{"id":451,"date":"2008-03-25T14:04:18","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T14:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=451"},"modified":"2012-04-24T21:53:05","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T20:53:05","slug":"tiscali-theyre-really-really-shit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=451","title":{"rendered":"Tiscali, they’re really really shit"},"content":{"rendered":"

*** Original article written on 25th March 2008 \u00a0***<\/strong><\/p>\n

*** Updated 9th May 2008 (see below) ***<\/strong><\/p>\n

*** Updated 21st May 2008 (see below) ***<\/strong><\/p>\n

*** Updated 28th May 2008 (see below) ***<\/strong><\/p>\n

I used to have an account with Tiscali broadband.Actually, the full story is that I used to live in a house where (when I lived in that house) I had an account with Tiscali broadband.<\/p>\n

But then I moved out and cancelled the account.<\/p>\n

To cancel an account with Tiscali one can’t just ping them an email, one has to ring them (which means what one does is: spend half an hour on the phone listening to them telling one how much they value one’s call. Repeatedly.).<\/p>\n

So what I did – in October last year – was just that; I rang them, I spent half an hour on the phone listening to them telling me how much they valued my call. Repeatedly. Then I spoke to someone and cancelled the account with immediate effect.<\/p>\n

And the story ends there.<\/p>\n

Not.<\/p>\n

Because this morning I had a phone call from accounts to ask why the company was paying \u00a315.99 a month to Tiscali broadband.<\/p>\n

Why indeed!<\/p>\n

So I rang Tiscali and spent half an hour listening to revoltin<\/span>g revolving music which was periodically broken in to by a woman who told me that my call was valued.<\/p>\n

Half an hour later I got connected to a person who, frankly (and only in terms of delivering customer service) sucked.<\/p>\n

Making myself understood was a challenge which persistence, much repeating and ‘How now, brown cow?’ diction eventually overcame.<\/p>\n

Then the person on the other end of the phone realised two things:
\n1. Precisely what I was trying to tell them, and
\n2. That what needed to be done fell outside their range of scripts.<\/p>\n

So they put me on hold.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes later they cut me off.<\/p>\n

Arseholes.<\/p>\n

So I rang the fuckers<\/span> Tiscali again, spent another half an hour listening to revolting<\/span> revolving music which was, again, periodically broken in to by a woman who told me that my call was valued until I got connected to another person.<\/p>\n

I had the same language\/cultural barrier but with a stiff dose of stoicism and a bucketful of persistence I stuck at it until the full meaning of the message I was trying to convey eventually penetrated.<\/p>\n

They realised two things (again):
\n1. What I was trying to tell them, and
\n2. That what needed to be done fell outside their range of scripts.<\/p>\n

So they put me on hold.<\/p>\n

Again.<\/p>\n

This time, but only after five minutes… they cut me off.<\/p>\n

Again.<\/p>\n

So I went to lunch and tried to calm myself down.<\/p>\n

Back at my desk – armed with two rounds of sandwiches, a soup and a bowl of fruit – I tried again.<\/p>\n

I called them up and – this time – listened to how valued my call was for a mere twenty minutes.<\/p>\n

Things are looking up, I said to myself.<\/p>\n

I spoke to a chap called Ian who was sitting several thousand miles closer to me than the last two people were.<\/p>\n

Ian asked me the same range of authentication questions that the previous people had asked.<\/p>\n

He listened to my issue and he immediately understood the problem and said he would be putting me on hold.<\/p>\n

I gritted my teeth and told him about my previous ‘on hold’ experiences with Tiscali.<\/p>\n

He said he didn’t know why that happened, and he’d only be a second.<\/p>\n

Actually he lied, he was more like 45 seconds but I’ll forgive him.<\/p>\n

He came back on the phone and double-checked when I’d called Tiscali with the cancellation.<\/p>\n

I told him again.<\/p>\n

He said that Tiscali had no record of me calling in to cancel the service and asked if I’d like to have it cancelled now.<\/p>\n

Struggling to keep the Beast of Profanity from taking over, I said that would be nice.<\/p>\n

While he was cancelling the agreement I asked how it was that Tiscali were still charging \u00a315.99 a month when they must have known the service wasn’t being used?<\/p>\n

I also asked why the money was being taken each month when we didn’t have a contract.<\/p>\n

He didn’t answer the first question, but the second was dealt with simply: ‘After the first 12 months it’s a rolling contract, if you don’t cancel it, it just goes on each month.’<\/p>\n

Staggering.<\/p>\n

Then he asked how I had cancelled the contract – whether I’d called in or sent an email.<\/p>\n

Surprised by this question I told Ian that one has<\/em> to call Tiscali (and endure half an hour on hold listening to terrible music, feeling more and more suicidal as time passes) to cancel a contract because Tiscali (with all the sparkle of an 18th Century communications company) don’t accept contract cancellations by email.<\/p>\n

‘Oh yeah’ was the response.<\/p>\n

So there you are folks.<\/p>\n

Tiscali.<\/p>\n

Taking \u00a315.99 a month for over a year for a service that wasn’t being delivered or needed.<\/p>\n

And if that’s not bad enough, let’s just look at one small piece of extra information…<\/p>\n

How much are Tiscali now charging for broadband?<\/p>\n

\u00a36.49 a month.<\/p>\n

The words ‘money’ and ‘old rope’ are vying with ‘robbing’ and ‘bastards’.<\/p>\n

Tiscali – don’t touch them with a bargepole.<\/p>\n

They’re really, really shit.<\/p>\n

B<\/strong><\/em>.
\np.s. Chance of a refund? Two chances, slim and none (and slim’s just left town on the last stage)<\/p>\n

*** Updated 9th May 2008 *** <\/strong><\/p>\n

OK, so I wrote that on 25th March 2008.<\/p>\n

I thought that when I spoke to Tiscali, I was being pretty damn definite.<\/p>\n

Unequivocal.<\/p>\n

I mean, read the trails of people I went through.<\/p>\n

Read the messages that passed between us.<\/p>\n

Read the sheer frustration.<\/p>\n

How prophetic was I on 25th March?<\/p>\n

Totally.<\/p>\n

Because guess what?<\/p>\n

Tiscali took more money in April.<\/p>\n

And in May they took another payment.<\/p>\n

For a service they’re not delivering to me.<\/p>\n

So I’ve written a formal letter of complaint to them.<\/p>\n

How seriously do you think they’re going to take it?<\/p>\n

Yeah, me too. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

*** Updated 21st May 2008 ***<\/strong><\/p>\n

You will have read that I sent Tiscali a written complaint on 9th May 2008.<\/p>\n

I’ve just come back to register their action so far.<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

None whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Not even an acknowledgement.<\/p>\n

It’s good, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

*** Updated 28th May 2008 ***<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it’s now been two weeks since I sent Tiscali the formal letter of complaint.<\/p>\n

Have I heard a peep out of them?<\/p>\n

Absolutely not; not even an acknowledgement.<\/p>\n

And guess what?<\/p>\n

They’re still taking the money.<\/p>\n

And the piss, obviously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*** Original article written on 25th March 2008 \u00a0*** *** Updated 9th May 2008 (see below) *** *** Updated 21st May 2008 (see below) ***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}