[Anthea]

I was about to pull my hair out today (well what's left of it lol)

I run a small business away from home, in fact I am the only employee. At work I have been with the same ISP for about 8 years and have been happy with the service they provided. I do rely on the internet for my buisness as I have a web site that brings in nearly all my new buisness.

A fortnight ago I called this same ISP and I purchased a home phone line broadband combined package. I was with another phone company at home and I dialled up for internet on my work account at home. I called them today to find out where was the IDSL modem they were sending me as it had not arrived. They advise me only today that they cannot provide the broadband service to my home due to the exchange. Grrrrr why did you not tell me this before I signed up???

I say well I wish to cancel the total service to my home without penalty if you cannot provide the internet. They agree and that was at about 10am at work today.

Within half an hour my internet access at work went off the air with the message that the service had been cancelled. Without exaguration I spent 3 1/2 hours on the phone attempting to get this sorted out, I must have been transfered to 8 different people and placed on hold for goodness knows how long. Not only that they wanted to charge me $90 to reconnect my buisness service which I never cancelled. On top of that I find out my home phone had been totally disconnected instead of being taken back to the previous provider. Grrr

So after the 3.5 hours they agree to reconnect work access by the end of the day instead of the usual 3 days without charge. I left the office at 5.30pm and it was still off line.

I arrange for another company (the one who owns the exchange) to reconnect my home phone ($59 fee) and provide my broadband service which apparantly is no problem for them however they are more expensive. They are couriering the modem out to me.

Totally frustrating day, although I am able to dial up from home like now, it will be interesting to see if my ADSL at work is working in the morning.

Sorry for the long rant, any other ISP horror stories?

[Bec688]

I just saw this! I would have become homocidal...the incompetance of some of these places is astounding. Did it all work out in the end though, the internet works fine at work?

[laurreenn]

i'm sorry about your day i know how frustrating that can be sometimes. i hope it gets better.

[speedy]

How frustrating! I've had similar problems too, if only Telstra didn't have to come into things I think we'd get much better service.
Twice now my phone has been transferred, without my permission, to another provider. I don't know how or why this has happened, because neither time had I signed up with someone else or even spoken to someone about changing my service.
The first time it happened I rang and spoke to the company who'd switched me over to them, who then tried to charge me for the calls I'd made. Needless to say I didn't pay that bill.
The second time it happened I got the company I was supposed to be with to sort it out and they reported it to the telecommunications ombudsman, so not sure what happened from there.

[Anthea]

Its been 3 weeks since I originally ordered broadband and last night it got connected and working.

Bec: The work internet was running as per normal the next day at work. They did send me a bill for $100 plus dollars for the modem which they did not provide and a months phone line rental. I called to complain and they took the bill down to about $4.50 for the calls I made during the week my phone was with them.

The DSL modem did not arrive from the 2nd company for 1.5 weeks, I called them and they said because my phone was freshly connected they delay sending out the modem??? I got it 2 days later. I connected it last night, all is well now. (was busy today running a wire under the house to connect my sons PC to ther modem so we can both use it)

I have always worked in small business, communication and understanding the clients needs is never an issue. I just don't understand how they can operate like that.

Speedy, they are no supposed to do that, if you did not give permission to change, you quite rightly can refuse to pay them I would think. Totally frustrating!