RANT: Pipex Technical Support

aproctor

aproctor

aproctor

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After having some internet issues over the past week i thought it would be a good idea to ring Pipex tech support and this is where my drama unfolds.

After a long time on hold i finally get through to 1st line, which is made ever more frustrating by the need to repeat everything 5 times and wait for them to read from a sheet.

After the intial checks i was passed to second line, who asked me similar questions and spoon fed me into the router settings screen.

After establishing my password and login were correct the fun could begin, "you will recieve a call back in 24 hours".

Great.

After 24 hours, no call.

I rang them back and it seemed to confuse them no end that i already had a call logged and were insistent that they perform their 1st line checks, a quick succession of No, No, No, soon sorted that. :o

The next hurdle was 2nd line, again.

I managed to convince him after a few tests that this was unnecessary again and to read the notes.

"you will recieve a call in 24 hours.", "No i bloody won't".

5 minutes later, 3rd line called to say there line test was fine.

After explaining the problem, he performed another line test and low and behold a ticket has been raised.

I will be called between 11am and 1pm.

We shall see but Janek Kunkulol, i will track you down if i have to endure 1st/2nd line again.
 
Generally when i have had to call them,

They wanna do the really basic checks, i normally get around having to do those, then they check the line and say its all ok, i hang up phone to them, 5 mins later internet is working.

Trick to avoiding the basic checks is just sound like you know what you talking about and keep saying you have already done all the checks.

Seems like they don't wanna admit any faults but it starts working 5 mins after calling them.

Ps. Pipex still exists i am with them atm after being transferred from bulldog when they bought it out, now owned by tiscali and soon to be transferred over to talktalk got a letter last week about it.

Luckily i am still on the original bulldog contract afaik, never get complaints about usage as bulldog was truly unlimited, good isp back in the day.

Only reason im still with them is no usage complaints, don't wanna rock the boat so to speak, waiting for FTTC where i am before i move.
 
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mrbell1984 said:
May be a good idea to help everyone by explaining your problem you have first. You may be passed from line to line but not many people can help you if you don't tell us your problem.
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i think you have missed the point of this thread and taken it as an attack on 1st line, which is not the case. :)
 
Been with Pipex for nearly 8 years :0 They have always been brilliant, fixed any issue same day. Recently managed to get a brand new router and cheaper package out of them :)
 
HardwareGeek said:
its all ok, i hang up phone to them, 5 mins later internet is working.
.
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Must be the magic button all ISP's have, that they really don't want to press :rolleyes:

I worked with an ISP for about 3 years as T2 (UKOL if anyone remembers them before they were swallowed by sky), and you would be surprised how many times the "basic checks" solve the problem.
Even after the customer swore they'd already done it a zillion times.

I once had a guy who'd been having issue for 2 weeks, and had been calling us every day. His problem was that he was using 2 microfilters, 1 at each end of the line. However, as he came through anytime anyone tried to talk him through the simple checks he swore blind it wasn't that as it had been tested a dozen times already.
When I told him, if an engineer was sent and found a problem with the physical setup his end, he'd be lumped with the bill. He happily went through it with me, and we discovered had he been tellnig the truth and done what he was asked. He'd not have had any issue.

Not saying you're in the same boat, but when you get dozens of people like that a week, you begin to disbelieve them, and you've also got to take into consideration the last agent forgorgetting to check something he should have.

Standard process tree (provided there was no known network issues), was always

Physical setup - network setup - settings - software.
IE: check cables/phone line. If thats fine, check the network setup. Then network settings- then firewalls etc :p

We had all sorts of funky flow charts. That is, until we had to liase with the BT engineers. Then it was a dice roll if you got a good one or not :p
*edit typos*
 
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For those that are interested -

Internet was on/off for the last week, down all yesterday.

In this time none of the settings had been touched and we had checked all the wiring, reset the router settings, switched on/off, checked the lights.

Then we tried a different router following the same process with no luck.

I have worked in 1st/2nd line so didn't mind the checks the first time, even if they took longer than i expected, "p l e a s e t y p e, o n e, n i n e, t w o.."
 
You picked an ISP that hired the Hoff to do their adverts.

What were you thinking? What do you expect?

370854718_425fa472d5.jpg
 
I had a mate that used to work for Pipex. They are no longer the brand they used to be - they merged with homecall and Tiscali and it was pot luck which bit of the network new customers got stuck on. Old school Pipex was as good as ever, the Tiscali network was awful. They farmed the support out overseas a couple of years ago and put 600+ people out of work locally.
 
Although sometimes the basic checks May sound stupid, sometimes they are not, hence why its usually procedure.

You would look stupid going in to KBD tests and line profile changes if all it was, was a dodgy filter

Saying that I really don't agree with some of the commercial ISP support desks. They can be a nightmare
 
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Justintime said:
Wow i didn't even know they still were around. Had them in the early 2000s when 512k was the absolute king of the hill :D
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This! The first time it synced at 512k with that purple speedtouch modem was immense! xD Then the upgrade to 1mb I had to change pants twice.
 
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