lazyotter

Last October (2007) I cancelled my parent’s existing broadband service, due to Tiscali failing to process an order I placed that would upgrade to a package that included phone and broadband for less money. Normally most utility and service companies (even the kind that employ dreadful outsourced customer services) are quick and efficient at taking new orders and billing you asap, but not Tiscali. No, they were so incompetent that they managed to completely lose all traces of not one, not two, but three orders I made (one via Internet and two via direct telephone conversation with their sales dept.). Having waited several weeks for the new service to be connected I phoned them to ask them what they were doing about it. They told me that the reason all my orders had been ignored was that the 8MB package I wanted was not available as the line at my parents house would only support 2MB. Why they could not have phoned/emailed me to tell me know this, god knows… Needless to say, for having wasted weeks of my time, and several pounds on phone calls (at 10p per minute) I phoned up and cancelled the existing Tiscali broadband service. As a replacement we chose a package from TalkTalk that included phone and broadband for a reasonable price. TalkTalk sent my father a handy information pack as soon as our order had been placed which in addition included the activation/promise date of November 2nd. And sure enough, on November 2nd the TalkTalk service was switched on (I know this as I had to change the uid/password on the router to connect).

All had seemed to have gone according to plan, until my father was billed by Tiscali for November and then December (we did not notice this was still happening immediately). I phoned Tiscali on December 18th to find out why they were still billing us for a disconnected service. I was assured by Danni (from India) that the Tiscali service would be immediately cancelled and we would receive a full refund for the billing payments incorrectly taken by Tiscali after 28 days. So, thinking this was the last of the matter, my parents continued to enjoy the service from TalkTalk.

Recently we noticed that the 28 days had passed and still no refund had been received. In fact, Tiscali had in fact billed my father again for January (for a service that we are no longer receiving).

This evening I had the displeasure of spending 3/4 of an hour on hold waiting to speak to Tiscali. The person I spoke to was named “Colin” (who had an unusual cockney/Indian accent). Colin told me that my both my requests to disconnect the service had both been (in his words) “rejected” as the MAC code for the phone line was still in use. When I asked why nobody from Tiscali could have told me this, Colin went all quiet and then quickly changed the subject (the useless toss*r). Colin then proceeded to tell me that it was in fact my fault (!!!!!) the service had not been disconnected, due to TalkTalk not using the MAC code provided. He said I should then speak to TalkTalk and ask them to refund my bill as they had made the mistake. I was not convinced at this, and made Colin open another cancellation/refund case on my account.

I then phoned TalkTalk, got through surprisingly quickly, and spoke to an extremely helpful lady that explained that TalkTalk did not require MAC codes to switch provider, and that even if they did, one would not be needed as our previous phone line provider was BT and not Tiscali. In addition she told me that during a service transfer the losing provider (in this case Tiscali) would have been automatically notified to confirm the disconnection. The helpful lady then urged me to call Tiscali again and fully dispute the bill, which I did.

This time I was on hold for over an hour, but eventually spoke to a very helpful lady (in Glasgow) named “Senya”. Senya was actually very helpful. She checked the notes on my case and found that no requests for refunds had actually been logged by anyone at Tiscali……. (at which point I felt like banging my head against a concrete post to end the pain of dealing with these absolute total and utter idiots!). Senya then proceeded to do lots of typing at the other end, gave me yet another case number and told me we’d receive a cheque for the refund within 2 weeks. I’ve got my fingers crossed, but watch this space.

And Colin, make sure you look carefully left and right when you cross the road, as you may find a silver Volvo hurtling towards you at high velocity sometime soon if I ever track you down, you b**tard.

It’s easy to see why Britain is no longer Great Britain. With truly dreadful so-called “service” companies (such as Tiscali) ruining our lives, infuriating us and wasting our time, it’s no wonder society is a far more unpleasant place to be these days, and people like me who are planning permanent escapes to Canada, America, Australia or New Zealand, or in fact anywhere where you can pick up the phone and get decent and fair customer service.

And it’s not just Tiscali who fail to recognise the meaning of the word “service”. One day (maybe in 2012 when I get over this) I will tell you how Vodafone took nearly 3 months to install my landline, or how BT successfully managed to completely lose two orders I placed for phone and internet (and then contacted me four months later to see if my phone was working yet!? WTF?!!). For now though I am still far too enraged by their utter incompetence to make a coherent sentence on the matter.