My 82 year old neighbour was until recently quite happily using Wanadoo Anytime Dial-up. In March, he received a letter from Mr Philip Mehl Director of Wanadoo, offering him Broadband Starter Service for the same price as he was already paying - £14.99/month. He thought this was a great offer and soon received his modem and setup instructions to install broadband. Result was modem led steady and adsl led flashing – so no connection (seems a common problem). He called Wanadoo Tech Support who advised him regarding filters, connecting to main socket etc. My neighbour is hard of hearing, and asked if I would speak to Wanadoo on his behalf. They advised me that it can take up to 10 days for the line to be activated. So we waited (we have since found out that the line was activated on 6 April). After 10 days still no connection. Several calls later to Tech Support and the same advice about setting up modem, filters etc., we uninstalled, re-installed tried a different computer and so on. A Tech Support advisor finally hinted that there may be a problem with the line and that a test would have to be carried out. Of course my neighbour would have to call back to find out the result. This happened again (they have to carry out 2 tests, but don’t tell you that the first time). Several 50p-a-minute calls to Tech Support later – still no connection. (Wanadoo must be making a mint out of their would-be customers – and explains why they tell you they are not allowed to call you back) I even tried using their online help request page – this didn’t work either! In the meantime, they had sent a new modem, as the first one had ceased to work at all, still no luck. Eventually they agreed to provide a technical call back on a specific day and time. My neighbour waited in anticipation but no call was received. In the meantime, Wanadoo have taken payments for 2 months’ broadband service and an extra month of dial-up service which was no longer available. He decided not to waste any more phone calls and wrote to Mr Mehl and to Customer Services. Mr Mehl, has not replied (no surprise there) and Customer Services have replied with standard letters. One of their replies states that a pro-rata credit on the Anytime account had been applied (not true) and that the Broadband account has £14.99 outstanding (my neighbour had understandably cancelled his direct debits) and they have asked him to recommence payments. They assume he wants them to “resolve the connection issues” and are kindly offering him a technical call-back!! They suggested that he send them an e-mail (!!!), giving 5 days’ notice in order to accept this offer. All this is despite the fact that he has already written a letter stating he wishes to cancel and has requested reimbursement of payments made for service he has not received and the £47.00 worth of calls to Tech Support. He has also returned the 2 modems + software as he was told that if he didn't, he would be charged £100. In the meantime, he has received a call from Customer Support to tell him that he needs to telephone them to cancel his service!??
My neighbour has really had enough of Wanadoo. He only wants to communicate with his family by e-mail and buy the occasional book from an online store!
P.s.
Whatever the problem is with Wanadoo’s broadband service, it is not necessarily the same with other ISPs. My own broadband service with UK Online is problem-free, through the same exchange.
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