Frustrated by usless Internet Service Providers

I am with Talk Talk and am having some problems both sending and receiving email today and so is a friend who lives nearby. Is anyone else
having any problems?

I am not sure if it is just a coincidence that we are both having these difficulties or if there is something wrong with TalkTalk ( I mean apart from rubbish customer service !

:My son signed up for TalkTalk broadband and phone in early December. It;s now the 15th February and they still aren't connected. They keep changing the date they are to be connected. It really has been disappointing and they wish they had chosen BT instead. Having contacted TalkTalk today where they said they were very disappointed the customer service operator actually hung up on them. what a disgusting service.

Talk Talk doesn't work.
And it NEVER will!!!
"I was about to sign up to a service but just thought I'd check the brand name together with 'rubbish' and then 'scam'. I read enough to put me off and saved myself some money."
I suggest you do the same as this gentleman.

I've had Virgin's cable TV, Phone and Internet package for three years. Moved back home and had to convince my dad to get internet. less than £7 a month. something people may be willing to pay but you get what you pay for. £7 a month will get you 7 hours of internet service a month and thats the time spent on the phone trying to sort out all of the problems they give you to begin with. If you're someone with nothing to do apply for Talk Talk and they'll keep you busy for weeks. If you've got better things to do pay £50 a month to Virgin and get service engineers to set everything up while you have a cup of tea and enjoy full broadband and their massive XL TV package with free on demand service. You can't argue with that because if it goes wrong you can free phone them and have an engineer to come out and fix while you have another cup of tea!!!! Don't be stupid, Don't get Talk Talk.

Oh yes, and I got this too :
"I find myself wanting to go postal at the idiotic way the ISPs handle real problems rather than the numpty "reset the box" type issues. "

I was asked what operating system I use - as if that has any relevance. When I explained to the highly qualified script reader --- sorry, technician --- that I use a laptop, a PC, a netbook, sometimes I'm using a computer at a client site, he told me that was why I was having problems, ideally you should only use your email from the same computer and the same location all the time.

Let's see now .... if I never use my car it will never break down or use any fuel. In fact if I kill myself I'll never have any more problems with anything. Amazing logic!

This gives stupid a new dimension.

I contacted my ISP by phone and subsequently followed that up with an email from the account in question, regarding an email problem (sporadically emails sent to me are returned to the sender with an error message indicating that the email address is non-existent, even when correctly addressed and formatted).

Today I got an email from them asking me to confirm my full name, date of birth, etc, for security reasons, and asking me my email address.

As a disappointed TalkTalk customer who regularly has to reset his login details due to it dropping out and also being responsible for recommending early on in my contract to my father-in-law who has faired even worse. I am also annoyed with having to speak to somebody in a foreign country who has no sympathy with our dilemma.

I've heard that Utility Warehouse is a company that has been winning awards for both their UK based customer service and for their cheap telephone/broadband bundles? I would swap but I'm still tied in with this ridiculous 18 month contract! I understand UW don't even have a contract which seems great to me.

Has anybody had experience of them? I've been given this URL to check them out. www.telecomplus.org.uk/b47963

Like many aspects of life in the UK, customer service is mainly rubbish from large corporations. As long as something is seen to be in place, those at the top don't really care as long as the money is coming in. Maybe we need a free national website with lots of publicity showing good, bad and appalling service. Trouble is there's no way to check if complainers are genuine or just have a chip on their shoulder. Instead it's probably best to do a lot of searching on the net before buying any service.

I was about to sign up to a service but just thought I'd check the brand name together with 'rubbish' and then 'scam'. I read enough to put me off and saved myself some money.

With ISPs you can get lucky or be treated like rubbish. Talk Talk comes in for a lot of stick but my experience of them was good when I helped a friend sort out a recurring BB problem.

It has seemed to me for some while that if you want something done, you have to be creative if a company drags its heels or has little idea. In the past I've exaggerated things in order to speed up escalation, or 2 years ago mentioned a friend's disability and hinted at discrimination - that shook 'em up and things got sorted in 2 days instead of the usual 7-10 days.

So Chris, maybe think out of the box a bit? Can't offer more than that I'm afraid.

I'd be interested to know if Canadian companies generally employ telephone menu systems. In the UK it's getting worse, and you sometimes have to wait nearly 2 minutes before you can be put through to - another menu!

SP's and Customer Service! The quality of service of a company is shown by how well it handles your problems not the smile on its sales staff.

My last three months have been blighted by Toucan and its lack of service and debt recovery staff who do not understand it is offensive to chase a bill that is under dispute. A small problem over broadband speeds 100kbps escalated when they charged me for incompentant technical support on a preminum rate number (without telling me its a premimum rate number), then when I refused to pay the bill they passed it to debt collectors to harrass me more.

I have sent 7 letters, a number of emails and phonecalls but cannot get this company to see commonsense. I gave them two months to resolve the issues and they couldn't Changing ISP's meant my download speeds are now averaging 3-4Mb.

I am still refusing to pay the account as its incorrect. And I think we all should be standing up and demanding better service from our ISP's. We are looking for more people who have had problems with Toucan. (Toucan are part of Tiscali btw who also own bulldog, and pipex)

www.toucansucks.org.uk has information on Toucan and how to complain but also has other information on how to find a better ISP, and what constitutes a reasonable expectation of service in regard to broadband speeds.