Sunday 7 January 2007

My Problems With Pipex Homecall

I used to be a Pipex Homecall customer. In August I signed up with Talk Talk. I received a letter from Pipex confirming that I was leaving them on the 15th of September and that Talk Talk would be taking over my calls AND line rental.

I then received a bill from Pipex for line rental from the 24th September to 24th October. I phoned them. They said that I had requested that Pipex keep my line rental. Rubbish. I have the letter from Pipex that states otherwise.

I then received bills for October, November, December and now January. I phone them every month and every month they tell me more lies.
I have been told that the bill is for "legacy charges" for July, then August - bills I can prove that I have paid. I have been told that Talk Talk requested that Pipex keep the line rental and that I would be charged £165 to transfer it. Another Lie.

I have written to them twice. They denied getting the first letter. I sent the second one recorded delivery. They denied getting it until I told them that I had tracked it through the Royal Mail website and had a copy of the signature of their employee who had signed for the letter. They then refused to discuss my case further and said that a manager would call me within 24 hours.

On three occasions they have promised 24 hour call backs and have not called. On the last occasion I - being rather wound up - stayed in my house for 24 hours. They did not phone. I called them and they said that they had called at 4pm and got no reply. THEY DID NOT CALL.

I tried to follow their complaints procedure only to be told that the Customer Relations Team, described in their code of conduct document, a) did not exist, b) will not talk to me, c) could not talk to me as there was only one person on duty and he was busy, d) would call me back in 24 hours.

I do not owe Pipex this money. I will not pay it and I am not going to lose my good credit history for this lying, thieving bunch of crooks.

UPDATE: I have mailed Pipex's Press Officer Dana Loftus. I will publish her response here - if I get one.

10th January
UPDATE: After mailing Ms Loftus, I got a response. It sounds very promising. Pity it took mailing her this blog, and others, to get a reaction. Call me a cynic but I will see what the next bill says before I believe that this has been resolved. Here is the response from her office. She obviously doesn't dirty her hands personally with this kind of thing:


Dear Mrs Stephens
Customer Reference: xxxxxxxx
I write in response to your recent complaint correspondence regarding your Pipex Homecall account and services. Please allow me to express my sincere apologies for any inconvenience and stress caused whilst this issue has persisted.
You expressed dissatisfaction in your email, and advised of the actions you have taken in complaint, as you have received bills for an account that you have been advised was cancelled.
I apologise that due to system errors there has been a delay in the full cancellation of your account.
I can confirm that the error has been identified and corrected, and your account should be fully closed on your next billing date. I have also made arrangements to clear any outstanding balance on the account, thus removing any incorrect charges.
Once again, please accept my sincerest apologies for time taken to resolve this issue and any inconvenience caused. I hope that this resolution is to your satisfaction, and should you require further assistance please do not hesitate to contact Pipex Customer Care on 0870 220 2112 who will be happy to answer any queries you may have.

Yours sincerely


Akwasi Atuah
Customer Relations Executive
Pipex Ltd

4 comments:

Stephen said...

Alas your story is all too common. Particularly the bit about the mysterious Customer Relations Department! We spoke to them once, but they have refused to put us through to them ever since (also denying their existence!)

Anyway, you may wish to look at the site I have created:

http://poopex.co.uk/

Would you repost your story there? Or could I post it there on your behalf?

Thanks,
Stephen

Melanie said...

I have just moved house, and I requested to transfer pipex to the new address. This was a month ago, they haven't bothered to do it, and now I'm trying to cancel my account, now after I finally talked to a real human being who obviously doesn't take the advice form pipex management to do anything in their power to stop cancellations, she has cancelled it. I asked whether my DD payments have been cancelled and no, I will still be charged for a service, which they know has been terminated, which I am not receiving, because they terminated it. Isn't this a simple case of theft? I'm stunned they can get away with this, alongside cancellation "admin" charges, and premium rate phone calls.

Anonymous said...

God I'm not alone, I to have tried to leave pipex and it would be easier to escape from Alcatraz. I followed all the necessary procedures and Migrated to one bill telecom. But I continued to have money snsffled from my bank account by Pipex. So I cancelled the D/D and thats when the threats started to come. They threatened to cut off my phone and BB services. I said go ahead because you don't provide them. Guess what? yeah thats right nothing happened! Then the threats started regarding legal action debt collection agengies and credit rating sabotage. This despite strenuous attempts to resolve the matter amicably. The truth is they sold the line tags to my new provider and then forgot to inform themselves such is the level of incompetence they ascribe to. Well I've got private legal cover and they are going to get it both barrels because I've had enough. Paul Dorset

Anonymous said...

I have been having problems with them too and people like ourselves seem all too common.
Somebody else has set up a site to moan http://www.pipexproblems.co.uk
It is pretty enlightening.
David M.