not misreading of their log or misunderstanding me, but a downright pack of lies, as bourne out by the BT log of the incident! It took three weeks of calls, mostly daily, to get Tiscali to bring in BT, despite their protestations that BT was involved from the off. When the BT engineer visited me he informed me that I'd be charged £15 for the privilege of having the visit - a charge I'd not been made aware of by either BT or the ISP...... Had BT come earlier and the problem been resolved earlier I'd gladly have paid the charge, but 26 days? I am now fighting to recover the 0870 call charges.....

Scrit


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## devonwoody (31 Jul 2006)

Slightly off thread but I asked an indian type call centre 6 times to repeat a sentance and gave up, (banking call) I had to request someone with my local dialect to discuss a banking transaction.
I have noticed that the last two calls to the bank now result in a different nationality of customer service agent, someone with a glaswegian accent instead. 

At least I can ask the lady what she is doing tonight :wink:


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## andrewm (31 Jul 2006)

I would agree that Zen seem to be universally aclaimed. But they are expensive compared to some others.

When I switched to Broadband I went with the ADSLMax offering from UKFSN who are a reseller for Entanet. I chose them because I wasn't sure how well ADSL would work in my location and I had the option of using NTL as an alternative. UKFSN do not require a one year contract so if it didn't work out I could just switch. As it is I am getting about 2.5Mbps so see no reason to change. They also offer split download limits so you can typically download 10 times as much off-peak than at peak times if you really want to BitTorrent a complete series of Norm  

Jason is most certainly UK based, prompt to respond to questions, and all profits go to support free software development.

As far as I can make out Entanet mainly target business users so their backbone is fairly lightly loaded outside working hours - hence the generous off-peak download limits. 

Most certainly worth a look.

Andrew


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## gidon (31 Jul 2006)

waitrose.com
All profits to charity. Not sure about their helpdesk though. Just saw them advertised this morning in the Waitrose magazine.
Cheers
Gidon


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## andrewm (31 Jul 2006)

gidon":3ph491f4 said:


> waitrose.com



I used Waitrose for my dial up access before switching to broadband. My main email address is a redirection address so that I do not have to inform everyone when I change ISPs. There were some issues with some emails coming via this address getting bounced. Waitrose customer service claimed that their service didn't support redirection. Just something to be aware of. If I hadn't had those problems I would probably have stuck with them for broadband as well.

Andrew


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## devonwoody (31 Jul 2006)

Tesco are not bad, family have broadband and keep telling me to spend, my landline twice off line in 3 years for 5 hours, but they do value their reputation.


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## syntec4 (31 Jul 2006)

I am not with them, but Plusnet are well regarded with a few people I know (3). I am with NTL and they are bad... When it rains, my connection (10meg)always goes off until it stops. Calling them is a total waste of time. They are based just down the road from me, but it still takes 2 weeks to get an engineer to fix anything phone/DSL/TV. 

If call centres are an issue I can say for sure that Plusnet are based in City centre Sheffield. I supply all the fingerprint access control systems to the offices. The boss is a nice fella too. They appear to be very professional and have 300 staff, of which around 150 are on the end of the phones. 

If I get some spare time and can face the hassle, I will get a BT line put back in and change to Plusnet. - I hate doing anything like that, you just know its going to be problem.. 

Lee.


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## lugo35 (2 Aug 2006)

inlaws had tiscali, then they moved from up north down to sunny wales (well sometimes its sunny) when they came to transfer they were told they couldnt have BB due to no room inexchange so were left with dial up. after about 3 weeks of phone calls they eventually got BB and have since had no trouble. we are with them and find them ok.


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## dedee (3 Aug 2006)

Another satisfied Zen customer here. I've never heard or seen any bad word against them. English helpdesk who have always know what they are talking about. If you value good service and reliability I think you will have to pay for it.

Andy


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## RogerS (3 Aug 2006)

dedee":2blmurjg said:


> If you value good service and reliability I think you will have to pay for it.
> 
> Andy



Well said, Andy. I get fed up reading people whingeing on about lack of service/customer service etc and when asked how much is this service costing you? £5 a month or even nothing is the reply. Says it all, really. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.


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## devonwoody (3 Aug 2006)

The BBC news this morning thought AOL might be going into free broadband!

Any info?


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## RogerS (3 Aug 2006)

devonwoody":4aodec2j said:


> The BBC news this morning thought AOL might be going into free broadband!
> 
> Any info?



I put AOL in the same category as Norton....I wouldn't give 'em house room on my PC :lol:


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## devonwoody (3 Aug 2006)

Reading your mail Roger I see there was a banner advert at the bottom.

Wingonlime or was it speedonline at $12 per month, landline with 5x surfing speed. Anyone know anything on this one?
Edit
did a google search it was wingonline

http://www.wingonline.net/

was this a pop up? it is only for USA?


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## MilkyBarKid (7 Aug 2006)

I'd avoid Plusnet like the plague - you should see the flak they're getting after losing masses of e-mail. Their e-mail servers have been unreliable for about three weeks. Along with many other customers we've been watching their share prices drop with glee. 

I've been without a broadband connection for nearly 4 weeks now - and calling their help lines has almost always been a one hour wait. They play a game called ticket tennis where they return your query without reading it to buy time - they've done it over and over to me. They have been utterly incompetent in managing my problems - it's taken them a total of ten days to actually book a BT engineer to come to see me (that takes another ten days). 

As soon as my connection is restored - I'm getting a Mac code and I'm off to someone who can maintain basic services like e-mail reliably. It's really embarrassing because I've recommended them to loads of people. 

MBK 




syntec4 said:


> I am not with them, but Plusnet are well regarded with a few people I know (3). I am with NTL and they are bad... When it rains, my connection (10meg)always goes off until it stops. Calling them is a total waste of time. They are based just down the road from me, but it still takes 2 weeks to get an engineer to fix anything phone/DSL/TV.
> 
> If call centres are an issue I can say for sure that Plusnet are based in City centre Sheffield. I supply all the fingerprint access control systems to the offices. The boss is a nice fella too. They appear to be very professional and have 300 staff, of which around 150 are on the end of the phones.
> 
> ...


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## ike (7 Aug 2006)

MBK wrote,



> It's really embarrassing because I've recommended them to loads of people.



Your experience just highlights the variation in service from a particular ISP. Have all the people you recommended to, had poor service as well?

Like Syntec, I have gotten all I expected from Broadband Plus with no probs at all, although to be fair to your point about their email, I stick to Yahoo mail, but only because I'm never feeling enthusiastic enough to figure out how to set up the computer with Outlook, POP summat, etc without completely b****ing up the computah!. 

Only one problem which turned out to be my router throwing a wobbly for an unknown reason, and was fixed by a power-on reset. 

Is there an _unbiased_ 'league' table of broadband ISP's that you can trust? 

Enough drivel from me today...

Ike


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## RogerS (7 Aug 2006)

ike":2vo3sfu1 said:


> Only one problem which turned out to be my router throwing a wobbly for an unknown reason, and was fixed by a power-on reset.



This just goes to show how far removed I am from computers these days. When I read this post, Ike, I mentally pronounced router as in woodworking router and had a senior moment when you said you needed a power-on reset..couldn't quite understand what you were saying.....thought you were making a joke....then I realised what you really meant


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## JPEC (7 Aug 2006)

Sorry, but I have to play devil's advocate here.

I have been with Tiscali since they were called Lineone, hence my email address, probably about 8 years or so, and I have never had any problems at all, moved from dial up to broadband a couple of years ago and they have been great.
I will say I have never had to call their helpline though, so I cannot comment on that.

Hope you have better luck with your new provider Scrit.

Julian


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## Scrit (8 Aug 2006)

JPEC":1gqkoiqd said:


> I will say I have never had to call their helpline though, so I cannot comment on that.


That's where all the problems lie - they are excruciatingly slow and won't call in BT until extreme pressure is applied. I have now come across another guy elsewhere who was "off-line" for more than 2 months with Tiscali when the problem eventually took a BT engineer 10 minutes to sort-out. Oh, and because the Tiscali help desk is so anally retentive I now have a fine collection of line filters (6 in total). It took them weeks to send the first one out and now they can't seem to stop!

Scrit


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## JPEC (8 Aug 2006)

Why is it that in so many businesses, customer 'service' is a thing of the past!
Thanks for the heads up, if I have any problems with them I'll know what to expect.

Julian

Ps. When I bought my Dell computer about two years ago, it was one of their double memory offers. The computer came without the extras and it took two months and 37 phone calls to sort it out. I never knew a company could have so many departments, but i'm pretty sure I spoke to someone in every one at least twice :x Luckily like you did Scrit I kept a record of every call. The computer is great but so much for customer service!!

Julian


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## Pecker (8 Aug 2006)

devonwoody":2vc6yzmy said:


> The BBC news this morning thought AOL might be going into free broadband!
> 
> Any info?



Woody, "www.theregister.co.uk" has various articles on AOL worth looking at.

It is unlikely AOL will off a free service, however they want to be less reliant on subscriptions and stike up more big buck deals to help fund the service such as they have just done with Google for about 1billion $.

As Isps are now charged by volume usage as opposed to the old BT flat rate, totally free broadband is now highly unlikely in the UK for any company. Believe it or not the profit per customer is VERY low, which is why Isps are jumping on very high bandwidth users and insisting they stop it or pay more.

Briefly TimeWarner who own AOL are employing Citibank to look at the whole european setup. They are shedding a few thousand jobs here and across Europe and stunningly, in America have stopped the free AOL CD discs that appear everywhere (YIPPEE!!!!!!). However contrary to recent comments, it is not top of their agenda to break up the european operation and sell it off.

AOL cannot compete with the bundled services of TV/Phone/Broadband offered by several companies now, so they have to look at cost cutting and other paying services to servive. It is quiet possible thier Members only areas will be opened up and more advertsing will also be seen

As I commented a few days ago, the UK Broadband market is in a real state of flux at the moment and a lot more changes will happen over the next 6 - 12 months.

Mark


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## woodshavings (8 Aug 2006)

I moved from Freeserve to Tiscali 2 months ago. So far, so good. I did have to call their support line when I thought I had lost service. (I hadn't, my router psu had failed - not supplied by Tiscali) The help desk was in India and the support guy was knowlegable and helpful.
The Tiscali deal was £12.99 month, unlimited, at 1Meg download speed.
John


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