Who can I complain to about being unfairly charged and treated by my ISP?

Question

Back in march of this year I saw an advert for my ISP stating they could supply an 8mb conection.
I checked on the net to see if they could supply me with this speed in my area at their site, the site said yes.
I rang the ISP to join and asked at that point if they could supply an 8mb connection and was told yes, with this in mind I agreed to sign up to a £17.99 8mb contract
I noticed to my disapointment that my connection speed was no more than just a 2mb, I spoke to the technical team and they said they would look into it.
After 5 months they disconected me with no prior communication, saying that I hadn't payed for the service when checking I found they were correct so I offered to pay £89.95 for the 5 months and they refused it. Saying I owed £100.97
Even Though I should of only been billed £14.99 a month for a 2mb connection total of £74.95 Now they won't give me a MAC number.
I was told at no time until they disconnected that they didn't have an 8mb connection.

Answer 1

Im sorry to hear about your problems, im with NTL and had the same thing with my speed issue...10Mb connection but was only getting around 4Mb, this was due to my TCP settings and i used a program called TCP Optimizer to fix that..now i get full speeds..

http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

I had to find that out myself since their technical team was rubbish to say the least!!

Anyway back to complaints...you need to contact Ofcom..either at..

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

Or their "Online Complaints" section

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/

Or directly @

Ofcom
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London
SE1 9HA

Switchboard: 020 7981 3000
Fax: [phone]
Textphone: 020 7981 3043 - Please note that this number only works with special equipment used by people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Answer 2

You could try:
The Internet Service provider Association.
http://www.ispa.org.uk/

I dont think you have any cause for complaint about the disconnection as you didn't pay for the serivce, you were in breach of contract.

You also cannot complain about the 2Mb service when you asked for 8Mb. This is down to self-healing network in the last mile which will reduce the speed until it finds one with acceptable error ratios.

The best thing to do is be specific about what you want to complain about and leave the other stuff out of the discussion.

You can query the bill if you have a clear bill of Tarrifs and can show which one you signed up to.

And that would come under normal consumer law and the trading standards can help with this.

Answer 3

Write a letter stating this, thay have regulations and HAVE to deal with letters of complaint sent in to them. As long as you copy them and state you require an answer you will be OK.
You are only being told by the customer services people. They will have to correspond with you by letter if you write to them, which is dealt with in a totally different department.
Dont pay it yet, you shouldnt have to pay for anything other than the 2mb you got.

Oh and there isnt an obudsman for ISP's but if its a telecoms company there is OFTEL who are the regulatory body if all esle fails.

Sorry just found out there is, its OFCOM.

Answer 4

Unfortunately there is not too much you can do. I assume you are in GB, so details may not be quite the same, but in the US short of small claims court there is not much you can do directly.

However, if you think they have been unfair you can file a report with the Better Business Bureau. You can also find their upstream provider and complain to them (try using traceroute to get their provider). And, you can make a web page or add comments to a site that rates ISPs detailing your problems, so that anyone who researches ISPs through a search engine will be able to weigh your experience.

Answer 5

All I can say is you wont win, find another provider, there are hundreds of them out there, some more ethical than others, ask around and see who is getting great bandwidth at a great price. You are obviously online somehow so I gather you are just interested in doing something about the old provider? Good luck with it but they are like teflon, nothing sticks.

Answer 6

To begin with, any site that advertises its ability to provide a set speed is full of crap! Too many variables! It is dependant on how fast the upload speed of the site you are visiting, how many people are on your node at a given time, how far away they are, etc. Give them up and find a different provider.

Answer 7

Take it up with Ofcom. Or even better, ring your ISP and tell them that you're going to take the issue to Ofcom. Good luck!