AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Been a suffering member for years - yet they say I'm in a 12 month contract and want to charge me £90 to leave having just increased their prices by 25%.

Posted by Gray on the 7th January 2010

BAD PRACTICE OR A POSSIBLE TISCALI SCAM?

Several weeks after moving away from Tiscali we received an automated phone message saying we owed £2.37. No invoice, no reference, no client ID, just pay up? I was convinced that this was a scam so I called Tiscali to check. The person I spoke to couldn’t see anything owing against my name and suggested we ignore it.

My wife received three further automated calls spanning the next six months, the last threatening our credit rating and the bailiffs. For some reason (why I don’t know?), she decided to pay the invoice using the call’s automated phone system, where you tap in your card details!!! I went mad when I found out as I was convinced that our account would by now be cleaned out. Surely no reputable company would demand money in this way? The more I thought about it, this sounded like a phone version of the phishing emails – therefore we’d been scammed!

After an urgent call to our bank they confirmed that Tiscali had indeed taken £2.37. By 9am I was on the phone to Tiscali to find out what was happening. It seems that the amount owing was NOT against my name, the account holder but against my wife’s name. As far as Tiscali were concerned the phone part of our account had not terminated until the 5th of the month and therefore had incurred five days' worth of call charges. Being unable to debit the amount from my terminated Direct Debit account, they opened a new account in my wife’s name. When they couldn’t get payment from that they started to make these threatening calls.

This is so wrong on so many levels. I am the account holder. They should chase me if they have a problem. How can they open an account in someone else’s name? Why demand demand payment via an automated phone message – what’s wrong with a phone call? You call yourselves a communications company - communicate!

Worst of all – how long is it going to take the scammers to figure out that they can ring up Tiscali customers, demand a small payment, gain access to your credit/debit/bank account and clear it! As an aside, I’m not sure your bank will reimburse you either. After all, you freely handed over your bank details?

Posted by Jim on the 5th January 2010

I got a bill in from tiscali for £387.69. I do not have a account with tiscali. I enquired about broadband 2yrs ago but decided not to go with them as they set up dd before I was even connected. I have tried to phone which cost me I was 19.40min waiting to be answered.

Posted by sarah Ferguson on the 16th December 2009

Similar experience as by M Rees forced me to move to another provider. Basically I upgraded my 2mb connection to 8mb but this resulted in my actual broadband speed dropping from 1.5mbps to .5mbps!! where is the logic in that. Tens of e-mails (some very irate) and many phone calls later I decided to pack it in. As a protest I cancelled my DD so that they could get their finger out but instead they passed my file to their debt collectors!! It's not worth wasting your time with Tiscali. If you are with them and happy with the service then don't upgrade and leave everything as is. It appears most of the other providers are just as incompetent. Share pot luck.

Posted by Kash on the 24th November 2009

Back in September I rang for a MAC code. Been with Tiscali for 4 years or more and not really had much trouble. Anyway was tempted into taking out a better package, tiscali talk and line rental plus wireless. Haven't been able to connect since 11/9/09. Technical Support have cut me off when they get to the bit they can't help me with. After reading all the comments, am now frantic, don't want another 18 months if this is how it is going to be. Already sent two letters off one to HO and one to Birmingham, plus email with automated response which is useless. What else should I try - does anyone know. When I rang to complain to technical support they cut my phone for a few seconds as if by punishment or am I being paranoid! There must be something or someone who can help!

Posted by M Rees on the 13th October 2009

What is this bad service Tiscali are providing? It's decent, but now - for the past 3 weeks, my internet speed has been soo poooooor not even words can describe. Have contacted Tiscali through various emails, they have not solved the problem, blamed it on bt and our package speed, when we have selected the largest package available!!!!! Useless. At tech support helpdesk, the accents are clearly not from the UK, they are from India, they tell me the basic things which I already know otherwise why would I be calling helpdesk?!!!! They don't care about their customers. JUST DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE.

Posted by WORST on the 10th October 2009

I have not been a Tiscali customer since May 2008 when I transferred my broadband and phone to another provider. As far as I was aware I settled all the outstanding bills and cancelled all the services. Despite this Tiscali have continued to send me more bills and despite repeated phone calls, emails and faxes I still have no idea what they are for. I have now decided to give in and pay the latest bill and I have sent a letter to cancel all services. Let us hope that this will put an end to it. I will never use this Company again, the customer service is appalling.

Posted by Frances Esplin on the 8th October 2009

I am writing to complain about the AWFUL service a big communication company like Tiscali had responded when I requested to terminate my broadband service due to a change of address. I am happy to pay off any outstanding payments as a result from the cancellation but Tiscali had taken it's time to send the final bill to my new address; a very difficult task as I had to make four long frustrating phone calls to the customer support centre (08712223311) to make that happen. In addition, I have still not received the cancellation letter that Tiscali had promised to send me, but was instead sent a letter from the credit collection company.

Here are the details of the calls that I have made:

1. I first called on 20th July 2009 to request the cancellation of service and the phone call took approximately 40 minutes (including waiting time). The phone operator identified himself as Sam and I was allocated a reference number for the cancellation. I informed the operator that I will cancel the direct debit payment to Tiscali and would like to pay Tiscali by cheque or credit card for the last payment if he can arrange to have the final bill sent to my new address. He told me that Tiscali will send me the cancellation notice and final bill (£35.07) to my new address which will arrive in 4-5 working days so that I can pay it off. However, I did not receive anything in 4 weeks from Tiscali.
2. I then called on 14th August 2009 that took 38 minutes (I have been told to wait for most of the time). The operator told me again that I will be receiving the cancellation and final bill in 4-5 working days. But I did not receive anything from Tiscali in 3 weeks.
3. I called again in 2nd September 2009 that last for 28 minutes. I was informed again that a letter bearing the cancellation and final bill will be sent to me in 4-5 working days to my new address.
4. My final call made on 16th September 2009 lasted for 32 minutes; this time I was told by the operator, whose name Divine, that the cancellation letter and final bill will arrive in 14 working days.
The four calls I made accumulated to a total of approximately 138 minutes of wasted time and effort as I have yet to receive the items that I have requested – the cancellation letter and final bill. In addition, the calls to the Tiscali's customer service centres have cost me more than £13 of unnecessary phone bills. While I am now still waiting for Tiscali to send me the above letters, Tiscali had taken action against me by sending my details to a credit collection agency, Creditlink Account Recovery Solutions (C.A.R.S), who threaten to submit a default notice on my credit file and take legal action against me. I have paid what was termed an “overdue account” of £35.07 to C.A.R.S on behalf to Tiscali, but I am frustrated that this had happened as I have still not received the cancellation letter and final bill from Tiscali. Therefore, I request Tiscali to:

1. explain how my cancellation was processed after I called in on 20th July 2009 in detail;
2. clear my credit file if it was wrongly marked;
3. send me the cancellation letter and final bill that was promised before.

I want to register my utmost dissatisfaction to the way Tiscali operates and I would not recommend anyone to take up service with Tiscali if such awful service persist.

Posted by MaoTou on the 20th September 2009

This company should carry a Government health warning. They have no concept of customer care. We simply wanted to transfer our existing broadband and phone service when we moved. Ended up without either. Have spent hours and hours on the phone at considerable cost over 4 months so far first trying to get a service and since trying to cancel it and get rid of this awful company. We are normal, hard-working professional people - can't believe how a company can get away with such diabolical service - so much for competition!!!

Posted by Sue on the 12th September 2009

We've only been with Tiscali for about 3 weeks, and already we're at our LIMIT with them. The service was intermittent and then cut out altogether. 6 days without internet and no technicians available. We finally got an appointment for a Monday, then they rang back 5 minutes later to say they'd double-booked us and a technician would be out on Tuesday. The helpline people barely speak English and are just plain rude, and even AFTER a technician has come out to us, the service is still cutting out every few hours! We cannot wait to swap companies, and are seriously considering contacting Ofcom. If you are considering going with Tiscali, please, PLEASE do not. I would give 0 stars if I could but I have to put 1 to post this. Yes, Tiscali are cheap - but for a damn good reason. Please lets get them shut down! It's borderline theft!

Posted by Hazel on the 10th September 2009

What a complete nightmare. No outgoing calls for 10 days after no broadband, the staff can't speak English and the email responses are bordering on rude. Final straw 40 minutes on hold to get a mac code. Good bye and good riddance!!

Posted by Andy on the 2nd September 2009

As an ex customer of tiscali, I joined them in 2007, 2mb package at £14.99 per month, at first it seemed ok, I more or less got the 2mb, then 6mths later they started traffic shaping, it was supposed to be p2p only, but every speed tester recorded very poor results such as 120kbps and lower, so even browsing was painfully slow, call after call to their overseas based call centre on the 0871 number costing a fortune (time on hold average was 30mins) a joke just like tiscali. The tech support is a total waste of your time /money, nothing gets resolved, they have been bought out by talk talk, but nothing has changed as yet, it probably won't. My advice do not sign up to them, they may be cheap, but the service you get sucks big time, should you play online games, hope you like lags and dropped connections (that's if you can connect). My rating ZERO

Posted by tom on the 18th August 2009

Well were do I start! Been with them for about 18 months, 1st must say I pay for 8mbit and that's what I get most of the time. There is some management going on i.e dc++, p2p won't work certain times of day so I imagine they block the ports but won't admit it if you ask. I download most stuff via rapidshare etc and usually get full speed most times of the day so no complaints there at all. Only one downtime, the whole network went down due to some prob or other but was sorted quite quickly maybe 24hrs offline. On another note: their pakistani customer service and the whole of the people that run tiscali are useless. I'v been disconnected 3 times due to no fault of my own, saying I owed £65 on one occasion which I paid by debit card to their customer service, then suddenly after that no direct debit payments were being taken from my account. I phoned up on many occasions to find out why and even they didn't know. Eventually a canadian/american lady phoned and confirmed I was overcharged for a reason she didn't know , and also that my payments were not going because someone had set me up 2 accounts for broadband and that according to them I was disconnected from my service. I didn't get charged broadband for almost 6 months and someone confirmed I would only have to pay for 3 because it was their fault and would sort out the mess and put it straight. This was 2 months ago and still not a phone call or so much as an email back, so I'm leaving... They have no idea how to run a business, no one knows nothing, you ask them to sort something but nothing gets done, I'm through with them, their wrongful disconnecting, and their overcharging...

Posted by shaun on the 9th August 2009

Fair play to Tiscali, I was a customer with them for 3 years, and the service they provided was usually fairly good. Well that was because I never had to speak to them or their customer services dep.

It is hellish difficult to cancel the service with them, and they use all sorts of excuses, blaming it on bt lines and the like. 5 months after telling them via e-mail and phone that I was moving from the property and wanted to cancel my account, it is still not done. I think I am up to 35 phone calls, 5 e-mails and 2 registered letters now.

They are good as long as nothing goes wrong, and you never want to leave them. if either of these things are important to you, i would recommend going somewhere else for your broadband, anywhere else would be better.

Posted by David on the 7th July 2009

I can mirror all of the comments below. I have to say that whilst using tiscali purely as a ISP no problems of note were encountered. In May 2009 I was approached by tiscali to transfer to a complete package with them. I then made probably the biggest mistake of my life by doing so. The service became abysmal! On 28th May this year I made steps to get out of the package they had tied me into (12month) despite never actually signing anything. On 3rd May Tiscali attended and removed TV aspect. On 15th May find I'm still being charged for the system. Many calls later I am refused a MAC Code because I still have a TV package!! Apologies from everywhere assurances it's been done... Today when following up the MAC code, am again informed it hasn't arrived because I'm still a TV customer... transfer half way round the world who confirm yes I am still being charged. The story goes on.... Despite further reassurances.. my Account on line still reveals guess what, yes I'm Tiscali TV package Customer!

Posted by Mick Broome on the 24th June 2009

5 stars for debt collection owing to them? I am fed up ignoring letters with increased amounts of monies owing to them. They write to me via a dbt collection agency and say 'confirmed resident' and add a further 15 pounds search fee - which they have not obviously completed - simply because their company so so inefficient they had not even noted my name correctly - so the person to whom they write does not exist? Yes simply: I wish I had not had any dealings with them. But can anyone advise how I get them to stop writing to my address?

Posted by Chris Bowman on the 6th June 2009

I run a small internet retail site. I have used Tiscali BB for 3 years. Recently over the past 5 months I have had problems connecting, the first few times where sorted after one phone call, but recently they have been rude, they hang up on me, or give me contradicting information (it's your PC - it's your router), I'm quite confident it's neither because I have a small network that runs through the router and it's fine! The customer support is frankly horrific, with staff who understand little or no spoken English making it a nightmare having to phone them (they even seem to get upset with me because my name clearly shows I'm Indian but I don't sound it,) I ask to speak to a manager/supervisor and they hang up! Time to switch suppliers.

Posted by G Kumar on the 3rd June 2009

Tiscali can be summed up in two words UTTER DISGRACE.

What they've done to me is tantamount to attempted theft. My anger is too great to go into detail but I've never been connected to tiscali broadband and they've been threatening and demanding money from me for a year.... Needless to say they will never get a penny.

Posted by M. Duncan on the 26th May 2009

Has anybody got a copy of the T&C's for tiscali which are dated from December 2008? I would like to compare those T&C's with the current version as shown on the Tiscali website. If you have, please could you post a note to advise, and I shall provide information on how you can forward a copy to me.

Thanks.

Posted by Paul on the 30th April 2009

Tiscali are without doubt the worst company i have ever dealt with. We had unlimited broadband with them at 14.99 a month but changed our direct debit to around 24.99 a month (to include home calls) which we dont have. Despite having phoned around a dozen times to complain about this, no refund has been given. In the end we cancelled the direct debit, now we are being called contantly by some strange automated tiscali service (we put the phone down each time, if i cant speak to someone in person, i wont respond and is it to much to speak to someone with English as their first language? Tiscali are a disgrace of a company and deserve to go out of business, which i expect wont be too long given the fact that everyone i know have moved from tiscali due to there rubbish customer services. i They dont even deserve one star.

Posted by Mark Burnett on the 21st April 2009

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE of all time. On four occasions I was passed between three different departments promising me a refund they owed. I had been with them for a few years and they didn't seem to give a damn. They deserve to go out of business.

Posted by Simon on the 19th April 2009

Do not touch Tiscali with a barge pole. Dreadful, dreadful and three times dreadful, appalling and incompetent. I cancelled my broadband service last May, and telephone service in December 2008, and am still getting bills! A bill from a Debt collection agency arrived last week demanding payment for a service I have not used for over 4 months (telephone). Don't bother with the email they give you for 'complaints' dept, as you just get an automated response, which leads no where. The MD is called Mark Lyntsell based at Tiscali UK ltd, 20 Broadwick Street London W1F8HT, you could try writing to him (I have and am awaiting a reply, if, in fact he is a 'real ' person, and not just a made up name). If you are contemplating switching to Tiscali, DON'T!!!! I am sending copies of my letters of complaint to the MD, the Debt collecting agency, and Trading Standards. Watch this space! I only put 1 star as you cannot post a comment without giving it a star!!!

Posted by Hils on the 19th April 2009

Interesting to read the reviews. After the experience I have had with Tiscali they are beyond belief. Been with lineone since about1995 then Tiscali since they took over. The comments regarding the happy customers I am glad for you, long it may last as you don't know what may lie round the corner. If it all goes belly up then you are about to get the Tiscali call centre experience, and this has got to be unique. Doubt if anybody else that bad. Best advice is get out while the going is good, they virtually drive you to destruction. My 0871 call bill (and the calls are with Tiscali) came to £18 to try and resolve their problem and it never got resolved. Never been so glad to get away from a company. The Watchdog file probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by John on the 18th April 2009

I have been with Tiscali for over 3 years, not all good I might add and very difficult to deal with. I have seen that my bills have progressively risen (no reasons actually given) so decided time for a change of provider. I got through, made the necessary noises and asked for my mac code to migrate to my new server. No problem there, got the letter in a couple of days, however, here's the rub, they now want their router back or will charge me £114. I wasn't aware that we 'rented' the router? In any event I have never used their crappy router as I use a wireless router which belongs to me. Has anyone else had this problem and if so how was it resolved? I don't even know where their router is!!!

Posted by Jane on the 30th March 2009

This is for the person who said tiscali are useless and they are happy with nildram, NILDRAM is owned by TISCALI. Who's laughing now!!!

Posted by happy-pup on the 22nd March 2009

Tiscali have gave me no problems at all. Been with them nearly a year now and no intentions to leave. Good work boys !!!

Posted by mick on the 22nd March 2009

Worse ISP in the UK you will ever use. By 8mb broadband they actually less than ONE MB and they constantly disconnect. I am quitting this ISP but by the sounds of it just quitting their service is going to be another story.

Posted by Shayla on the 19th March 2009

Recently because of their bad phone service I didn't receive quite a few of my phone messages. Two of which were for a well paid job that subsequently went to somebody else. When I told the so Customer Services about this and when they eventually got back to me, they gave the standard (please forgive us everything esp. our service) apology and offered me £10.00 off my account by way of compensation. Which I can say is nothing short of an insult and because of this I would like to join anyone that is bringing a court case against Tiscali as it is about time that this company was held accountable for its totally poor service towards its customers.

Posted by Peter McKillop on the 12th March 2009

Don’t go anywhere near these people, they are either incapable or unwilling to help out their customers.
I’d been with Tiscali for a couple of years on a 1Mb connection until the end of 2007 when I decided to upgrade to the 8Mb connection so rang them to get it upgraded and was given my date. I waited for the date to arrive with excitement the day after the date I ran a speed check and found out I was still on my 1Mb connection and the upgrade had never been done so I rang them to inform them that the upgrade hadn’t been done. They where most apologetic and gave me another date for the new upgrade, and guess what this didn’t go through either. This scenario carried on for nearly a year with me chasing them and getting new dates every time I contacted them to complain. In fairness I did manage to get a couple of month’s free rental out of them for messing me about.
But in the end I’d had enough of their promises so started to look around for another provider. And in September 2008 I contacted Tiscali to request my MAC number and inform them that I had had enough of them messing me around. I was requested to leave my direct debit running as their bills are always behind the service provision which I did. I received my code very quickly and went live with virgin on the 20th October 2008.
I then noticed whilst checking my bank statements at the beginning of this year that they had taken the last payment and rather than cancelling the direct debit they had then charged me for an extra month. So I quickly cancelled this debit so they couldn’t thieve any more money off me and then rang them to explain what had happened. They agreed and said that they owed me close to £55 and I would receive it within 28 days. The 28 came and went and the only thing that turned up was another bill for another months rental. I then contacted them and was told not to worry about this bill but they would now require either a Going Live letter or migration letter from virgin for my start date back in October 2008 to finalise my account and get my money back. (The rub here is virgin doesn’t send letter out all correspondence is via E-mail). Since this phone call I have sent them hard copies of the going live E-mail I received off virgin and my first Virgin bill E-mail only to be told that these weren’t good enough as proof.
I have also still been receiving progressively more nasty letters regarding the earlier mentioned bill that I got at the beginning of this year which culminated in to two automated call to my mobile number yesterday threatening me with bailiffs if this bill isn’t paid. Today I sort legal advice and was advised to sort the bailiff threat separately from the other issue to maintain my credit rating, and a possibility of going to small claims court to retrieve my other outstanding money.
But I for one am now totally fed up with the entire situation Tiscali has created but wont except responsibility for. So on hearing that they are in the process of going tits up with their shares being suspend on the stock market yesterday. I would like to say for anyone from Tiscali reading this is it’s your own fault you are going bankrupt because you have taken your customers for granted for too long and they have voted with their feet and take their business elsewhere. No star rating for this company.

Posted by Steve on the 11th March 2009

Don't touch them with a barge pole!! Worst Customer Services I have ever encountered. Something needs to be done about these rip off merchants! I've had nothing but problems with the TV service, since installation in August 08. They finally agreed to remove it end of Feb this year, then the broadband goes off also!! More unanswered emails and countless costly phone calls to people who I can only describe as idiots!! I'm now counting the days for the contract to end!

Posted by lisa on the 4th March 2009

Almost daily connection problems ranging from 10 minutes, to 2 in the past week of over 12 hours each. Lying call centre staff, of which I have now 4 cases of call centre staff lying to me. High level complaints team that don't get back to you, and ignore complaints about there staff lying.
Call centre staff that close non fixed calls, without consultation, presumably to meet SLAs set by tiscali. 2nd line support staff that don't call you when they say. All done on the back of expensive 0845 calls to the staff in the Indian, Denver, London call centres that make monkeys seem intelligent. They close fault calls, sending you an email to phone them up again to reopen them.

This is the WORST so-called customer service I have seen in my life.

Posted by David on the 25th February 2009

WHY IS IT THAT WHEN YOU GO TO A COMPANY THEY PROMISE TO GIVE YOU THE BEST POSSIBLE SERVICE AND WHEN YOU DO THEY SEEM TO FORGET WHAT THEY PROMISED .IT SEEMS THAT ALL THEY WANT FROM US PEOPLE IS OUR MONEY .DOES ANYBODY KNOW OF A GOOD AND RELIABLE COMPANY IN THIS COUNTRY

Posted by BOB W on the 20th February 2009

I cancelled my Tiscali account in June 2008 and they stopped my direct debit. Until October 2008, when they re-activated it again without warning or without authorisation from me, In effect, they were stealing £60 per month from my account!

I wrote to them, explaining the problem in detail, and eventually got a response which made it very clear that they had not read my letter.

Happily for me, NatWest were very good about it, refunded me the money and took it up with Tiscali direct. NatWest told me that Tiscali are regular offenders in this respect.

I still get the odd letter and phone call threatening to cut off my account (what account)?

Posted by Ed on the 20th February 2009

Oh my god what a crap service!!! I've just been reading allthe comments left by others!!- please plesae please- can we all send copies of our letters to OFCOM and watchdog now i'm goingto!! all the problems I've had recently others have had too! problems blamed on BT line, poor overseas customer services, advisors promising you service will be back on- but surprise surprise no service!!! crap crap crap!! please people stay away from them and call ofcom.

Posted by Yvonne on the 5th February 2009

Tiscali offer an absolutely dire service - if that's what you can call it. I should have read the warning signs earlier when I spent over two hours on the phone to an overseas call centre following the so-called set up of my broadband connection which wasn't.

Despite me telling the woman on the end of the phone that I am an IT professional she still insisted that I checked the router was plugged in and that it was on. She then told me that the router wasn't communicating with the computer despite me telling her that I can access the web interface and that it says that there is no connection - They'd claimed I was connected when I clearly wasn't.

After sorting that out the service was reasonable and as such I took my account with me to my new address. All was fine and I was enjoying 8MBit speeds... till the honeymoon period was over, anyway. Now it's frequent disconnections, speeds that are barely 1MBit during peak times (used to be up around the 6MBit mark which was why I kept my contract with them), appalling download speeds and ZERO access to torrents for half the day. I know some people use them for dubious purposes, but what about the rest of us that want to download several GB Linux distros? Utter crap.

Steer well clear, I'm in the process of going elsewhere and I suggest others do too.

Posted by John O on the 5th February 2009

Tiscali are ignorant criminals! Taking money from my current account as per contract,and then continuing to take money from it when the account was cancelled,MAC code sent to my new ISP and new service started.Not only that,taking the same amount from my credit card every month.We are chasing a refund of over £440 and will go to small claims court for it. TISCALI DO NOT WORK! Cheats and liars. NO STARS AT ALL.I'm only giving one star to post this.

Posted by Carol on the 3rd February 2009

My experience echoes that of Martin Scarfe. It is almost impossible to get any sense out of them when you do get through on the phone, and they don't seem to read letters sent to them either.
Oh they reply, eventually, but they totally fail to address a single point made to them.
My account was cancelled in August 2008 and as of this date I am still getting increasingly unpleasant letters threatening to take me to court over £91 that I don't owe.
Bring it on I say, there'll be a counter-suit for personal distress and loss of earnings due to stress and depression brought on by their antics.
Avoid Tiscali, once you're in you can't get out.

Posted by Mary Lynne on the 30th January 2009

From December 2006 I had no connection with Tiscali. I tried to cancel my contract with them. It is virtually impossible to contact them. Their cancellation line does not answer - I spent hours trying to get through. I had to notify them by post about the cancellation. However even though I notified them, they kept charging line rental for months after. I couldn't cancel it as I had paid by credit card - so every moth I had to get visa to refund me the payment and stop it; the only way out was to destroy my credit card. Now Tiscali send me threatening letters to take me to court for £44.97 which they claim I owe them - if anything they owe me money. I will go to court if necessary as a matter of principle. Avoid Tiscali at all costs.

Posted by Martin Scarfe on the 12th January 2009

Thieves! Joined in June, had phone and broadband for 2 days then nothing.

Call centre kept saying that fault was because of BT and would be sorted within 24 hours. Then got a call out of the blue, apparently I had cancelled the account and I would be charged the full 12 months remaining amount! Rang up again and actually got an English bloke who admitted to me that Tiscali had in fact cancelled the account (they had lied) and therefore I did not owe anything. However, next day I get a letter again saying that I had cancelled the account and money would be taken out of my account and to check on my Tiscali account. As Tiscali had cancelled my account I could not access my bill and had no idea how much Tiscali planned to take from my account.

After numerous emails and letters to the complaints department (had given up on phoning) and a couple of months I got a call from Tiscali saying that I was right!! And they would refund all money they had taken out of my account and pay for me to reconnect to BT (£125). Thought great, sorted and got reconnected to BT.

Tried to get my money of Tiscali and they kept saying they did not owe me any money and I even got another letter saying that I had cancelled the account

Finally, I went to arbitration using CISAS who are in Tiscali's code of practice. Within 1 day the full amount owed plus postage costs and loss of interest was in my account (although they never told me!).

My advice is to avoid this company, but if you are having any problems with payment, Tiscali will do everything not to pay out, so that you give up. The best thing to do is keep a record of all phone calls (times and names of people spoken to), emails and letters etc and complain to each level of complaint department by recorded mail as explained in Tiscali's code of practice. Don't keep trying to contact them as they can't be arsed and will keep sending you to different departments and just makes you more stressed. After 3 months use CISAS and don't forget to claim for all postage costs, loss of interest etc. Hopefully the more people who do this OFCOM might actually take notice.

Posted by Mark on the 4th January 2009

Finally my year contract is up with them. have already sorted out a new isp. whats annoying me at the moment tho is that the cancellation lines are only open mon-fri between 9-5 or something like that. i sent them an email last night saying i am cancelling and funny enough i get a reply straight away. normally i gotta wait 2 days. And when i do switch over I am gonna have the joys of smashing my crappy speedtouch router to pieces!!! thats goona make my year! They are nothing but trouble, complete waste of space. DO NOT GO WITH THEM!!!!

Posted by dsa on the 3rd January 2009

I consider Tiscali to be one of the worse broadband providers that is in operation. Once they hook you, they ignore your needs, they cap your broadband downloads, and they refuse to give you the same speeds that they offer to new potential customers, often offered at lower prices to what you're paying. When you leave, they can be very difficult. I am very sorry to give such a scathing review, but the fact is that Tiscali really does need to be more customer friendly, especially to its current customers, instead of treating them like dirt on the street.
I am now with O2 and think that the reviews are correct, they really are the best. They always are in operation, they don't cap downloads, and their customer service is friendly and courteous. I have no regrets in swapping.

Posted by chris morris on the 17th December 2008

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Sir/Madam,

A few of days ago, I received in the post a letter from ‘’CreditLink Account Recovery Solutions ltd’’ regarding an ‘’Outstanding balance’’ of £136.66 to Tiscali.

I was a customer of Tiscali for a period of approximately 16 months, using their so called ‘’High speed broadband internet service’’.

Before you ask why I take the time to explain to you the situation, I ask you only to read. There is a point to it.

On November of 2006 I signed up with Tiscali with their 1.5mbit connection package for a monthly price of £14.99 a month, via direct debit. Almost a year after just before the termination of the 12 month contract period I called Tiscali requesting to update my account to a 8.0 mbit connection at a monthly cost of £20.00, again via direct debit.

After the new service was activated within a few days and for a period of 2-3 months I thought I was enjoying the so called ‘’High speed unlimited internet service’’. When I started investigating the actual speed that Tiscali was providing through independent internet speed check sites, I realised that it was my old connection speed of 1.5mbit although I was actually paying every month since the upgrade via direct debit for the so called “new high speed connection”. I started calling Tiscali asking why although they said the line was activated and according to them running at 8 mbit, that in reality was not the case. After endless calls to Tiscali’s operators and expert technicians, hours and hours spending on the phone (which I was paying significantly as this was an 0845 number) , countless emails and after months passed, finally Tiscali came back to me saying that the line will be activated to an 8 mbit connection as there was an “issue with BT’’. By the way after searching the internet I found this was a standard excuse, blaming BT. BT had nothing to do with it. Simply the line was never activated and I was charged for a non existent service. You may ask how I know that. Well as soon as I switched to my new ISP they activated my line to 8mbits, within a week without any issues. That says it all.

On April 2008 I requested Tiscali to provide me with the service migration code so that I could switch to an alternative ISP of my choice. Let me stress the fact that this was approximately 7 months after my request for the speed update of 8 mbits with Tiscali. ( I have included March of 2008 as the migrations takes around 2-3 weeks). Up to this point I was paying Tiscali £20.00 every month via direct debit, for a service you never provided.

As soon as I signed up with my new internet provider, a month later I got was I though it was the final bill from Tiscali for the amount of £23.00. Straight away I contacted Tiscali asking them to refund me the amount I was charged for their non-existent service for the previous months. According to my calculations it is approximately:

7 months X (20.00 -14.99) = £35.07 without including any VAT which I was paying
and approximately £25.00 on phone calls to their technicians, billing and customer care department. This comes to a total of around £60.00.

Funny enough twice when I called Tiscali the billing department hang up on me both times as I was explaining the situation to them, because clearly their couldn’t or didn’t want to answer. The third time finally, one of their employees said to me they will investigate and that I should be expecting a letter. To my amazement the letter that came through after a couple of weeks, was yet another bill of £35.00 although I wasn’t a customer of theirs for almost a month and a half. Needless to say I never called again. It was pointless.

And as a final shock almost 9 months after that last letter without any notifications from your part what so ever, I received a letter (see attached document) stating that there is an ‘’outstanding debt’’ of £136.66.

How on earth do you go from £35.00 to £136.66 unless you think that I am still Tiscali’s customer although I have switch to a new internet service provider since March 2008. If this is not ludicrous I don’t know what is.

Dear Sir/madam, it is my belief that your Debt Collecting Agency is acting based on false information provided by Tiscali. Now that you know the facts I urge you not to send me any more letters before you actually investigate the situation.

I am in the process of collecting all the necessary information and I will be contacting Consumer Watchdogs and OfCom regarding this issue, as soon as possible with all the details.

Any further correspondence from the Debt collecting agents to me in relation to this matter will result with a complaint to the authorities under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997.


Kind regards,



Thomas

Enc.

cc Office of Communications (OfCom)

Creditlink Account Recovery Solutions Limited

Posted by makis on the 3rd December 2008

Tiscali have been ok for me, when i wanted to cancel my account i simply called them and cancelled it. My advice for anyone they are chasing for money, (or any other company for that matter)especially if its NOT owed to them, is to tell them that you have complained to Ofcom about them, tell them you do NOT want them to call again and they are breaking the law if they do, its illegal for anyone to call you demanding money, especially in a menacing manner.
If this doesnt work, inform them that you have contacted the Trading Standards, AND the Financial Ombudsman. As i said i have had no bad dealings with Tiscali, but have with other companies.
All the same, it is illegal for any person/company to DEMAND money via the telephone, that puts you, or anyone else in a state of alarm.
Hope this helps.

Posted by cher on the 2nd December 2008

Tiscali has got so bad that I can't even send e-mails to friends who are using Tiscali e-mail. Here is an example of the mail delivery I get:

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

nnnn@tiscali.co.uk SMTP error from remote mail server after MAIL FROM: SIZE=5043: host mx4.uk.tiscali.com [212.74.100.150]: 550 mail not accepted from blacklisted IP address [195.173.000.000] (I have changed some details to avoid being spammed). Judging by the technical and business performance of Tiscali, I would not reccommend them to anyone.

If anyone wants to write to Tiscali, their registered office is at:
TISCALI UK LIMITED
20 BROADWICK STREET
LONDON
W1F 8HT
UK Company No. 03408171

Posted by Lew on the 1st December 2008

TISCALI - TOTALLY SHAMELESS

After leaving me without a working phone line for two months (though I could get broadband), I finally did what I'd threatened them with and switched back to BT.

Needless to say, it didn't go entirely smoothly - Tiscali cut off my broadband ten days BEFORE the switchover date and BT had problems getting all the details they needed. I made sure I cancelled my standing order, as I really didn't trust them after the lies I'd been told.

That's when the demands for money began - both by letter and phone. Apparently, because I didn't cancel by letter, I was still liable. No matter that they weren't actually supplying me with anything by this time and had totally failed to fulfill their contract. Eventually I said they should either give me the legislative base of their claim or I would regard their letters as harassment. That's when the letters from the debt collection agency began. I told them that the only way they'd get a penny out of me was with a court order, so the next letter came with a solicitor's letter too. Again, I've told them to take me to court and that in the mean time, any further correspondence from Tiscali or any agent acting on behalf of Tiscali (remember that last bit!) would be construed as harassment.

I really want to explain all this to a judge, but I think Tiscali is just waving the stick and won't actually dare bring it to court.

It's just a shame they can't spend half as much energy on customer service as they do on customer intimidation.

Posted by Chris Sadowski on the 24th November 2008

NEVER EVER GIVE TISCALI ANY MONEY.

I HATE TISCALI. we have spent HOURS talking to them after our broadband simply stopped working. at forst we just wanted them to fix it but we them realised we needed to cancel it. As many others have said it is nigh on impossible to cancel your accoutn with them. so we cancelled our direct debit. so they cut our phone lines. After finally believing we had cancelled it they keep sending us bill after bill and ringing us. A man even said today on the phone that I did not have the decency to inform tiscali i was cancelling my account. Decency???? DECENCY??????? Hypocracy MUCH.
STAY AWAY FROM TISCALI
They don't even deserve one star, they deserve MINUS stars -99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 TRILLION stars.

Posted by Heather on the 20th November 2008

I'm trying to help a friend who has literally been made ill through the lack of communication in trying to have money that Tiscali owes her, and has THE NERVE TO SAY THAT SHE OWES THEM MONEY!!!!! Can anyone help with the Managing Director's Name and contact number or email please?

This Company really has to be taken to task, they are just acting totally illegally, and positively out of hand. Thank you.

Posted by valerie rankin on the 9th November 2008

I chose Tiscali despite knowing their terrible reputation because they are cheapest and I am skint. I was fully aware before arranging to get Tiscali broadband+phone that they do unpleasant things with traffic shaping and that they have a history of billing and customer service problems. I signed up with Tiscali when I moved into a new flat. It all went as described. My father had bad experience with non-provision of service and erroneous billing so I was expecting the worst but actually it turned out fine.

The supplied (Tiscali-specific) Siemens SE587 router is very poor so I'm using my own, a D-Link which I'd always considered to be a real piece of crap but it's better than the Siemens :-0 I live about 300 yards from the exchange so the unthrottled speed down is excellent, the full 8 Mb. Upload speed is very poor indeed, I haven't measured it properly but I guess it's around 0.25 Mb.

I was expecting heavy throttling of torrents at peak times and all weekend and that's OK with me, I have a Linksys NSLU2 NAS running Debian and rtorrent which draws less power than a light bulb and which can just sit in the corner of the room running 24/7 with the torrent client on a simple scheduler. Finished torrents drop into a network share, I could no longer care less about watching speeds/progress unless it all actually stops.

What surprised me is that BBC iPlayer is very heavily throttled at peak times. I assume this really pisses off a lot of people who want to watch streaming flash or use the iplayer p2p manager. Fortunately there are workarounds. If this issue affects you then consider using get_iplayer http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/. It's a perl script, you can run it in Windows too, and you can simply download your programs without DRM in the H264 format that was intended for the iPhone. This is much higher quality than the basic streaming flash and even with Tiscali throttling you can get it at maybe 70 or 80 KB/s so it's not too long to wait (most progs are between 170 and 220 MB) and then you can watch without stuttering or interruption. There is also iplayer Downloader http://po-ru.com/projects/iplayer-downloader/ which has a Windows client and may be easier for many people.

I'd say Tiscali offer an exceptional package for the price. I get a phone line, an ADSL-2 modem/wireless router/switch and 8 Mb broadband for £15 a month. For that money any expectation of unshaped, unthrottled traffic at busy times, or low contention ratios, is just unrealistic. If I could afford another £20 or £25 a month I'd choose an ISP that does no traffic shaping and that offers me a clearly stated 300GB cap or similar but for £15 a month I'm happy with what I get. My calls to the Tiscali customer service (in India I believe) have been handled with good manners and everyone I've spoken to has been helpful and competent.

I think Tiscali is a good service for people who aren't too demanding (i.e. not using p2p 24/7 and don't need ultra low latency for gaming) and also for people who understand and can accept/deal with/workaround the limitations of this kind of pile it high sell it cheap product.

I'll rate it at 4 stars because it's C H E A P! was switched on within 4 working days, the router arrived on time, the ADSL started working on time, everything works and they haven't screwed with my billing :-) They lose one star for throttling iplayer streams as well as the iplayer p2p client.

Posted by fatty on the 7th November 2008

If anyone is taking legal action against tiscali can you please get in contact with me. I want to join you! This is no joke.

Cheers

Posted by Mick on the 7th November 2008

6 WEEKS ago I called tiscali regarding a setting on my computer which was subsequently solved. During the phone call I was sold another year of tiscali broadband having been a customer since last year - during the call I was told I had automatically renewed - I would be sent confirmation and a FREE WIRELESS ROUTER, within 5 days - that was 6 weeks ago! Since then I have spent £30 on phone calls and have twice been told I was being sent a router - the only reason I renewed - only to receive NOTHING. I am sure if I stopped my direct debit tiscali would be very quick to condemn me but how can you condone service that signs people up under false pretenses? The REASON I SIGNED UP WAS THE free wireless router. ONE THAT DOES NOT EXIST. This is a disgrace to a loyal long term customer, I feel tricked and conned. Leaves me with no option but to cancel on principle both as I haven't received my router or confirmation and also because of the pounds and pounds spent on phone calls to tiscali.

Posted by ben manning on the 21st October 2008

This is the recent email I have sent to tiscali customer service:

I am totally and utterly annoyed with tiscali not being able to do a simple job like changing an account from a tv package to a broadband package. Since day one tiscali have failed me no end, I am not a swearing man but you have drove me to it. I have checked my bill and noticed that I am on a Tiscali Max Unlimited TV Bundle plus Anytime Talk II when I should be on a 8mb broadband with free weekend calls as I cancelled my tv package about 2 months after they installed it. They removed the tv box in February 08 as the tv package was rubbish and kept on freezing.
And yet even after removing this tv package, you are still charging me for it at £21.27 a month when I should be only paying 13.99. I don't expect anyone to contact me about this email because no one ever gets back in contact with me from tiscali.

Posted by micky on the 2nd October 2008

One day in June I came across tiscali on a website and foolishly signed up. We are now into October and I am still nor have been connected. The support do not know and gives the same old excuses and just pass the problem on. I have tried to get out even before the 10 day cooling of period when you first join, only to be told I have had not gone live. I say never ever get involved with tiscali. I have just warned them that I am going to get a summons and take legal action to get out of the contract, I have tried but they will not give me my mac code. They have taken the monthly debit from my bank, and have not given me any refund. Really really bad.

Posted by audrey W on the 1st October 2008

Tiscali have taken over PIPEX much to my dismay, without going into a rant, they charge for services they don't provide, mess you about when you ring something rotten, 'pretend' to put you on hold and fail to transfer you so you are forced to ring the expensive cancellation line, which keeps you on the phone long enough to make some money off you before telling you the office is shut. Rubbish foreign call centres, badly written emails which actually lie - they won't give me a MAC code for love nor money, or tell you how to make an official complaint.

Without a doubt the worst customer service of anything ever, avoid.

Posted by Elliot Howells on the 27th September 2008

To all who have been had by tiscali we all need to sue the pants off them they have messed my phone line up completly and now i cant recieve broadband or a phone line from any provider due to the fact there a bunch of dum ass`s and to cap it all off there gunna charge me for broadband that i aint had since day 1!!! they gave me a reconditioned bt number wich worked fine at my place but when i phoned to check why its been 2 weeks and not received any broadband equipment they wouldent discuss anything with me cause it had its old owners details still attached and that only the names on the system could look into or cancel that account .after 4 weeks of trying to sort over the phone i maneged to trick a member of staff in to saying the details and after much reserch and sleuthing ive maneged to find and viset the address to find they havent lived there in 3 years talked to resadents who pointed me in the right direction and contact the couple through an estate agents wich sold the house for them /now as far as i know they have or will cancel and i can leave this nightmare behind ,i dont think its gunna be that easy thats why i call on all tiscali customers that have had simmaler or worse situations who have sat and waited on hold for hours at a time only to be told someone else can help or theres nothing they can do..go to trading standerds go to communications and internet services adudication scheme(020 7520 3827)phone watchdog on the bbc, do what you can to scew them over as much as they have done to you........together we can defeat this ps i dont give them any stars,gave em 1 just so this could get posted....

Posted by Darren Richards on the 20th September 2008

The worst ISP with the worst customer service you could imagine. If I described all their bad points it would take you all day to read it. Today I spent an hour (costing me £6) on the phone to their customer care (more like don't care) team, just to get one simple question answered. I had to speak with four people because the first three put me on hold and each time I was put on hold the phone cut off. Don't even consider getting an account with them.

Posted by Emma on the 9th September 2008

Tiscali are complete idiots. I joined in January and so wish I didnt. Have emailed them so many times, i always get a reply but they tell me to do the same old stuff. The connection is crap and have emailed their complaints service today. I threatened them that if they didnt sort it out then i would leave and wouldnt pay them a penny due to crap service and crap connection. They make me so mad. A complete waste of my money too.

Posted by dsa on the 8th September 2008

Don't go near this company if you want them to provide you with a decent broadband service and a decent level of customer service. I have been with Tiscali as my broadband provider for three years and no problems. All the problems begin when you move house. I moved house early in August and informed Tiscali of this (4th August), they put the order in to move the broadband and it would be 10-15 days. It is now over a month since the order and still no broadband (6 Sept). I have now spent many hours on the phone to their inept call centre staff, many of whom speak very poor english and cannot understand you trying to resolve the matter but everytime you call you get a different story, and as some other posts suggest Tiscali customer services do lie to their customers just to get you off the phone. When you ask to be put through to a supervisor they just cut you off, this has happened three times now. They say that someone from their technical or provisions department will call you back but no-one ever does....worst still they claim to have records that they did call you! I have now been told that my case has been transferred to a UK department that I cannot contact myself and must just wait...for how long nobody can tell me. I have absolutely no faith in Tiscali to provide the broadband service, they are just completely inept and whilst all this is going on I am still paying for the non-existant broadband service. You are assured of a refund by their customer service once all this is resolved, but I cannot begin to imagine how long that would take at the moment.

I don't really want to give any stars at all as they are hopeless but you need to put one to get the post up

Posted by Darren on the 7th September 2008

Avoid Tiscali at all costs. Their speeds are too slow for IPlayer, Youtube, Filesharing. You get no where with complaints, and they lock you into a 12 month contract. Choose someone else.

Posted by Stuart Douglas on the 4th September 2008

I had been a Tiscali customer for over 2 years and had no problems at all, up until the moment i decided to leave. It is near impossible to terminate your contract with them. After ringing them i received a letter on 16/05/2008 telling me that the transfer would take place on the 28/05/2008 which was the date my new conection would begin. I rang and spoke to Ricki at the london office and asked when i would make my final payment and she told me early June 6th or 7th, so on the 20/06/2008 i cancelled the direct debit. Since then i have received letters asking me to fill in and return direct debit mandates for an account which has been fully paid and terminated. I have even received a request for an outstanding balance to be paid on the 21/08/08. I rang them and told them no way and up till now i have not heard another thing from them. My advise to anyone wishing to change internet suppliers is A:- Make sure you are aware of the date of your final payment and B:- CANCEL YOUR DIRECT DEBIT AT THE LOCAL BRANCH OF YOUR BANK AND GET WRITTEN PROOF THAT THEY HAVE. No direct debit no money then you have the controlling hand!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Adrian on the 1st September 2008

DO NOT TOUCH THIS BAND OF VILLAINS AND VAGABOUNDS!!

I have been through Consumer advisory service, they passed me to TYrading Standard, they couldn't get ther either, and I have had it with them - PLEASE JOIN ME in emailing/wreiting to the tabloid newspapers.

They offered to try to contact Tiscali for me, and I have given them the high level complaints dept., which I have relentlessly tried to get through to, with no success.

Please ignore the one-star rating I have given them, it was the only way I could post the reply. I'd rate them at around MINUS 7billion trillion!!!

Posted by AVIE on the 30th August 2008

Endless problems, constantly dropping connection. Beem thorugh 2 routers. I get less than 2mb on an 8mb line. Customer service is appauling. 2nd line support is appauling. They are all robots incapable of listening and using independant thought. They lie and do not keep promises. I would rather pay double to BT - at least they provided british tech support. Wish I had never cancelled my Virgin package now. I rarely had a problem in 3 years with them.

AVOID AVOID AVOID - NO STARRS

Posted by Stu T on the 17th August 2008

had them had to go to off com to get the phone lin on two months later still no broadband got fed up talking to them and went to BT for phone still cant get on to the enternet (have to borrow other peoples) and they are charging me £70 cause I broke my contract Idon't think so.
Have tried to contact Managing Directors and they are just egnoring my letters. Next Step to take time off work and Camp on there door step at Stevenage any one want to join me

Posted by Maxine Durling on the 16th August 2008

Rubbish. It took 3 weeks to actually activate my broadband, claiming bt still has the line flagged. Hello bt, is my line still under you powers? BT - not for the last 3 weeks it hasn't been. My connection has been down since Sunday, I ring India and speak to someone who can't speak coherent English.

Posted by op on the 5th August 2008

Tiscali are the worst internet service I've ever seen in my life. The connection drops every 5 minutes, huge speed variation, currently paying 15 pounds a month for 0.3mb bandwidth on average, when we pay for 8mb! Have not upgraded internet like they said they would. They are the worst ISP in the world, and the customer service is APPALLING. There isn't a customer service, they are rude and informal when answering questions and really DON'T know what they are rambling on about. Useless.

Posted by Will on the 27th July 2008

Cancelled my a/c 14 months ago and they have still not refunded money they owe to me.

Can't get in touch easily. They don't give a monkey's.

Can't advise not getting involved with these scumbags strongly enough.

Posted by Graham on the 16th July 2008

I totally agree with Jeanette. Tiscali are the worse company I have dealt with.

I moved house two months ago and am still awaiting my telephone line and broadband service to be connected.

Currently I am on my third connection date.

the best is that the last time I spoke to them they were trying to set up connection on my previous address!!!

In the last year I must have spent days on the phone to them listening to their god awful music. They give you promises and never keep to them.

My advice to anyone is to steer clear of this company at all costs. You will regret it if you don't heed this advice.

Good luck all

Posted by Keith Ivory on the 15th July 2008

KEEP AWAY FROM THEM! Absolutely useless. Took 3 weeks to get internet instead of the 7-10 days I was promised. Wireless router didnt turn up when it was supposed to and when it eventually appeared didnt work. They ignored my emails. I spent over 2 hours on an expensive phone line trying to get things sorted. Customer services were rude and told downright lies and refused to let me speak to a manager and as for the technical dept I had to tell them how to do things! Nearly a month since I joined and still cant access wireless only on the net at all as borrowed someone's modem and have to sit next to the phone line which is in an awkward place. And to cap it all my P2P downloads dont work. Dreading trying my FTP.

Am contacting watchdog and other appropriate bodies and have got the name of a managing director and will write to him. Something should be done about them they tell lies to get customers and then couldnt care less what happens to them. They dont deserve any stars at all.

Posted by claire on the 10th July 2008

DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT SIGNING UP WITH THEM.
Tiscali have let me down big time.
I am moving house and cannot go until my broadband & phone is connected at the new house . I trusted this job to Tiscali - who told me 6 - 10 days.
After 7 daya i had heard nothing about a connection date so i began to try to contact them. i was put through after dozens of calls to their Connection dept who told me I was to be patient and that it will be done in time. they gave me a TIS number.
3 days later I was ringing again - bear in mind Im being charged 10p a minute to listed to their music for 40 mins at a time.
I cant get through to anywhere as I cannot supply a telephone number.
When i do speak to someone (in sales as thats the only department i can reach) im told that the TIS number i was given doesnt exist - they dont have TIS numbers - and worse still - THAT MY ORDER WAS NEVER PLACED IN THE FIRST PLACE!
So here we are, packed up - with half our belongings in one house - half in another - cant move house as I need access to the internet 24/7 almost - and I have to start again
the nice guy in sales sais - never mind we'll start again and make sure it goes through this time....What? they think i would trust them again after what they have done to us?
I ran BT and was given a date in 2 days for the telphone and a telephone number!
I rang Virgin and will wait 5 more days to have my present account transferred to the new number.
I could have done this in the first place but someone mentioned the great packages and i got tempted.
I would never recommend Tiscali to anyone.
In fact - im considering suing them - if i can get enough evidence.

Posted by Jeanette Wilks on the 16th June 2008

Tiscali called me and told me to switch my line rental to them as it would be free.

THEY CALLED ME.

They promised to contact BT to switch my line rental.

They stopped sending me my bills by mail.

I checked my bill online and it turns out they have been charging me for line rental on top of my broadband for 10 months.

I phone up their premium rate tiscali customer services and they promise to send me a cheque refunding my line rental for 10 months.

I then find out they did not contact BT whom I have also paid over £100 line rental on top of the tiscali line rental in the last 10 months.

After no cheque arrives I recall premium rate customer services who tell me now that I need to send in proof of payment of my BT line rental.

They never mentioned this before.

They also tell me the case has been closed and I'm not getting refund.


This is theft.

They called me.

They promised me free line rental.

They promised to cancel my existing line rental from BT.

They promised to refund me.

They cost me over £200 with their false promises and still no refund.

FRAUD

FRAUD

FRAUD

Posted by Ade on the 11th June 2008

Dear Sir
It is with no regret that I write to ask you to inform me in writing of the earliest date that I can terminate my contract with you that will not incur me any form of “early closure penalties”.

This is due in the main to an appalling level of customer service, your seeming unwillingness or inability to communicate with your customers, and that in order to do anything I have no option to make frequent time consuming long distance calls to India.

When calling initially to set up the account I voiced concern’s to your staff that some consumer reports on your service levels were not complementary due to the difficulties people had in contacting you as your operations were run from India, but was assured that this was “not an issue any longer” as UK operations were now established in Manchester, thereby negating this issue.

Subsequently this turns out not to be the case, as far as I am able to establish only the sales call centre is in the UK, every thing else is done via the telephone to India, an expense not bourn my the company but by the customer, and is in my opinion totally unacceptable, insofar as when the system fails,(something it does frequently), I am left with option but to pay you, (I incur the cost of the call), to tell you that something I’m paying you for isn’t working!

Even such a simple thing as sending you an email is made impossible without again incurring costs. Your system demands a second email address, if you don’t have one you can’t send an email, and in order to get one once again you expect the customer to spend time money and effort calling you to obtain one.

I feel that your whole enterprise is not about providing a “fair” service for a “reasonable” cost, but one of intentionally providing a “poor” level of service, done in order to “maximise” company profits by making money from a constant stream of customer’s telephone calls, paid by them to you.

Yours Faithfully,

T.G.Barnes.

Account Number ***************.

Nuf Said!!!!!

Posted by Barney on the 4th June 2008

agree with all complaints i signed up for broadband and phone package
still on a d s l for nearly a year with the old modem i received 5 years ago
everytime i contact them i get an e mail reff upgrading my package
latest e mail says they cant find my name or package details
if this is so how can they send a bill every month
really getting brassed off
perhaps we should all send watchdog an e mail

Posted by jack mcgee on the 21st May 2008

There is not enough webspace to put into words how I feel about the service Tiscali does not give you. It is only the inconvenience of changing email addresses etc that stop me from cancelling the 2 accounts I have with them. All I will say is STAY AWAY FROM THEM they are USELESS. The technical helpdesk is run by pre-programmed robots who do not listen to what you are saying and the billing department will suspend your account at the drop of a hat and take days to reinstate your service. And they never say sorry when it is their mistake. The technical support team (2nd level) are extremely rude and arrogant and I really hate the way you have to go over the same ground when you phone them (at 10p a minute) to find out why they have not replied to your query. AVOID TISCALI LIKE THE PLAGUE. THEY ARE TOTAL C**P! My blood is boiling just thinking about the fact that such an incompetent outfit can call themselves an ISP.

Posted by CASSANDRA on the 22nd April 2008

I've worked in Tiscali Sales dept for eight months and have had a pristine service from the company for a full five months. No complaints at all; service has been perfect even through server crashes in the area. Tiscali may have had lots of bad reviews, but you really have to think - out of over a million customers, what's the ratio of happy customers to unhappy customers? Count me towards the happy ones.

Posted by Kayla on the 18th April 2008

Please do not go with Tiscali. I agree with everything that has been said, the cost of service calls etc. The worst thing is not being able to understand a word the service desk say, and the complete inability to get a mac code. You ask, they say they can't give it to you, it has to be the engineers dept. They will not let you ring that dept, but say they will get the engineers dept to ring you, then of course you never hear from them. We have been trying for a year to change provider but without the mac code you are scuppered.

Posted by VIVIEN PRINCE on the 17th April 2008

Avoid them like the plague! They lie. My moving home reprovision sat in some in-tray in Deli waiting for two months before someone in the cancellation team in the UK submitted the request. This was after I had threatened cancellation. It works for tiscali because they get to keep you on the phone for ages and they get paid from the 0845 lines anyway. They were charging me full price despite only providing 25% of performance.
They epitomise what is wrong with the bulk of half-baked orgnisations in the UK, where the words CUSTOMER and SATISFACTION can not be used in the same sentence. The sooner organisations like this fold up, the better. The public will not be bombarded with seemingly good providers that are only too eager to take your money and not deliver. I haven't experienced the direct debit after cancellation thing yet but I don't doubt that they pull such robberies.
P.S. Unfortunately, this site does not allow a negative rating! That's what Tiscali deserves.

Posted by Lawrence on the 15th April 2008

Had them for over two years now and I can honestly say they are rubbish. I am currently on the 8 Mb deal and I checked the speed and actually get under 2; can't wait until the contract runs out in a few months time. About 50, 1 star ratings can't be wrong: bad ratings, bad service, and they don't listen... Just do what the person below me said and AVOID AVOID AVOID...

Posted by Thomas on the 14th April 2008

AVOID like the black plague. I signed up with Tiscalli back when I was at uni in Sept '06 and the entire time I had problems. Problems with connection, line speed, it was nowhere near 1Mb let alone the supposed 8 they were offering. Then when you have to cancel with them... don't even get me started. First of all none of their staff can understand you because they live in India. I left uni in July, took me until November to properly cancel it because of the problems I was having. Ironically, the only time I ever received good support was the last guy I spoke to who finally put the account to rest... always ask for William!

Posted by Tom on the 11th April 2008

AVOID AVOID AVOID
I want to weep whenever I had to contact Tiscali. Customer service is disgraceful and one gets told blatant lies. No response to emails and it costs a ton to phone 10p a minute call centres. Thankfully with O2 at a mere 6,50 a month.
AVOID AVOID AVOID

Posted by Flake on the 26th March 2008

Tiscali are THIEVES. If you cancel an account with them and the direct debit - they just re-enable the Direct Debit and take your money again. The bank WILL let them do this - its in the DD small print. They man their cancellation phone line with a dead pigeon - it's never answered.

Posted by JOhn Thomas on the 24th March 2008

Tiscali are rubbish at customer satisfaction, they never answer your calls and emails, they are charging me 17-99 per month for broadband, and talk two and I don't even have or want talk two. I have told them this time and time again, they just don't listen and I've tried changing my package but it won't let me. I would not even give them one star, I would advice anyone not to join them, rating 00000.

Posted by richard wilson on the 20th March 2008

I joined Tiscali in May 2006. I signed up for their broadband and telephone package. In January 2007 I changed my telephone number. Between then and October 2007 I was unable to log on to broadband - a period of 10 months. After many infuriating conversations with their Technical Support Team in India (some calls lasting over an hour) and their Customer Services Team , I decided to cancel my subscription. Yes, Tiscali still took my money even though they were not providing me with a service. I thought that would be the end of it, but it certainly wasn't. After changing my broadband supplier I still received monthly bills from Tiscali. I don't know how many times I called them to say I was no longer with them, and that they in fact owed me 10 months subscription fees for the time I was without broadband. I cancelled my direct debit in December, so that they couldn't take any more money, and now I am being threatened by their Collections Team. They say that if I don't pay, I will be transferred to a debt collector which could mean additional costs and an affect on my credit rating. If you are thinking about using Tiscali as an ISP, please DON'T. I have never been treated in such a bad way by a company in my life. Unfortunately I have to enter one star but it really should be zero.

Posted by Helen on the 19th March 2008

Lol, exactly the same comments as Mrs Johnstone below. We migrated away in October 2007 and are enjoying our internet with Nildram. Since then we have been billed and had money taken by Tiscali each month. Cancelled the direct debit on their advice and now have debt collection threatened. Endless promises of refund, no cheque. Small Claims Courts via moneyclaim.gov.uk is our next port of call. DON'T EVER USE TISCALI.

Posted by D Williams on the 17th March 2008

I've had an appalling experience with Tiscali. I won't go into it but instead have contact BBC's Watchdog. If everyone could do the same maybe they will raise an issue. There's nothing like bad publicity to make a company mend its ways. Sometimes.

Posted by Rebecca on the 15th March 2008

To be totally honest Tiscali have been the best internet provider I've used to date in over 12 years of internet use, value coupled with the latest technical innovations delivered. There have been issues but you learn, having dealt with so many companies in the past to be patient, polite and persistent any issues I've had have been resolved and they have been few. What is the point of ranting and raving it will get you no where.

Posted by Tracy on the 14th March 2008

Complete rubbish, stay well away from these clowns. They fail at net provision. I just hope ppl check sites like these before believing all the hype and sad to say lies of the adverts.

Posted by johno on the 10th March 2008

Tiscali = rubbish
After 3 months of arguing with their Indian call centers about my 6mb connection (upgraded my account tor their 8mb packaged) that down-graded itself to less than 2mb was given this barely legible email:

"As I understand through your mail that after upgrading to 8 Meg still your receiving only 2.7 Meg. I apologise for the inconvenience and sorry for the delay response, as I checked your accounts I found that you wont be able to receive more than 2 Meg though you Line supports 8 Meg because as per Circuit build on your exchange as off now we wont be able to provide you more then 2 meg. Would like request you that you can call billing and asked them to downgrade your package to 2 Meg. Number for our billing is 0871 222 3311 with option 2 and then 2.
For further concern please revert us and we will assist you in better ways."

What a lot of rubbish. I had a 6mb connection to start with! Customer service = rubbish (and very rude). Technical support = clueless (read from a script ). If their was a zero rating I would give them that. Don't touch these idiots with a long pole.

Posted by Kevin Thomson on the 3rd March 2008

I joined tiscali about 2 years ago and I've been paying for 2mb broadband; all I get is 20-40kb. I think they are rubbish and that nobody should join. I also bought a wireless router tried to phone up and get help putting it on, I spent ages on the phone with them telling me to press buttons that were not on the router with accents that were so bad I had to ask them to say it again twice to understand it. Then it didn't work and I had to reset it again, I now have it running through my wireless and Ethernet and still hardly manages 40kbs download speed.

Posted by Jack Fairbrother on the 28th February 2008

Stay away from Tiscali, I don't know how they are still in business, never answer emails and impossible to get on the phone. All in all a bad service.

Posted by MOGGIES on the 27th February 2008

I have never known such a bad company, it would be faster walking to the moon than trying to contact the so called Customer Service (what a joke). I've been trying to contact them for days with a problem, stay away! They don't even deserve 1 star.

Posted by SUE on the 27th February 2008

Tiscali were OK when I first joined 4 years ago but now I think they should be closed down, they are not even worthy of the title internet and telephone provider, they are a complete joke. I am sick of trying to make contact with them with ongoing problems, when you do hear from them its just a pack of lies and what they tell you is standard script. If anyone knows of a way to speak to a human who actually knows what they are talking about, please do let me know. I can't even get through to someone to get my MAC number now, and I know by law they should provide that within 5 days.

Posted by Debbie G on the 21st February 2008

Do not sign up with Tiscali unless you want rubbish service, slow speeds and to be ripped off. I left them in December after 2 years. I range to let them know I was leaving and a few days before I left, I received a 2 'customer courtesy call' (I had never had one of these in all my time with them - what a coincidence). The first time they cut me off as my boyfriend passed the phone to me, they rang back a couple of days later to inform me of their 'special offers' for me and when I said 'you should've offered them to me sooner' they cut me off. They then sent a bill for the whole month, I wrote back asking for an amended bill twice but deny any knowledge of me informing them I was leaving even they rang me as well! They are now threatening me with debt collectors and to blacklist my name; all this because I paid what I owed. Tiscali is getting nasty cos I refuse to pay for extra two weeks as I'm already with a new supplier. It must be illegal of them to treat me this way. I was a good customer who never defaulted on payments - maybe that's why!

Posted by Karen on the 18th February 2008

My husbands contract with Tiscali ended, he requested and got mac code, this was July last year. Every month since then Tiscali have taken payments out of his bank account for a service they no longer provide. 3 long and outrageously expensive phone calls to their customer services dept resulted in 3 promises that the cheque is in the post regarding a refund. Still waiting for cheque to arrive. Will be taking Tiscali to County Courts if they do not refund money they have taken.

Posted by Mrs Johnstone on the 16th February 2008

I can vouch for most of the comments about tiscali, as being one of their customers I have been suffering the same, slow speeds of late 24/7, more recently between 5pm and 12/1 am before I get any where near my advertised speed of 2mb, plus not able to go to speedtest.net since telling tech support I use it to monitor my speeds, even e-mailed Mary Turner (head honcho) or used to be, just the same response you get from cust services. Zero, no response. They are useless all the way. The recent ads on t.v. make me laugh, superfast broadband - that has to be miss-selling and should be reported to trading standards as others have said don't use tiscali. Unless you want problems that seem never to get resolved... I certainly will not be renewing my contract with them or continuing it either. Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask when he robbed people on the highways, they are worse...

Posted by Tom Rimmer on the 13th February 2008

For the last week or two I have not been able to get a connection. Tiscali 'help' (misnomer if there ever was one) either through email or phone are clueless. I suspect it is to do with Tiscali putting everyone in my area up to 8mb and overloading things. Not that they will admit it. I have also been trying unsuccessfully to change my package details for 6 months and as a result have been overpaying - do they care! I'm desperate to change to another ISP but they all sound as bad as each other.

Posted by Paul B on the 13th February 2008

Warmning!!! To anybody contemplating signing up to tiscali - don't do it. I'm sick to death of being unable to log onto the web because their servers have gone down again. I had hoped they would sort this out. That was months ago and still the same unreliable service. Don't make the same mistake. Look elsewhere.

Posted by S Piper on the 11th February 2008

Tiscali don't deserve to be in business even the term Internet Service Provider when it comes to them is a breach of advertising standards. I have been a customer of theirs for 2 years no and at first they were pretty good. But after my 12 months contract was up was when the problems started. I am on the Max 8mb package and over the last 12 months my speed has become appalling. Until a couple of months ago it was averaging 2 mbps then it dropped to below 512mbps. In fact on 2 separate occasions it went down to 2kbps yes thats right 2 kilobytes per second. Over 2 weeks ago I lodged a complaint with them about the slow speeds after getting a snotty FUP letter. Tiscali kept telling me that it was a fault at the exchange. I spoke to one of the engineers at my local exchange who told me there was no fault that the problem was Tiscali had over extended them selves with customer uptake and they had placed a speed cap on lines to prevent their whole network from collapsing under the strain. I don't know how true this is but it makes more sense than I have had a faulty line for over a year and Open Reach are ignoring it. Eventually after getting fed up with the lack of service I requested a mac code and within minutes of Sky giving me an activation date my broadband died. I rang Tiscali and was told it was an exchange fault (after them trying to get me to do a load of pointless tests including speed tests duh I HAVE NO INTERNET). I am not one to believe in coincidences so I take Tiscali's assertions of exchange faults with a pinch of salt. I rang Sky and BT both did line tests and said there was nothing wrong. So today I rang Ofcom and was told that Tiscali had broken the rules (Article 22). Ofcom rang Tiscali at 16.57, my internet back on at 17.21 albeit at a constant 512kbps. I believe after reading all the horror stories on here and other forums that senior management at Tiscali have a covert policy to lie to and defraud their customers. I intend to contact the Serious Fraud Office with a view to having the management of Tiscali brought to justice and here is where I need your help. What I am after is all circumstances where Tiscali has obtained money by deception. This can be where you have been quoted that you can get a speed and you get substantially less. Where Tiscali cuts you off after you get a mac code but still expect you to pay citing dubious exchange faults. Where Tiscali have taken money even after migration is complete. I need you to give specific details incl your email addy should the police need to contact you.

Posted by Andrew Macleod on the 8th February 2008

Never choose Tiscali, I started with them 1.5 years ago, they were initially good, but now they are terrible, I have no internet for 1 week SO FAR and every time when I call them (0871 number!!!) they promise to solve the problem in 4 hours, but now it's a week and every time I stay for 30 minutes on the phone!!!

Posted by James on the 5th February 2008

What an absolute rubbish.

I have been without connection for 4 days now and told everyday it will be another 24 hours.

On hold for ages trying to get through.

Off shore call centre with polite but scripted staff who do nothing but irritate you with their standard phrases of consolation.

Before you sign up with tiscali wait, think again and then go somewhere else. They are truly awful.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt last year when my email was down for a week - this time I'm off even if it costs me more money. For the last year I have had nothing but down time and slow connections.

Why do they think a rebate for 4 days service (£1.93) will make me feel happy?

Tiscali!!!!! - it's not about the price you spanner - it's the sheer inconvenience and inept ability of your website or phone line to show an accurate service status and the robotic call centre staff who are completely clueless - and your ability to provide a reliable service.

Come on people - vote with your feet!!!!!

Posted by Don Aitken on the 4th February 2008

I have had no probs with tiscali for 2 yrs UNTIL NOW! I cannot connect to lobby on COD4 between 6-11pm. Rang them and told them about this and asked if it was because of their fair usage policy. They said it wasn't that because I didn't come under their policy. Said they were trying to fix the problem but its still the same after 2 weeks. How hard can it be! Don't want to change but Tiscali are going to force me and many others to do just that!

Posted by Stephen Drury on the 28th January 2008

What can I say that hasn't been said. I rang tech support cause all my torrents are being closed between what is meant to be 6pm to 11pm but for me seem to be around 4ish until well after 12. Spoke to some Indian being total that tiscali put no restrictions on the line at all, and I may just experience some slow down during peek times. I explain I ain't experiencing slow down, I am experiencing a complete stop.. "This is not possible Sir." What, am i lying? So eventually I located to FUP and I accept that torrents are a stain on the like and blocking them is no problem but then call of duty 4 came my was for ps3 and boom not only are they blocking my torrents they are blocking my gaming? How can this be? So I ring them speaking to 1 guy at 1 am explaining my torrents and ps3 are unconnectable... "You can not connect to the internet sir" are you not listening to what I am saying... so after line test etc. in the middle of conversation my torrents came back online.. so tried ps3 boom back online also. Did'nt wanna waste anymore time and said thanks I am back online blah blah knowing he did nottin just the peak hrs had finish at an absurd 1 am.. Then I have to call them cause for the 3rd Saturday in a row my Ps3 is unaccessible online... Talked to another guy, he ran test blah blah, then said he can't access the relevant information and put me back on the main line and press 2, 2 this will take me to right department.. BS that was billing department. Altho an English based department they appologise saying I shouldn't be transferred and was put back on the main line to tech department wait over 30mins to get thro to another operator "what is your problem sir", I explained I am gettin no connection on the playstation 3 network.. "sorry sir I don't understand your problem" repeated this several times trying to explain a little better each time.. "ok sir what router are you using?" I said it's not a router problem. "I know sir but I need to know so the router department may help." So I accepted this she then went on what type of windows are you using. I lost it, I am not using window on a playstation 3. Ok so then she says "ok sir can I give you the number of the department that will help you." Ok finally were are getting somewhere, I replied. "Can you not just transfer me?" "Sorry sir I do not have the facility to do so..." So I took the number, phoned the number and she had given me the number for BELKIN yes Belkin I was so annoyed. Anyways am now going to attempt to transfer / request the MAC code... Wish me luck!!!

P.S. I never received any FUP emails but yet it was clearly put on my account. Never in my life have I been messed around so much, it's a joke...

Posted by Gerball on the 26th January 2008

Tiscali broadband has been the worst connection I have ever come across. Line speed is VERY slow, regular drop outs, technical support is poor, billing / customer service departments a joke. Staff are rude and poorly trained etc.

And the real problems only start when you ask for a MAC code. Leaving Tiscali has taken me 4+ months. And even now they continue to chase payment for the 4 months since after I cancelled.

I've swapped to Sky. Granted the speed is less than the 8Mb advertised. But that's normal! But the service I get is 100% better and at least the connection is stable. Plus the wireless router seems ok. I'd rate Tiscali lower than one star but it isn't an option.

Posted by Neil P on the 23rd January 2008

Despite canceling my Tiscali order with hours of placing it, they still grabbed my ADSL and started to bill me. They have disrupted my service with my contracted supplier, delayed supplying a MAC, and for reasons that escape me, provided a 1Mbps service on a line that has handled 6.5Mbps via BT for years. Their customer support line is staffed by people who are mostly unintelligible and their hold music, with which you WILL become very familiar is very annoying. They don't even deserve one star. Completely useless.

Posted by Mark Bell on the 22nd January 2008

I left this shambles in desperation. However, today they send me a letter saying they see I cancelled my direct debit. On phoning them, they have not cancelled the account (despite giving me a migration code!). I was put through to cancellations and the phone was not answered in 35 minutes. I gave up. They can send their collection agents etc... What a poor operation is this? Stay away.

Posted by Eugene Thomson on the 21st January 2008

I signed up for the 8mb package with unlimited telephone calls. Tiscali feed back on requests for help non existent, Tech desk personnel no command of English, rude and intolerant. Date of set up changed, then reverted back, no communication. Installation disk and filters turned up 3 days later after line set up. Initially the download speeds were great! 1 month later have average of 512 kb per second downloads. It is a totally rubbish set up now. I have constant line drop outs and now having discovered this forum I realise all is not well with Tiscali. I should have researched better. I feel like driving down to Milton Keynes and letting them have a personal volley of my dismay at their totally rubbish set up. Customer care is something that Tiscali have no conscience about whatsoever.
My advice to anyone considering using Tiscali is don't do it! Your blood pressure will be sky high! The claimed Tiscali download speeds are total fantasy. My home is less than 500 metres from the exchange! I am seriously thinking of taking the matter to the Trading standards Office and the advertising standards authority 01487 for total misrepresentation. I have 10 months left with them and I will then move on after doing some extensive research.

Posted by Bob Lancaster on the 20th January 2008

Here it is then. Probably the first of a number of rants. I have been with this crowd of jokers for a few years now. The only reason I haven't moved so far is that I need my broadband service and I don't want to wait months for the line to be cleared. I complained a couple of years ago about how much I was paying for the slow lane on the internet and they upgraded me to a 2 Mbps service for the same price, probably just to shut me up! A speed check revealed that this had happened. Without any kind of warning they recently dropped me back to 512kb (same price). I only found out when I started speed checking my line again. The complaints people (after repeating the complaint 6 times in one session) emailed me to say that I was no longer eligible for that package and - get this - have no history of ever being on the faster speed!!! Liars?? Oh yes! Prove it? Probably not. Apparently I am to wait a max of 48 hours for technical support to contact me. I want the service I am paying for - what on earth will technical support do for me that the complaints and billing people couldn't. I honestly despair!!

Posted by Frank Gibson on the 18th January 2008

I took a business broadband package as the last provider (DEMON) were very good but only offered 50gig a month before the fup came into force, tiscali business has no fup.
But the first day after activation I found out they don't allow you to use peer2peer during peek times, whereas with demon I could use it at any time but not to go over my 50gig or they drop the bandwidth for a short period. I have phoned tiscali who said "nothing can be done." As soon as my 90 day contract expires I will go back to demon.

Posted by Jones8430 on the 14th January 2008

I am now stuck with tiscali for another 10months unless I pay upfront the rest of the contract which would end in Nov 08. Tiscali is the worst service provider I have ever, ever come across. My son has had problems trying to connect to x-box live for nearly 12months now, after calling microsoft for advice, then calling tiscali and been kept on the phone for nearly 1hr with somebody that couldn't even understand me and didn't have a clue what he was talking about, we are no further forward, tiscali are not interested in trying to sort this out, they are rubbish. Most of my sons friends are with BT and don't seem to have any problems with the connection.

Posted by Tracy Hargreaves on the 13th January 2008

NO STARS. The most appalling (lack of) service I have ever encountered, plus extremely dishonest business practices. Avoid Tiscali at all costs.

I received no connection whatsoever for 2 months while with Tiscali, however still paid them for the service they were not providing. I called them frequently, was lied to, fobbed off and had false appointments made which they did not stick to. Unsurprisingly I cancelled and changed to Plusnet a few months ago, no problems with them so far.

Anyway... now I keep getting letters demanding money which I don't owe. Firstly from Tiscali - so I phoned them, they apologised, said the account was cleared and the matter settled. Now getting more of the same letters, from their debt collection companies, threatening to take me to court, send the bailiffs round, etc. Unbelievable.
I've just spent my evening having to write letters of complaint threatening legal action, what fun. Tiscali will make trouble for you.

Posted by Mat Blackshaw on the 10th January 2008

I switched from Tiscali in March 07, however have been hounded by debt collectors looking for money up until November '07 when tiscali 'ended' my account. I have letters confirming switch over dates from both tiscali and my newer provider, mac codes and the welcome letters etc. all from March '07. Yet despite seeing this Tiscali are still wanting money up until end Nov '07. Rubbish service the whole time. I paid for up to 8meg and got less than 1 most times. AvoidD!! I give 1 star but even that is to much. Pathetic!!

Posted by Jas on the 7th January 2008

After having had to deal with Tiscali's utterly incapable helpdesk personnel and their wonderfully creative use of English coupled with bad static and interference on the line (much as you'd get with a call to say, India, for instance; actually, exactly like that), we finally gave up on Tiscali. Having been told we needed another modem (five times), our subports were faulty (on two computers with mouse, keyboard and hard-disks quite happily using them), my harddisk was broken (what?) and lastly my registry as well, they suggested we cancel. During the many months we'd been calling them to get it all fixed, we were more than happy to oblige, as we'd began shopping around, and decided there were better choices around, if not just downright no poorer ones. Of course, don't count on Tiscali releasing your line to BT again, it's not going to happen. We've racked up at least 50 hours talking to their helpdesk (including being on hold, obviously, but it adds up!), and now that we're being taken for fools once more, it's cost us considerately more than we were willing to pay. Don't go for Tiscali as the 'cheap choice', please. They're far from cheap if you run into the slightest snag, as should be clear enough from reading all of the comments on this page!

Posted by Michael Knubben on the 4th January 2008

I found Tiscali very poor. Speed variations were huge (I was running at less than 150kbps download speed for nearly a month) and had the runaround with customer service who insisted it was the line which was limited to 512kbps - even though I was running regularly at over 3 Mbps before the drop in speed. I changed to another ISP and wish I had never touched Tiscali. A VERY negative rating!

Posted by Richard Skaife on the 31st December 2007

Unreliable.

When I signed up for broadband I understood the service to be always available. There are periods when I cannot connect to the Tiscali network reliably for days on end. The line is not at fault because I am baulked at the "Verifying username and password" stage... It is the Tiscali internal network that is not adequate for the customer base. I am not a large user and try to connect during the day. In the evenings, if you can connect, the speeds are abysmal. At the end of May 2007 when Tiscali had a catastrophic mail system failure they told users that email is an add-on to their service and that users should not rely on it! I want to know why Trading Standards and Ofcom are not independently and automatically monitoring the standard of service provided by ISP's and taking them to task for failures. As for Tiscali, I cannot recommend it.

Posted by Paul Clark on the 30th December 2007

Wow, so many of you guys are having such a problem with Tiscali, trust me, I am having loads of problems. Since I have signed up to Tiscali UK, 4 years ago, I though I was going to get a fantastic service, but I got nothing in return, I requested my mac code loads of times! no, I haven't got it. I can't download torrents after 6PM everyday, even in the P2P times it's very slow! Without the peer 2 peer I get 800kb/s but that's not what I am supposed to be getting with 8meg line? Around 1024 + I am supposed to be getting! Any help on this?

Posted by Nick Cocchiarella on the 20th December 2007

Absolutely terrible, their fair usage policy is the biggest load of BS I've ever seen. It's slow, even when I upgraded to 8 meg, and a network. My dear sweet grandmother can make a better modem than what they give out. Avoid. P.S. Can we get negative stars please?

Posted by Borna on the 23rd November 2007

I joined Tiscali in May. Wished I'd never moved from Plusnet. Tiscali broadband service is rubbish. Drop outs, huge speed variation, and even authentication / ppp problems. Sometimes huge amounts of users can’t log on because their authentication server is down. You'd have thought they'd design a service that was highly available. Duh! They complained when I used 10GB one month! Why??!! It’s UNLIMITED!! Their customer service is even more shit than their broadband service, they don’t know what they're doing, asking the same questions again and again... making money off the 0870 numbers. They probably have a good laugh at us - there's another 10p/min! Great! Keep clear. Only today they have now had enough of me, and informed me that they are letting me go without any penalties. Good riddance Tiscali!

Posted by Stevieb on the 22nd November 2007

Do not go near Tiscali. We joined them several years ago, when they first started and were trying to gain customers. The service was originally excellent, although we were paying £24.99 a month for 5Mgbps. The service has deteriorated over the years. Last year I discovered that while we were paying £24.99pm for 5Mgbps, Tiscali were offering 8Mgbps for £17.99!! It took me over six months to get transferred to this cheaper service. It was always 'being actioned', but nothing ever happened. Then we started having difficulty logging on to Tiscali. The connection kept timing out. Even if we did manage to connect it only lasted for about five to ten minutes, then we were disconnected. Again we kept having to try and log back on again. With the same results. We contacted their Support team, who told us to re-instal everything. We did this FIVE times before they admitted that the servers were not able to cope with the volume, but they were upgrading them.
The same thing happened a few months later, and we went through the same process. It has now happened again and for the last two months we either cannot connect, or when we do we are cut off. Even when we are connected we are obtaining speeds varying from 58Kbps to 915Kbps. Do Tiscali care? Of course not! It is always promises, promises.
The situation is now so bad in our area that most of the Tiscale users are banding together to take action against Tiscali. Our legal advisers tell us to make arrangements to find another service provider and then give tell Tiscali that you are cancelling the service. At the same time CANCEL the direct debit with your bank or credit card holder. Tiscali have no legal grounds for trying to obtain any additional monies. It is Tiscali who has broken the contract, not the user.

Posted by Kenneth Hilton on the 19th November 2007

I have just joined tiscali and I don't know what to think, my speed is MEANT to be 8mb but only get up to 4mb and I can't use the internet on my ps3 because it is a usb modem! We went for tiscali because of homechoice was good for us but tiscali bought homechoice. Homechoice was the best, never had a problem. We had TV, broadband and phone really cheap and great service. I rate homechoice 5, tiscali not so sure right now. I'll rate it 1 as the others did...

Posted by Jibs on the 17th November 2007

I phone every day, every day they promise to sort out my problems in 24 hours, would recommend everyone stay as far away from this company as possible.

Posted by Luke Griffiss-williams on the 16th November 2007

Tiscali are pants. Loads of phone calls, we have gone from a BT 7meg connection to a Tiscali 512 - 1.5 meg connection. No amount of phoning helps, there's no problem at our end. I am going to take them to the small claims court just for fun to get my money back (£30 which will cost them a lot more to defend, not that they can if you do your home work, diary of speed problems and phone calls). Avoid this ISP all my friends have had problems too.

Posted by Chris Britton on the 8th November 2007

I have tiscali broadband and do not recommend it because we are finding it difficult to access certain sites like boots and sainsburys, it is definitely due to tiscali because friends have the same problem with their tiscali!

Posted by Chrissy on the 28th October 2007

Slow, Slower, crap are a few words to sum up tiscali broadband when playing online games. I've had xbox live for almost a year now and I can only name one game which was playable out of about the 20 I have owned. If you have heard of lag then avoid tiscali at all costs. 1mb is retarded, 20 times faster than dial up more like 2000000 times slower. Sometimes my connection is displayed, sometimes even as 0 packets sent and 0 packets received!!! When ringing up customer support, some guy goes on about "our service has become so popular that it is slow due to the high number of users after 6pm." That is just a joke.

Posted by Ross Curtis on the 28th October 2007

Avoid Tiscali like the plague.

I was previously a Plusnet customer, and for all of their quirks, I got greedy and I decided to ditch my BT line and Plusnet broadband for a cheaper provider.

Well trust me, you get what you pay for.

Since day 1, my broadband dropped from a nice 7.5Mbps to about 0.3Mbps, and this I now know, is purely because they have far too many people contending for the capacity that have on their centrals from BT.

So, not a big problem huh? You're gonna get slow speeds at peak periods, that's all - well no it's not....

Trying to get a problem resolved, that itself is the biggest problem with them. I never knew of the well published problems with their speeds, my own fault, I should have researched Tiscali better before joining them, but since logging my first fault with them on 13th August, it took until last night to get someone from Tiscali to actually tell me what the problem with my connection was.

The best of this is, the guy on 2nd Line support said "Cancel! There is nothing we can do for you about your slow speeds," and "We do not have enough capacity between your exchange and the Tiscali servers."

Prior to this I made calls every evening, trying to get someone to call me back. They have 5 call centres, and any actual fault can't be handled by the (non)receptionists that man 1st line support. They promise "we will call you back in 2 hours" - they can't, the smallest window they can provide is 4-6 hours!

I ended up ringing up billing, and complaining to them. They contacted tech support, and finally got something done - oh wait, no they didn't! Tech support rang back and asked "What is the problem you are experiencing" - HOLD ON A MINUTE I've told you every night for the last few weeks you moron!

In the end, I've cancelled my direct debit, and requested my MAC code. I've further got Tiscali to agree to re-reimburse me for my payments, and I have written the head office, and upon their reply, I will forward my letter to the ombudsman at Ofcom.

Don't go with Tiscali, they just aren't worth it....

Posted by James Vickers on the 11th October 2007

Customer service give you the run around. Escalations must be recorded as resolved as soon as they put the phone down on you. Emails are recorded as resolved if they bother to reply (saying that they can't at this time give you any information) Their stats will look great, meanwhile customer is left trapped angry and frustrated. Ring back you need to start all over again, costing a fortune.
No rating

Posted by Lesley Elsey on the 7th October 2007

TISCALI !!!
DON'T BOTHER...
I joined Tiscali 9 days ago after 4 years at AOL without a hiccup... until I moved.

They throttled my speed from 8Mb to 0.5Mb after 6pm from Day 1...and they DO throttle Bit-Torrent and some p2p's....

I find Limewire still works but ONLY use it outside of PEAK hours...Unfortunately, you can't manage torrent upload speeds therefore leading to unstable download speeds... Tiscali customer service is REALLY POOR and if you send the same email twice by accident like I did they answer each one by saying "You have contacted us in another email, we will reply to that one.."????

Very poor rating 1 star...
ALL you p2p + Torrent users, AOL is the way forward or Virgin cable...they are only ones that don't traffic shape, However, they do throttle to 0.5mb after 6pm if you download in peak times which is fair in my book. I download after 11pm and set it to shutdown when done, get up in morning and my PC is off and the downloads are complete.

Posted by Paul on the 27th September 2007

I cancelled my contract with tiscali in Nov 2006 as I was offered a better deal with sky, however since then they have continuously taken monthly payment from my Barclay card up top and including 05/09/2007. I have phoned the billing dept nine times know each month the payment has been taken. On each occasion I have been apologised to and told the cheque would be in the post. I am still waiting for the cheque nine months on and they have been taking £15.99 a month in total they now owe me £143.91. I have yet again contacted them this eve and I have asked for a manager to phone me to discuss this, I have been told by Alan Lyng one of their advisors I will get a call back in the next two hours so I should get my call by 7.30pm this eve, however after reading the comments left on this page I don't hold much hope. I cannot cancel it on my Barclay Card as they said they need confirmation from tiscali that I no longer have a contract with them. If I get no contact I will be taking legal action.

Posted by Craig Fennell on the 20th September 2007

Tiscali are absolutely appalling, I wouldn't recommend to anyone to use them.

As others have commented, I have wasted hours / days of my life on the phone to them, trying to resolve problems to no avail.

Moving house and solicitors and estate agents were far easier to handle then what should surely be a fairly uncomplicated procedure of moving my broadband.

They are continuing to try and take money from my account, months after I have given up and taken broadband with another service provider, and sending me threatening letters, although they have provided me with a mac code... that has been used!

I have now given up on the money they owe up, and calling them re the demands.

Stay away from Tiscali!

Posted by Janet on the 20th September 2007

Stay away from Tiscali. It has to be THE worst provider out there.

They changed my package AND set up Tiscali Talk without my authority. They listened to all my conversations and said they could not find one where I said that I never wanted the talk package.

The advisor conveniently "forgot" to note this down when I 1st called. I kept a record of all my calls. When I confronted them with a date of the call they told me that I never called that day and that I was a liar.

I cancelled my DD and got a MAC code and am now with a different provider.

My new provider gives me 10+Mbps for £10 a month.

Tiscali gave me 2Mbps for £14.99

Good riddance Tiscali.

Posted by Chris Flattley on the 20th September 2007

Tiscali is so amazing I could not leave them - their service is so great. My 8mb broadband has never gone down in the 2 years I have had it. The tech teams are just out of this world, I received a new modem within 3 days.

Posted by Pi Steaker on the 9th September 2007

It is now 3 September.

I've been trying to cancel my broadband service with Tiscali since the 1st of February and have called 8-9 times...again and again and again....they still haven't managed this simple instruction...?? How can this be??

They are still direct debiting me since Feb - all the way up till August and are still continuing to do so - can you believe it?!?

I did the smart thing by cancelling the direct debit and now they've sent me two reminders (one of them being red) ironically threatening me with their collections department.

Two days ago, it was confirmed by the manager in the billing department that the account was indeed still active. He told me I need to call back on Monday and speak to verify cancellations. Honestly, I am speechless, period.

A few conversations ago, a representative told me that this case will be put on 'red' prioritisation, as opposed to 'green' which it had been all this time......???? Unbelievably, this still hasn't helped).

This morning (Mon), yet again, I had to wait 38mins 41secs to speak to somebody in the cancellation department on a 'premium 0845 number' - (from a mobile during work hours).

Can you believe what a rather rude manager manager in cancellation department told me this morning? He asked me, "Why are you asking to speak to a manager when my colleagues have already spoken to you and told you that your account will be cancelled and dealt with?" After speaking to 8 of his colleagues, he wonders why I asked to speak to a manager. I clearly thought he'd be more intelligent than them - obviously not!

I wouldn't use Tiscali if they were the last broadband provider on Earth - and that is the honest truth!

Posted by Branislav Stefanovic on the 3rd September 2007

I'm with Tiscali and thank goodness I'm migrating next week. I haven't had internet access for weeks, and any call to the technical help centre is time-consuming and pointless, as they take me through the same questions and procedures without any progress whatsoever. I'll be so relieved to leave Tiscali!

Posted by Monika Bobinska on the 1st September 2007

Frequent outages and non-existent help.

Broadband speed dropped so drastically without warning this February that I decided to migrate to another ISP in March. Rang them many times before but to no avail, then out of the blue I was alleged to have infringed the fair usage policy despite the fact that I was working away from home most of the time in the first half of the year.

Cut off my direct debit straight away to avoid them charging me. They pursued me for the March internet charges (what for?) and I, in turn, complained to them and demanded a refund for the February charges.

They wrote to me on 3 May saying they would waive the March charges and I heard nothing from the again.

I received a letter from debt collectors mid August chasing me for the March charges! Wrote to Tiscali and the debt collector, was ignored, then wrote to the Tiscali managing director. Tiscali has just written back to re-confirm the charges are waived. Meanwhile, the debt collector is threatening court actions within the next 7 days.

Will I pay them a dime? Heck no! I am complaining to the Information Commission for breach of Data Protection Act 1998 as Tiscali has passed my personal data to a third party without any justification.

Posted by Hon on the 31st August 2007

I left tiscali because of security issues as someone managed to change my login password! I can't say I have any regrets.

Posted by Phil Smith on the 23rd August 2007

I'm assuming that the reason that the comments on here are so uniformly negative is that contented customers rarely feel motivated to say so, but unhappy customers can vent their spleen online and in doing so feel a bit better about their unfortunate experiences.

So, in the interest of balance, here's me, a satisfied customer of Tiscali.

I've been with Tiscali over 2 years now. Started out with a 1mbps broadband connection. That was solid, reliable, delivered the promised speeds and was cheap, too. I did once get threatened as a result of FUP violations, but that was my fault - allowing Torrents to download for 48 hours solid. I had no cause for complaint, I had agreed to their terms of business, after all.

Problems did arise when I upgraded to a 2mbps service. At the same time I had changed my telecomms supplier from BT to Tiscali. Problems revolved around the router failing to synch, dropped connections, etc. It did take a while to finally get sorted, but Tiscali were fine about it. Yes, it is frustrating having to deal with Banaglore, but Tiscali aren't unique in farming out desktop support to the sub-continent. And when Banaglore ran out of ideas and their network team got involved things moved a lot faster - right up to a 2-man team from BT arriving on-site and checking out my line. I had anticipated all sorts of turf-war action with BT and Tiscali arguing the toss, but it just didn't happen. BT diagnosed the fault, fixed it, and the reliability I had previously enjoyed returned. Oh, and typical speeds of 2.3mpbs, too.

So now I have just upgraded again, to Tiscali Business Max. I live in an old house, with poor quality wiring to the exchange, which is itself some 3 km away. There is considerable network congestion round here, too, even though we're out in the Derbyshire sticks. But Tiscali have been fine with me.

P2P works just fine, FTP is quick, price is right, it's reliable... what more can I say?

If you don't like Tiscali, just abuse the FUP and take their of a 'get out of contract free' offer.

Posted by Alan Hackford on the 19th August 2007

Tiscali is rubbish! We gave up on their broadband service because was so appalling in the evenings and cancelled our account over three months ago. The broadband was disabled immediately (I think they were glad to get rid of us because we want to do more than just access the occasional email) but no one thought to mention that we needed to cancel our Talk package separately. We finally got that cancelled. But they are still sending us bills! Every time I phone I get a different story and different promises. Rubbish company, rubbish products, rubbish customer service. If I could give it no stars I would have done. Go anywhere else!

Posted by Gillian Mccalden on the 16th August 2007

Stay away from Tiscali if you are considering moving house! They told me it would be 3 weeks if I moved my number and 2 weeks if I changed my number. I had enough and cancelled my account (or so I thought).

12 times I cancelled my account (yes, I did say 12 times).

7 weeks after I cancelled for the last time they were still trying to set up a connection on my line even though I had moved to another ISP. I got letters from them saying I owe Tiscali nothing then 2 months later I received a collection charge from a debt collection firm saying I owe a debt of £38.00.

I was using another prefix before each number I dialled so not to use Tiscali. Tiscali are without a doubt the worst broadband company I have used. Talk about one hand not knowing what the other is doing. I'm going to take them to court.

Keep all letters you get from Tiscali - they all conflict each other, especially when you cancel your account.

Ask to try to speak to a supervisor if you like waiting. Tiscali are definitely bad news.

Posted by Marcus Arsore on the 15th August 2007

Can anyone confirm that if you receive an FUP you can leave tiscali? Please God...

Posted by David Dawson on the 6th August 2007

Tiscali is terrible, mainly because of their "fair usage policy". This basically means you pay for something like 2mb broadband but you better not use it otherwise they'll get mad and slow your internet down. As far as I am aware I've not been told I've been put on the fair usage policy, but in the daytime my download speed from http (websites) is around 20kb/s at night its around 200kb/s. Stay away from Tiscali.

Posted by Dom on the 3rd August 2007

Tiscali are the most disgraceful ISP I've ever seen in my entire life, I urge anyone who's thinking about getting internet off them NOT TO, they are absolutely terrible, a list of my problems:

Constant Disconnecting
Non Existent Tech Support
Terrible Customer Service
Over Charging
Bills not arriving for 2 quarters
Horrific Download speed (on 2mb I was getting 12kb/sec) and I know it isn't where I live 'cos my next door neighbour gets a decent speed..
Doesn't like online games .. I could go on for a long time but I'm getting annoyed just thinking about it..

They've annoyed me lately because I've been downloading a lot of things and I've really started to feel the download speeds. Changing within the week, I'd like to see them try and keep me cos they'll get an absolute ear full off me..


I give it minus 5 stars!!!

Posted by Jay on the 25th July 2007

Tiscali are the most incompetent company it has been my misfortune to deal with. After telling Tiscali I was moving to a new address, with a new telephone number, which they confirmed by email, they are trying to still charge me for service at my old address and because I won't pay they have put me on a black list.
Do not touch Tiscali with a barge pole!
Geoff Fuller

Posted by Geoff Fuller on the 24th July 2007

If you want good service and an easy-to-get-out-of contract... then don't try Tiscali. I've received poor service for months, and have tried cancelling on numerous occasions via their 0870 number calls lasting 30+ minutes... and even after cancellation they have charged me for 2 months of "usage" after their disconnection date and have the gall to ask me to write in or call back after another 48 hours to ask for a refund whilst I was talking on the phone to them!

Posted by R L on the 20th July 2007

Just wanted to add my comments. I was also disappointed with Tiscali. Terrible customer and tech support. I cancelled this week. Avoid at all costs.

Posted by Tom Armstrong on the 30th June 2007

I started off with 1meg broadband. upgraded to Tiscali Max and they said they did a line test and it showed that I could recieve a 5.5 to 8 meg connection. So we ordered it and errrrm the speed stayed at 1meg and when I called customer service they said "I'm afraid that's all your line can handle." Tossers! I want to kill them... But if you do have a bad line check out www.extremetech.com, they have some tweaks and stuff so you may be able to speed it up. With their tweaks I got up to 2megs.

Posted by Dan Barnes on the 27th June 2007

Thanks to this site for pointing us in the direction of that 'magic number' 0207 087 2000 and the customer complaints line. In short, we cancelled our broadband service with Tiscali on 19/3 - 3 months on, and countless telephone calls to various departments, all assuring us the service was cancelled, they kept billing us via direct debit. When we cancelled the direct debit, we started to get red demands in the post. Today, having found this number, we were just in time to stop our unpaid bills for services we weren't receiving being passed to a debt collection agency, and all the frustration that would have caused in connection with our credit file. I have never experienced such an incompetent or rude company as Tiscali (one operator even disconnected my call). Thankfully the customer complaints department were quick and efficient to sort things out, and even apologised. They have sorted our a refund - although this will - we're told - take 10 days to come through! However, no compensation for the wasted hours on their premium call line all because incompetent operators in the amusingly named 'customer care team' couldn't sort out basic issues. I wouldn't touch Tiscali with a barge pole.

Posted by Geoff Webb on the 25th June 2007

I thought Tiscali had put me on a capped bandwidth and would therefore not bother me again, but sure enough, they have not seen sufficient decrease in my usage so they're managing my bandwidth during peak hours. They never said I had to decrease my usage and I've never had 2.2 mb/s anyway, so I'm not getting what I'm paying for at all anyway. The Fair Usage Policy I had not even heard of until the Emails and the peak usage times are impossible to find on their website.

Posted by Tarvu on the 14th June 2007

Words fail me when even thinking about Tiscali. It is the constant stream of lies that I am fed by the support staff that is utterly unacceptable. Problems are sure to occur but Tiscali never address them, they only find excuses for not doing so. Glib promises are made, refunds promised, improvements guaranteed. All are lies. Sadly I can't rate it 0.

Posted by R Steventon on the 13th June 2007

I've complained on this about the lack of gaming services provided, but I've accepted that now, so I've left my clan of M8's on Black Hawk Down, and I'm unhappy about that. Now I've done that I'm restricted to doing other stuff online, and say there is a movie I want to watch, or even watch my OWN videos on youtube, I have to wait about 5 mins for it to buffer. For the films it's not too bad, but I'm pretty much getting thrown off at peak times just becuase our 2MB wont support it.

My friend who got like A* in computing sciences at uni asked me to do a few tests in command prompt and it came back with sent:4 received:0 lost:4.

Now he thinks the problewm is that Tiscali are not willing to pay BT the extra cost of another line, so they have squashed all services into one, so there is nothing wrong at your end, it's all at their end, and no one is allowed to have any space because all customers again are crammed into one line.

Posted by Chris Williams on the 12th June 2007

Dont move house and take Tiscali broadband with you! (minimum timescale before your line becomes live is 15 days) Especially when you take your previous number with you (add 5 more days). This confuses our various helpline friends and they fall over themselves with excuses to increase the timescale before the service will be up and running . Firstly BT rejected the order (add 5 more days). Then BT checked the line and found it incompatable (add 5 more days). Then Tiscali reentered the order and additional time is wasted before the line becomes operational . Before you know it a month has gone by and you still are without your Tiscali broadband service. This is my experience so far. They have promised to be up and running by Wednesday 13th June....do I believe them? ...watch this space!!!

Posted by Andrew Lydon on the 8th June 2007

I have recently left tiscali after being a customer for nearly three years - although the word customer is a bit of a laugh. After cancelling my contract I received a credit note from them saying a cheque would follow. The cheque eventually came but for a lot less then the credit note stated. Guess what, their head office decided that the amount of my refund wasn't justified! That's great coming from a company who said there was not problem with my broadband and that it was my equipment to blame. So silly old me bought a new router which also didn't work, and was finally told my them that there was a problem with my line. I can only say that my experience of Tiscali is one I wish to forget.

Posted by Les Hayward on the 6th June 2007

Tiscali are awful. Lying little toads. The amount of troubles I've had with them, internet connection, email not working. Completely useless customer service. Just check the forums.

Posted by Matt Law on the 1st June 2007

I was told, that for my "up to 8 meg" line, I could "definitely recieve 5megs" on my current line.
Which I thought was strange seeing as BT confirmed i could recieve 7 megs...

after a few days and finding the connection was usually around 56k standard and now and again (at 4AM) it would rise to 1900kb/s I rang tiscali to ask why.
Their reply was that "it is the first 10 days of service, and the line needs to stable itself. After this you will get much faster speeds, around the 5meg area your line can handle"

ok that sounds reasonable i guess..

after about 2 months of my 56k line, I have written a complaint to them, with a list of my speedtest results, and i am now told that my line has been tested (AGAIN) and it seems that i can only receive 2meg..so i reccommend you downgrade your account.

WHAT THE HELL? I was told it would go upto 5..and by BT i was told up to 7!!

So i am guessing they tell you during the first 10 days that the line is stablising, to keep you happy. Then after your 10 days is up, and you find this is a lie, they tell you you had a 10 day period at the start of your contract to cancel if you weren't happy with the speeds..

I have been conned into a contract, they told me I could get a higher speed so I would sign with them, and when I ask why I'm not getting it, they say it cant even go that high..


Just dont even bother...

Posted by Sam Pascoe on the 1st June 2007

What aload of b@@@@ks you lot i had to wait to BTupgrade my line i get 7mb its Bt that lies they told me yes you can get this we have upgraded your line, and they didnt I would never leave been with them 2 years and now getting free line rental .

good luck to all you people that paying lots ha

Posted by D on the 31st May 2007

I'm planning my escape from tiscali. I figure after 4 years I've done my time. I kept thinking if I can just get over this (latest) problem, all will be well. But it's just one thing after another.

I nearly left in December after they stopped my internet connection without any warning at 9.30pm. I was working on an important project with a midnight submission deadline. Rang them and was told my DDR had been cancelled. As I was changing banks I thought that might be possible but unlikely as my old bank had said all 1st of month payments would be made before the account closed. Too late at night to check with bank - and no internet connection to check online. Made a debit card payment over the phone and an hour later (that's an hour on top of the half an hour it took to get through to a person to find out what the problem was in the first place) the service was restored. It was a few days later that my bank statement for the closed account arrived and lo and behold tiscali's DDR HAD been paid. So that month they raised my stress levels unnecessarily, put an important project at risk, cost me half an hour of phone holding, and hour and a half of my life I won't get back, AND got paid twice for doing so. Emails suggesting compensation of a month's rental might be fair were ignored completely.

Now I've found that for the last couple of weeks almost all the emails I've sent have not arrived. Their service status says no problem on email, but their reply to my email says :

"We are aware of a problem affecting users sending email to certain recipients and we are working closely with engineers from our suppliers to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

However, due to the nature of the problem, we do not expect it to be fully resolved for another few days. "

Call me cynical, but I don't believe a word of it. Suddenly I happen to be emailing all the people who are by chance "certain recipients".

Oh and that 8MG????? forget it.............the most I've ever had is 2.3MG, despite a line test by another provider showing 4.6MG.

I'm off to Waitrose. The 5GB limit won't bother me as I've just checked and I use less than 100MG a month.

If you have already escaped..........how did you get your MAC code and do you know if the modem supplied by tiscali originally would be "network locked"?

Isn't it time email addresses became like mobile phone numbers so that you can take them with you when you change service provider? I think I stayed mainly because of the hassle of having to ensure everyone I ever gave my email address to would be able to contact me........

Rant over
Cat

Posted by Cat Tighe on the 26th May 2007

I'm with tiscali broadband and desperate to get rid of them. So just one question. All the people saying "I used to be with tiscali they are the worst in the world" they should have some idea what the mac code is. So why don't they just give it to the rest of us to save us the hassle.

Posted by Steven Willis on the 25th May 2007

Stay away. My 8Meg unlimited connection was good until just after my cooloff period, then the fun began. 45 -50kbits/s downloads and frozen torrents - including perfectly legit linux isos. How annoying!

I too am counting the days until I part company with this band of robbers. I have been burnt and I should have read more before joining - do yourself a favour and overlook Tiscali.
Rating as a 1 because there is nothing lower to select.

Posted by Joe Murphy on the 21st May 2007

I think I'll just fill this box with expletives as its the way i currently feel about tiscali.

Ok I used to work for homechoice who were bought out by tiscali but this isn't a tale of sour grapes. I was quite happy with the homechoice connection , availability and speed were very good. As I'd left the company I only had homechoice for a further 3 months. As it seemed like everything was good I decided to keep with the package.

Since making that phone call my package has changed and I think I've been moved to another internet package
firstly, I couldn't access many websites. It transpired I now need a proxy added to my browser for it to work properly. At least they could have told me this , nice customer service. Then speed dropped from 8mps to 2mps, strange as i never downgraded my package and should still be on 8mb.

Now I can't ftp out of the tiscali network and cant update my own website, ok I could use their webspace but I've already bought some elsewhere.

Customer care is a joke, tech support?? dont make me laugh. It even prevented the wife from getting on itunes so now she's hacked off as well and quite rightly.
I'm not sure what had happened since I made that call but I wish I hadn't now. I'll be grabbing my MAC code asap next week.

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE

Posted by Lee on the 20th May 2007

Basically-tiscali are rubbish.

If I was asked if someone should join tiscali, I'd say no! go to virgin, or somone else!.

My reasons for this are...that they cap our internet at peak hours...don't allow any type of online gameplay (involving a disk) and they are frankly abusing their rights.

It is their job as an ISP to flipping host this stuff, and if their service is too bad to host the things people do in their day to day lives.....they should not even be a ISP!

Posted by Chris Williams on the 20th May 2007

I've been with Tiscali since about 2003 and if I'm honest I've had a good connection from then up until about Christmas last year, since then i get booted at peak hours all the time, cannot connect to xfire or the various online games i play until about midnight, and the helpdesk like most others have said is worthless. Not only is it in India which IMO is reason enough to ignore it but they lie just to get you off the phone, only IPS I've ever had so nothing yet to compare it with but I would say that if you plan to use your internet in peak hours you would be better off on dial up than with Tiscali broadband.

Posted by Marc on the 16th May 2007

You have to conclude that Tiscali is deliberately infuriating all its customers who expect a true broadband service, hoping to dump all but the Sunday emailers / browsers. That would do wonders for their margins.

Posted by J Robin Betts on the 16th May 2007

Sometimes I just can't access the internet due to the remote computer not responding.Also before upgrading to broadband my access speed was 3.8Mbps but since upgrading it has dropped back to 2.2 to 2.4 Mbps. So far I cannot say that I'm entirely satisfied with Tiscali

Posted by Eamon Mc Anuff on the 14th May 2007

Tiscali is so crap. I am counting the days to leave. Their connection is very slow. Their help is non existent and don't even bother using p2p software. They do their best to stop its use!

Posted by John Stetton on the 11th May 2007

All I want to do is talk to a proper customer service person as letters don't work. All I want to do is call someone in the UK that I can make my point to all I wanted was hassle free moving house well that's a joke. Tiscali told me it would be quicker if I had a new telephone no. so I did . When I told them the new no. and when I wanted it on (that was 2 weeks before I was due to move) they told me that the line could not be checked till the no. became active.

14 days later I sent moving house email .... ha.... rang ten days later to find out what was happening and was told they never received email (lie). So I went through it all on phone and got told it would take 10-15 days to reconnect me (very angry) another 10 days called up to check and the told me it had been connected to the old telephone no. (very very angry ) told another 10-15 days told them not my fault I want it on before then I had bills to pay on net and could only do it on there.

More time passed and another 10 days checked again connected wrong no .. so I clear this up and finally get the right no. on after chasing BT myself rang Tiscali and told them BT had enabled the line all they had to do was to push the right buttons their end .. told it would be on next day but that was not good enough I had to paddy final 2 hours later it was on .... I wasted 10 hours of my life that I can't get back and all I want is for some one to call me to say sorry and make me an offer for my time sorting out there cock ups.

Posted by Christopher Rowe on the 10th May 2007

Tiscali is terrible.
Their Indian help service is useless.
We call you back in 48 h or we will call you back before 10 pm....
They don't give a damn about their customers, I am very unhappy, my internet keeps disconnecting... try to contact them and hear the same story over and over...
I TRIED EVERYTHING, NEW MODEM, NEW FILTERS, NEW CABLES, EVEN NEW PC , no difference... no connection!

Don t go for Tiscali - useless services - Hope their cancellation system works!

Posted by C. Maruniak on the 5th May 2007

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE listen to me, I'm 29 years old and in all my years I have never had or seen or heard of anyone having so many problems than I do when Tiscali are mentioned. I've had Tiscali for about 11 months and up until last week they were OK (speed drops, line drops, unexplained problems that customer services seem to know nothing about).

Then I was put on the Fair Usage Policy (FUP) and the trouble really started. Basically I truly believe that all their support agents are trained to lie through their teeth. I started recording all my calls to their helpline as my solicitor asked me to after I asked her advice and when she heard them she laughed out loud.

Let me explain. After 9 telephone calls, every single Indian support agent gave the a different reason on what the problem was and told me to wait 48 hours and it would be fixed. I played along knowing it was just more rope to hang themselves with and after 18 days I was told that it was my fault because I was on the Fair Usage Policy restriction and that was why I was getting ridiculous download speeds.

Oh did I mention that every time I called the customer services I was complaining because of the speeds I was getting OUTSIDE of the fair usage policy hours.

That's right, like every other person on here I was getting speeds outside of the FUP like this (bearing in mind FUP restrictions are between 6pm and 11pm)

30/4/07 17:44
Your current bandwidth reading is:
46.30kbps
which means you can download at 5.79 KB/sec. from our servers.
28.8 kbps dial-up
33.6 kbps dial-up
46.3 kbps YOU
53.3 kbps dial-up
56 kbps ISDN
128 kbps ISDN
150 kbps DSL
256 kbps DSL
512 kbps DSL
Please retain the following information if you wish to contact Customer Services
Your reference number is 46-8357228
Retest Close


30/4/07 23:23
Your current bandwidth reading is:
26.50kbps
which means you can download at 3.31 KB/sec. from our servers.
26.5 kbps YOU
28.8 kbps dial-up
33.6 kbps dial-up
53.3 kbps dial-up
56 kbps ISDN
128 kbps ISDN
150 kbps DSL
256 kbps DSL
512 kbps DSL
Please retain the following information if you wish to contact Customer Services
Your reference number is 26-8361744
Retest Close


1/5/07 00:30
Your current bandwidth reading is:
114.40kbps
which means you can download at 14.3 KB/sec. from our servers.
28.8 kbps dial-up
33.6 kbps dial-up
53.3 kbps dial-up
56 kbps ISDN
114.4 kbps YOU
128 kbps ISDN
150 kbps DSL
256 kbps DSL
512 kbps DSL
Please retain the following information if you wish to contact Customer Services
Your reference number is 114-8363410
Retest Close

And when I finally got an email back from the customer support (after sending 8 e-mails and not receiving one reply) they told me they had a hardware problem which was being looked into which made all the people on the FUP restricted OUTSIDE of the restriction times AS WELL AS inside them.

As you can imagine OFCOM and my solicitor have received instructions to look into the mater further, but please, please, please DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER Tiscali.

Posted by Jamie Quarterly on the 1st May 2007

Do not go with tiscali!!! peer to peer, torrents are at a crawl through peek times. The speed of my line regularly drops below 50Kbps during these peek times. They also have a contention ratio of 50-100:1 which is really appalling! Sharing your internet connection with up to another 99 people! That will make it go to a crawl!!!!!

Posted by Darren Fisher on the 27th April 2007

I moved from TalkTalk to Tiscali, and both are awful. Im suppose to have up to 8mb. I rang them before i bought the service and they said they could gaurentee me between 6 and 8mb and i dont think one i have been anywhere near that speed. any peer to peer programs dont even connect and web pages are slow. if i download a file off a webpage it wont go faster that 30kbps. i rang them up and told them and they said they would get back to me over the next 48 hours, which they havent or they havent replied to any of my emails. I dont see why they cant just give you what you ordered. If anyone knows how to sort out the p2p network problem please let me know!!!

Posted by James Clough on the 22nd April 2007

Tiscali are total rubbish, they cut your connection from 6pm till 11pm. I cannot even connect to my online games i want to play so I've requested the mac code from them and now I'm changing service providers I'm going with ADSL24 which have no bad comments on there forums what so ever so i suggest to you all that's having trouble with them to keep bugging them for your mac code and eventually they should give it you mind you when they give it you you will only have 30 days to use the mac code with another service provider so if you don't use it within them days your stuck with Tiscali.

Posted by Damien on the 22nd April 2007

All the people having problems with Tiscali broadband ring or email Dominick Negus he is the head of complaints. I got his number by hounding Tiscalis PR women Jody Haskayne on 020770872115. Dominicks email is Dominick.Negus@uk.tiscali.com. Keep pestering them both and you will get your problem solved. I
did, but it took 4 months.

Posted by Stephen Kavanagh on the 19th April 2007

Whats new ? certainly not problems with Tiscali. For the last three months I have been calling Tiscali 'tech help' and for two months all they ever did was pass the buck to B.T saying that my problems were due to a line fault. Between 16.00 & 23.00 Hrs my download speed drops from around 1050Kbps to anything between 65 & 300Kbps. There seems to be very few people in 'tech help' who have any real 'tech knowledge' . Unless you have a simple issue that can be resolved by them reading through their script, don't even waste the cost of a phone call on them. Go to the Tiscali forums, you stand far more chance of finding the answer there. For anyone who experiences slow downloads at peak hours, you could well be like me, stuck on IPStream and waiting for Tiscali to get around to sorting it, well. we can all live in hope cant we

Posted by Tigger on the 18th April 2007

PAH!

I cant even download the torrent files let alone connect with them! never had a problem on this computer before, then i plug in my parents tiscali connection and its turniped.

What a bunch of jokers.

Posted by John Wilkie on the 15th April 2007

Just thought I'd throw my two cents worth in about Tiscali. Ive been with them nearly a year now and I cant wait to leave them.
The download speeds are a joke and at worst, slower than a dial up in my experience, if you want to download at say, 6 o'clock pm dont bother as sometimes it gets that slow it is basicaly 0kb/s. Also they throttle the bandwidth to online gaming sites between 7-10pm so I cant access poker sites and join my friends until after 10pm, a complete joke youll probably agree.
Roll on May then I can finally switch to another ISP and not have to wait 10 minutes to download 1 song from Limewire, if im lucky enough to be able to connect to it that is!!!

Posted by Andy on the 11th April 2007

OMG How many of you are having problems too!!!!

I rang them the other day and they cut me off when it was time for them to go home, I rang straight back to a message that said thier offices are now closed... Can you believe this is the 'Retentions' department!

Tiscali has been a service i have used for over 2 years but until i needed to ring them the service itself was good. The customer service experience though takes the mick! They are useless, totally useless!! stay well clear!

This company has by far the worst customer service i have ever experienced! They dont know what to do, i have been cut off when being transferred and when they wanted to go home! And now i have to try and tell them i am moving... god help me....

Posted by Leighton Davies on the 10th April 2007

what can I say? This company is a disgrace. I signed up with tiscali and like others on this forum I got very good download s on my peer to peer program. then came the dreaded fup E-mails. I got 2 in all advising me that if I do not stop heavy downloading I would be put on a list and would be capped. After this I stopped downloading during peak hours. This, unfortunately wasn`t enough and I am lucky to download at 30 kps outside of peak hours and this was just after I had upgraded to is 8 MB! What a joke !

I wrote to them concerning this and they replied telling me they would write within three days and its been a week now and I haven`t heard from them yet

The thing that has annoyed me most is the fact that they said that they would cap me only during peak hours which I didn`t mind as in principle I do agree with this policy but they do not have the right to cap me 24 hours a day seven days a week- unlimited should mean unlimited!

It would be good to hear from anyone who has managed to overcome this capping during peer to peer downloading I have tried Peerguardian but it doesn`t seem to work.

Conversely I would prefer to go to another service provider who do not try to trick their customers and to be treat like a human being
anybody out there know of one?

Avoid this company like the plagu!

James Walker

Posted by James Walker on the 7th April 2007

I have never received such appaling service than my experience with Tiscali. I have been with them for 7 weeks now and my Internet connection has not worked for a single day. They are not able to fix it, but yet they say that if I cancel before 12months is up I will have to pay. Like others above, I have only received automated responses to my complaint letters and phone calls. I am currently investigating an option of legal proceedings - I have been told that others have done this successfully in the past.

Posted by Niina Kolehmainen on the 3rd April 2007

Absolute nightmare with Tiscali, there call centres are a joke the staff dont have a clue how to help you.

The FUP is a load of bollox, I am so pissed off right now because of this.

My advice if you are a tiscali customer, phone them and get your MAC code and get away as fast as you can I know thats what I m doing

Posted by Gareth Moore on the 1st April 2007

Never take a tiscali reward. I am out of pocket by over £15 with nothing to show for it. Tiscali rewards is run by a separate organisation. I paid over £70 inc delivery for DVD recorder which refused to work. We tested it on different televisions with different leads for about three hours in total. When I finaly managed to speak with someone about it (as they never answer the phone) they could only advise me to send it back at my own cost and they would test it. They also asked me did I check it was compatible with my television as they sell equipment for the usa market which is not suitable for european goods? Once I had returned the recorder and chased the company for three weeks to find out what was happening they then decided (surprise surprise ) it was not faulty, refused to refund the delivery charge and also deducted 10% off my refund of the actual cost of the DVD recorder. Some Reward!! I would hate to see what you get as a punishment!

Posted by Cheryl Mcalpine on the 25th March 2007

This is an update to an earlier post about a month and a half ago about me complaining about my slow speeds during the evening.

I have now had a definitive answer from tiscali why this is happening. The reason is because the exchange i`m on uses ip stream which basically means that i`m sharing my line with everybody else in the town. This was told to me by the so called technical support line. I was promised by them that within 10 days my exchange was going to be swapped over to data stream. Which means that people using tisacali would be using tiscali`s own equipment therefore giving everyone the proper speeds when surfing.

I was told that they were in the process of swapping ALL and i repeat ALL customers over to this and had done quite a few thousand so far. I rang them up 14 days after i had been told this good news as i was still getting slow speeds in the evening. I was then told that they would not be putting there own equipment in my exchange. I challenged them to why they lied to me and their response was basically so what we dont really care.

I then asked them is there any way of them resolving my problem with the speeds i was getting and I QUOTE" no we cannot help you" so much for technical support.

Thankfully i don`t have much time left on my 12 month contract and i can then find a provider that can do the job and provide the service.

The reason for me putting this up here is to warn anyone who is thinking of using tiscali DONT!!!! All they want is your money. My advice is to anyone who reads this is to do some homework and find out which providers have there own equipment in your exchange and go with them otherwise you will be sharing your line with everyone else and your speeds will drop in the evenings.

I have rated tiscali 1 but that is too high.

Posted by Timothy Pudney on the 22nd March 2007

Oh God here we go this is a long rant,

well I got Tiscali when I was 15 in Sept 2004 my dad uses it for emails and basically I was give the freedom to to what I wanted with it, everything we well until about the start of 2007after I had upgraded to Tiscali Max.

Basically I never really used torrents to download stuff maybe the odd film but since I was without Sky Sports I joined a torrent site for WWE programming so me and my dad could still watch it, On it I had to upload as much as I downloaded I thought fair enough thats ok, so everyweek I downloaded about 1.5GB of Data and once a month a 1GB file thats about 7 GB a month maybe an extra GB for other stuff, I dont use P2p and then the other day I got a letter about the FUP (which wasnt shown to me when we joined over 2 years ago, I think they just made it up to scam people) .

Anyway now at peak times my torrent client wont work at off peak times I get 17kbs a sec download and about 1kb upload if im lucky, this is beginning to really piss me off, I can understand not using torrents during peak times but off peak mine are just as bad, off and on peak I cant load sites, it takes about 3mins for google to load, I phoned them up to ask about download and bandwithd capping and throtteling some Indian guy and I didnt even know what he was saying so I hung up, so now I came across this forum and thought I would share my feelings im now moving from Tiscali as I cant get on msn, download or upload torrents play games or send data to a muic website im on, basically Tiscali is for novice internet users who want to check their email once a week I would avoid it at all costs and never recommend it to anyone its the most stubborn piece of crap ive ever come across.

p.s They told me I had been sent 2 emails regarding my heavy usage it would help if i could access the email "service" they provide.

Rating : 1 because there is no 0

Posted by Conor Mckillion on the 18th March 2007

Tiscali, first month good, after that when locked into contract, they throttle and traffic shape you to criminally low speeds, see their forums. their contracts are misleading and if you dare to cancel your direct debit as a result, they send in the debt collectors, they need to be taken to court via a collective action as such a poor service should not be rewarded by our money, legal extortion at the moment.

Posted by Had Enough on the 16th March 2007

signed up for tiscali last January,waited a month for a modem then when it arrived i couldnt conect to the internet.phoned them up and told them id cancel it but was told i couldnt cos 14 days coolin period expired.i said hows that when i had to wait a month just to get a package.anyway once conected i downloaded 4 songs one day and the next day got email warning me about FUP.OK so i stoped using p2p during peak hours but when tried to use it after 11pm couldnt conect.so i gave it up but last week i went to youtube site and after few minutes my speed droped and everything just froze.even when usin msn to chat to my friends its a nightmare,phoned them up [in India]asked why they blocking me from using certain sites such as p2p and was told,NO WE DONT COS WE DONT HAVE SOFTWARE FOR P2P.sent many emails,no reply.phoned up again and told them they hacking in to my computer which they denied.im doing internet banking and now im even scared to do that.advice to those who leave tiscali but still being billed-CANCEL YOUR DD with them and then sit and wait.theres no question they are breaking a law but the most important of all is is anybody gonna do anything about it.

Posted by Mirsad Trcic on the 15th March 2007

I have been considering changing from tiscali to another broadband service for a while. Today has not changed my mind. I have received a letter accusing me of owing them money and threatening to send my details on to a debt collecting company.

As i have a direct debit set up for this i contacted my bank who confirmed the direct debit was still set up and i had sufficient funds in my account. However it appears that tiscali did not collect the payment last month, so it is their fault.

I tried four times to get them on the phone and each time was kept in a line as their operators were busy, probably with other customers who had received threatening letters. Couldn't e- mail them because i could not access my e mail account. So i had to make a complaint via their website, god knows when they will respond! I find their service very poor and this latest fiasco is the final straw. They are so incompetent.

Posted by Dorothy Newbery on the 12th March 2007

I've been with Tiscali for over 3 years with no real problems (occasional slow speeds, disconnections and non existent customer service). But, I thought that they weren't too bad so I stayed. Then on Friday I went into my emails for the first time in over a week and found I had been issued with a FUP on Thursday. I wasn’t that bothered about it as it states that you are only limited on downloads in peak times between 6-11pm.

On Sunday morning I had the computer on for about two hours when my download stopped. Thinking it was the internet disconnecting again I just turned the connection off and back off again but, low and behold, I still wasn’t able to resume the download. I contacted the technical support and was told that I might be limited on bandwidth because of the FUP. When I argued that it was off peak hours and I wasn’t supposed to be limited then, the only answer I got, several times, was that ‘the problem is with your computer, Madam!’

On Monday morning I managed to stay on for about 5 hours (two hours going really slow) before being disconnected and today it was 3 hours before I was disconnected. In the email I received it said I could migrate away and be issued with my MAC code. I telephoned them this morning to say I wanted to leave and was told my MAC code would be issued within 24 hours. After what I have read on this site I didn’t hold out much hope but amazingly enough the code was through within three hours.

I’ve just signed up with another ISP this afternoon and I’m hoping that everything goes smoothly. If not I’ll let you know.

I’ve given Tiscali two stars as I’m not happy about being limited in off peak hours, but they did send my MAC code through quickly.

Posted by L Graham on the 6th March 2007

Ordered Tiscali 1MB for gaming, but I can't play online games because it doesnt run much faster than a 56K for much of the day! Also, P2P programs now no longer work, they just don't connect at all. AVOID!!!

Also, their tech support do not help you, and will deliberately repeat the same things over and over again, until saying 'your problem has been fixed, please call back tomorrow if you experience another fault' WITHOUT THEM ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING. Pointless... slow, and unhelpful. *

Posted by John Mckay on the 4th March 2007

I started with Tiscali in Jan 2006 and got started wonderfully, had no problems... then in September I moved house. Holy crap! The web form to submit new address/phone line details 'went missing', as did a complaint form; when I did submit a move house request on the phone I got endless activation dates none of which actually happened. I got different tales each time I called. After two months of this I got so hacked off I demanded to be let go, even though I was within contract - the guy at the call centre started reading through my case file and actually whispered a soft "shit" to himself, it was so bad. Fair enough, they let me go within contract without a cancellation fee; still waiting for a full refund of the months I paid without service, three months on... Two stars for the service before I moved, would have been five but for the fiasco when I moved.

Posted by Rachel Holdsworth on the 1st March 2007

For all you people who are shouting about tiscali before you change make sure the isp your going with is who they say they are.
I too was asked if I wished to cancel my contract due to FUP
I left and went to pipex after listening to their sales banter, what a crock of S**T they are merely a reseller of tiscalis services so your still end up with the same isp but your now further down the chainthey dont support you and pipex couldn't give a monkeys as long as you dont stop the direct debit. They wont let you out of your contract unless you pay £400+ and the customer care is could'nt care less. they throttle p2p and ftp to as low as 4kbs on an 8mb connection if you are thinking of changing isp try someone else do not be tempted by the hoff he is a has been and is not gonna gain any popularity points fronting this shower

ps
I have given pipex a one rating because there isn't a minus 100

Posted by Jim on the 1st March 2007

just found this on tiscali forums.... if you are under a fup restriction, you can cancel your contract before the end of the minimum term with no penalties.

So.. ppl that want to cancel one method would be to max out your connection during peak hours till you get fup restricted then you can cancel. Simple. Hope it helps anyone who really wants to quit.

:)

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=122553

Posted by Paul on the 27th February 2007

Signed up for tiscali, only took 1 1/2 weeks for bt to do line test and tiscali to send me modem. Up and running within 10mins of opening box.

Well, if had tiscali for about a month now and only one problem, which was sorted out by 1 quick phone call (turns out I had a dodgy adsl filter). I had the FUP warning too, so i don't torrent during the peak hours. Outside those hours, my torrents are running constantly and I've had no FUP warning again.

With regards to online gaming - I game during peak hours with no problems. After my FUP warning I rang them and asked what constituted heavy usage, I was to online gaming, listening to online radio etc was perfectly ok - it was constantly using your full bandwidth that caused the fup problem.

Although the person I spoke to about my initial problem had a crap grasp of English she still sorted out my problem. Although i do object to foreign call centres anyway (I work in one and don't fancy being sacked and my job going to India).

Overall Tiscali have been pretty good... the occasional disconnection, but that happens with most ISPs anyway.

If people are experiencing slow torrent speeds, even outside peak hours.... check that you have the right port opened of your firewall for your torrent program, if it has it enable rc4 encryption, and get peergaurdian.... this will help 'mask' your torrents.

To be honest, I don't object to the fup, if all users used it at once and used full bandwidth the system would crash..... not good you say.. but the same would happen if all mobile phone users used their phones at the same time, or if all bt users did the same. Try making a call at midnight on new years eve to see what i mean, everyone trying to make a call, network busy.

The are just trying to make sure everyone has decent access to internet. Don't forget, they are not the only isp using your local telephone exchange, and bt will give them a 'bandwidth quota' which they have to manage for all their customers in the area.

They are a big company with 5mil users, law of averages says that some people will have problems... even if its only 1/2% that's still 25,000 customers with major problems.

Its just inevitable that some customers will have ongoing bad experience - I just had that with orange.

Bit of advice if you want to cancel your contract. If they say you were warned of fup when your weren't, say you want the address of the data protection officer. Tell them you are going to request a copy of all phone calls made by you (all calls recorded - by law), and also a copy of your file from their system. Also inform them that you will contact as many newspapers as you can. Just because you agreed to a contract, doesn't necessarily mean that it is fair - a contract or clauses can be ruled unfair by a judge. I told them I had been in touch with ofcom and a solicitor (brother in law) who both said what they had done was illegal. (changed my gf's package without asking her, then said she wasn't eligible for cooling off period because she was classed as current customer even though it was a new contract. Her previous contract had passed the 12 month mark so she could quit at any time - so they imposed a new contract and even tried to say that we had agreed to the new contract (that's where I had them.... asking for copy of phone calls to confirm this... they sh#t themselves lol)

While i have had no probs with tiscali, the above method worked perfectly to cancel orange broadband for my gf - before end of contract and no penalty.

I know its been a long letter, but i felt I had to say what I thought. ISPs performance depends on the area, depends who was the larger share of the bandwidth at the exchange. Ask you neighbours what ISP they have and what they think of them.

Posted by Paul on the 27th February 2007

You people really need some patience.
Tiscali are a business.
If you believe that people deliberatley set out to make your life a hell for no reason at all then you're either paranoid as hell or a bit of a dick.
Things go wrong. I doubt it is in Tiscali's interest to p*** you off.
Not to forget that Tiscali were voted #1 for customer service by USwitch.com.
But whatever. If they tell you that you cant have 2mb or something... then the chances are you can't and they are doing you a favour. Not your fault. Not their fault.
Get over it.

Posted by Tiscali on the 24th February 2007

No stars whatsoever.
They are abysmal. Not even getting 1 mega on a 2.3 package!
They've tried to blind me with science, blame me (it's NOT me) lied to me and after 3 weeks throwing myself against a brick wall they've just stopped talking! Am switching as of today and have made an official complaint and demanded money back from them.
Horrible useless servers!

Posted by Pat Tack on the 21st February 2007

No even one star I'm afraid!
Hopeless /non existent techincal support, tried to transfer domain name but it has been two weeks and still not been done!
Can't get any sense out of anyone¬!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Irene Tullis on the 20th February 2007

Things are peachy... as long as you don't want to download music, play games, use torrents, use voice over IP, use instant messaging software, check your e-mail, share your connection with more than one machine, get tech support, use customer service, or anything else other than browse web pages.

Seriously, if you want to browse the web and nothing else, this is a must have. If you actually want to use your connection for useful stuff, give Tiscali a miss.

Posted by Terry Legg on the 18th February 2007

I’ve been with Tiscali since Oct 2005 and I have to say I’ve never had a problem with them. Never had any loss of service etc I’m on the 2MB BB package and just after ordering the £17.99 Tiscali Max package. But the Tiscali forums seem to be cluttered with user complaints.

Posted by Alistair Mck on the 17th February 2007

if you want away from tiscali without paying the rest of your contract out down load as much as you can at peaktimes as there throttleing users because of over use. youll get three warnings by email telling you to stop ignore them then theyl ask you to leave with no penalty if you dont believe me go to the tiscali forums every one wants away many are doing this as a away to get out type in good bye mr tibbs in google that will take you to the forum good luck youl need it

Posted by Keithlemon on the 16th February 2007

What can you say about tiscali Crap ,Rubbish ,Slow ,Pathetic,Waste of time ,absoultly useless,and many four letter words ive spat out after 6 pm
Told me i was high user be warned high user is any one that users their service, i would say on average after the 6 oclock water shed i get about 19k -- to ---32k
As for msm drops like lead ballon ,as for mail faster to walk and post through the door yourself .So sorry to go on but they have gave me stress plz for your own sake stay clear.

Posted by Mr R Blu on the 15th February 2007

I think I prefer banging my head against a wall to trying to get any customer service from Tiscali. I have been attempting to get them to fix a line fault for six weeks without success and have been told bare-faced lies by some of their operators anxious to get rid of me. I see from the web-chat that I am not alone in this.

Posted by Robert Killick on the 15th February 2007

i actually regret that i joined with tiscali. for the first 5 months, i have been receiving 2.4 meg speed. after that it wen to 116kbps,then suddenly it went to 7.9 meg when i only pay for 2 meg.the customer support is terrible.

Posted by Masum on the 14th February 2007

The problem starts when you try to cancel your account with Tiscali. They immediately cancelled all of the email addresses that we had created with them, even though they had one month's payment to come.
This policy is totally unnecessary. All of the other major providers will allow you to take your email addresses with you should you wish to leave them.
Tiscali do this to force you to stay with them. I think that everyone who uses them should cancel their accounts immediately until Tiscali drop this pathetic attempt to protect their business.

Posted by Chris on the 13th February 2007

i have been with tiscali since may 06.just before xmas i noticed that some sites were slow to open up.i started checking my speed and every evening it was dropping by huge amounts.after 11pm the speed would go back up to the proper speed.at one point i was getting less than dial up speed and i am on the 1mb service.i have been in constant touch with their tech support ,which although have been ringing back to see if my speeds are ok,i personally don`t think they have a clue or really want to do anything about it.i have had the bt engineers out and they say my line is ok.i have another engineer coming out this week to do another check.i have come to the conclusion that tiscali are cutting back on the bandwidth at the exchange.i am not a heavy user which has been confirmed by tiscali so i see no reason why they should cut the speeds to almost unusable.the sooner i get out from the tiscali serevice the better.this is bang out of order and somewhere somehow they must be breaking their contract with me.i will be letting everyone i know not to go to tiscali.

Posted by Timothy Pudney on the 12th February 2007

TISCALI.......Rubbish...Rubbish...Rubbish...

I had my broadband activated over 2 months ago, and I still have no service. A BT engineer has called to my property, and said the fault lies on the cable from the local unit in the street to the top of the pole. I have reported this over 40 times to Tiscali in India, at great expence, time, and effort on my part. There has been no progress in 2 months, and I am now tied into a contract which is simply not being fulfilled. I am trying to cancel, but have to wait for second line support to call me back....yeh right !!! I wish I had not been suckered into an apparent great deal. If it seems to good to be true, then it usually is !!!!!
STAY AWAY FROM TISCALI......THEY ARE ABSOLOUTELY RUBBISH...

Posted by Chris Porter on the 8th February 2007

Went to Tiscali broadband from an abismal AOL and have had no problems until I clicked on their offer for Norton security. I went through ten pages to order the download, none of which told me it was not suitable for my version of MSWindows. It consequently would not download. The contract says if you cancel within a week they will refund the years payment. I wrote to cancel and they replied quickly saying they had cancelled my subscription BUT WOULD NOT REFUND ONE PENNY. I received no product from them and have lost £38. How sad that they are so desperate for money that they have to con an otherwise satisfied customer.

Posted by Ian Lauder on the 29th January 2007

Quote" have tried many times to cancel but still no MAC address, has anyone got any tyips as to how to get them to provide one?" what mac address you need to cancel with them..
click strat. run then type cmd
in the black box that appears type
"ipconfig/all" without quotes under the heading ethernet adapter your have physical address thats your mac address to your network card... if you have two network cards they should be both listed.... they dont have control over that mac only the one on your router which if you changed provider you would change as well... i say to everyone go with blueyonder (telewest) been with them now since forever, when they first offered a fixed price dial up unlimited package many moons ago.. yes the odd problem but always sorted.

Posted by Caz on the 26th January 2007

Tiscali are discusting.
They hack into your PC and block EVERY SINGLE PORT other than port 80, so you can do S**t all accept browse, no games, no p2p not even msn! thats if you get a FUP warning (of which you are supposed to get 3, i had 1) i now have slower connection speeds that dial up, im on 2 kb/s download,
DO NO GO WITH TISCALI!
also, they ignore you emails etc unless you threaten to take legal action.
ARGHHH

Posted by Josh Dunn on the 23rd January 2007

Absolutely dire. Not even worth one star.

Posted by Ian on the 23rd January 2007

I will block the direct debit as soonas I am connected with telewest...

they try to pursuit me.. I prefer to go to jail rather than be stealed money from this crap company avoid it !!!!!!

Posted by Massimo Brillante on the 19th January 2007

Having all the same problems as everyone else and am desperate to transfer to a new provider. Fortunately I've been withthem for over the 12 months and have tried many times to cancel but still no MAC address, has anyone got any tyips as to how to get them to provide one?

Posted by Mrracey on the 18th January 2007

Tiscali are disgraceful. Customer service non existent. I am not even a customer, but when I tried to be they told me my line was tagged due to problems with previous owner. Despite many letters and phone calls, which they habitually ignore or put the phone down I am now told its another provider who has tagged my line. Surprise Surprise, the other provider tells me its Tiscali. They have now had the ordacity to actually put my name against the tag, therefore indicating that the debt was mine, even though I have never been a customer. Now referring to the ombudsman and seeking legal action.
Waste of space. Not even worth rating them one star!

Posted by Nicola Eriksson on the 16th January 2007

Well i'm trying to cancel my account with tiscali because I want to go onto xbox live and you can't do that easily with tiscali so, i am trying to cancel my account so i can go with NTL or BLUEYONDER broadband, well for starters god knows how long I was on the phone for, I phoned up and they said "we'll put you through to 'BILLING' so I said ok, 10 minutes later im still not thorugh so I put the phone down I phoned back up and this time I was just cut off, then i tried again and they gave me a number to phone but the number was the same as one i'd already got, I also got an indian at one point and I couldn't understand a word he said.
It's funny tho cuz when I phoned them to sign up they were very helpful and they made me think that they were a very trustworthy and reliable supplier but when you phone them for help or to cancel your account they don't wanna know, as long as they're getting there money they aint bothered about you.
They are terrible, stay away from TISCALI at all costs.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!!!

Posted by Chris on the 15th January 2007

Absolutly rubbish service, 8 mbps is a lie, you never get above 2.2mbps and its never reliable. your conection says 8 mbps but testing and dwnloading is slow and eratic.... very very poor service!!!!!!!!

Posted by Oc Soft on the 14th January 2007

what a shamble!!!

Fair usage policy is pathetic!!!


ALEX GOWERS COULD U PLEAR CONTANCT ME ON andrewgadah@hotmail.com ABOUT THE PORT CHANGES THING YOU HAVE DONE!!! REALLY NEED YOUR HELP CHEERS

Posted by Andrew Gadah on the 13th January 2007

FAIR USE POLICY!!!!!!

FUP within 1 week of connection. But they have finally sent me a letter even tho i'm not out of my 12 month contract asking me to leave and that i can have my MAC address.

If you are still in contract just phone them and say you have recieved the final FUP waring letter and migrate, tiscali are crap crap crap.

P2P is bloked tho i've found ways round all their limits with clever port changes etc but connection has got steadily worse to the point where it can be days before I can connect outside of peak hours which is SURELY AGAINST THE LAW.

If you're looking for unlimited broadband try elsewhere cos it's false advertising on their part, I'm told the limit is 15-30 gig a month seemingly regardless of peak times.

I'm switching ASAP but am still looking for a better ISP so I don't fall into the same trap again.

Posted by Alex Gowers on the 11th January 2007

I have been with Tiscali 8MB Unlimited for a month, At first the speeds were great, I have since had 3 warnings and haved now been FUP'ed.

Hence my speed is now slower than dial-up. I have therefore paid a bit more and switched to Pipex that I have heard nothing but good things about, except that they are a little more expensive.

I suppose the proof will be in the pudding.

I was scared by Steve's comment about continued billing, but the guy at Tiscali has confirmed that my bills will stop once the migration is complete, so fingers crossed I will have shed my self of Tiscali and their 0 KB/s download speeds!!

Posted by Andrew Peel on the 10th January 2007

No broadband for 36 days now, lost count of the calls and emails to tiscali. Had 3 bt guys round and 1 computer engineer all said it was tiscali. All i have had is lies and more lies and false hopes. One guy at tiscali told me it was my computer and it might be best if i changed to another isp.
When i called to cancel the guy asked why
Oh give us 3 more days iwill get it sorted someone will ring you still waiting over a week now.
Yes they are very polite and when it is working it seems a good deal BUT if it hits
the fan be prepared for a battle akin to
World War 99
All i can see is go the the watch dog site BBC and complain and when enough do so perhaps they will end up on tv
Rating they do not derserve anything at all
Not even 1/2 a star.

Posted by Michael George Carrington on the 8th January 2007

Tiscali service is disgarceful- I have complained numerous times about the speed but they never fix the problem. I have requested a MAC and they have yet to supply same - avoid them !!

Posted by Paul Green on the 8th January 2007

Avoid Tiscali at all cost. The Indian broadband services haven’t got clue what they are talking about. The internet service is very slow under FUP, they don't replay to e-mails and you could spend hours on national calls to their customer services with out any resolutions.

Posted by Kris on the 5th January 2007

I connected with Tiscali about 7 months
ago. Started off with a 2mb connection
for 17.99, then 2 months later 8mb came out for same price and 2mb went down to 14.99. They told me, there is no need to
switch to the 14.99 2mb service because
in 3 weeks, I would automatically be
upgraded to 8mb. 3 months later, still
no auto upgrade, but was still paying 17.99. I therefore switched to the 2mb
14.99 service, after paying extra every
months for nothing. I telephoned Tiscali,
who told me that I would be emailed when
the 8mb service was available and
then I could upgrade. In November they
emailed me telling me that 8mb was
available as un upgrade. I therefore
in January telephoned them and asked
for the upgrade, they admitted that I had
been emailed in November and that they
would upgrade me in 10 days. A few days
later I got an email saying that 8mb is not
available on my line, only 2mb. I therefore
went to the Tiscali site and entered my
mates telephone number and address
down the road and asked to subsribe
to the 8mb service, the online availability
checking software informed me that 8mb
is available and it would be ok to join!
I give up. A total waste of time. Liars? Yes.
Contradictors? Yes.

Posted by Gary on the 5th January 2007

so incredibly rubbish. every time i had a problem i spent hours on the phone eplaining it only to be told time and time again that they needed 3 days to check it out then they'd call. which they didnt.

overall...NOT connecting to tiscali broadband took 3 months. and about the same amount of time to get out of it.

AVOID. no rating really. but 1 cos i have to.

Posted by Vicky Wynn on the 5th January 2007

i used tiscali for a while and what a surprise that FUP came already for first time and when i saw that page i got chilled.wish i could read earlier but now is too late.i dont know how i will make it safely with not having the amount of problems described but im sure for one thing.never again.avoid this service. they say unlimitted bandwith but you dont have to use internet for nothing else except brousing during 6pm -11pm.this is scam, is against the common sence and low according with what they promise and advertise , and surprises me the fact that not any legal action against them still has not been taken from any official organisation in the country to protect customers from scammers like them.They dont specify how much is the bandwith you can use for example 30 Mb or 300 Mb during 6-11 pm so they let you be in the dark and of course you can use nothing of videostreaming or gaming and things like this.definitely the worse provider. avoid it like pest.if i could i would rated with - 300000000 but i cant so i give the one star.

Posted by John . K on the 3rd January 2007

I LOVE TISCALI SERVICE...NO PROBLEM WITH THE SERVICE....AM ON 8MB.

EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE..THEY SOLVE ANY PROBLEM IMMEDIATLY

THANKS TISCALI.....

Posted by John Mike on the 31st December 2006

when i first moved from bt to tiscali my internet connection/speed was faultless.
Within 30 days i had already succumed to their FUP. After they capped my connection i could not even play internet games.
After 3 weeks of me harrasing them i got my connection back . I now can only donload at 30kps with a 16mb line when using torrent software lol.
I have now been emailing them and threatening legal action for 2mnths with not a single reply.
Im no awaiting small claims court action to go ahead.
If you plan to use torrent software then pay a higher price and go to another ISP.
Tiscali suck .

Posted by Malc on the 29th December 2006

.been with tiscali for 2 years all ok until they upgraded their web and e mail site .Been unable to access In box ,read emails, or send since 20/11/06 Tech support a total joke they have admitted the fault is with the server and will rectify within24 to 96 hours.All to no avail after at least 9 calls to tech support .Have now contacted Oftel in process of disengaging with this pathetic excuse of an ISP.Be warned when things are Ok with Tiscali then they re ok ,but when things go bad , get ready for the full on tits up treatment lies deceit,imcompetance,incomprehensible conversations, cut off phonecalls,and a stunning array of pure unadulterated bo**ocks in the guise of advice

Posted by Peter Wragg on the 28th December 2006

I was originally with lineone, and was getting on fine until the tiscali takeover. They have the worst customer services I have ever encountered. Emails are ignored, and the call centre is a joke.

All email functions (eg erase) are currently working so slowly that you might as well go and make a cup of tea. And at the moment I can log in or not, as the mood takes them. I am on their 'top speed' unlimited package.

I would switch tomorrow, but dread the problems other users have had in trying to leave them.

One star really does not represent how dissatisfied I am.

Posted by Wendy on the 28th December 2006

All I can say is do not sign up to Tiscali. The sales were fine except for assuring me their call centres were in the UK!!!!! I received my modem no problem and my Welcome to Tiscali letters. Then the problems started. I was assured I was broadband enabled from the 4th December. Since then I have been told its our exchange, its the BT exchange, you will receive a call back........not!! This problem has been escalated. This has now been fixed......not! etc etc etc. It is now the 23rd December and still nothing. The call centre and tech support in India do not have clue and are just reading scripts. To give customer care their due however I now have a twenty pound goodwill credit on my bill and a promise that I will not have to pay for any of the 21 calls I have made to date to their call centre. I'll believe that when I see it and as for speaking to a manager forget it. The best laugh I had was when I was told that if I wanted to complain I could email them.....like how when I dont have a connection and I'm not at work to access a computer. Once Christmas is over I will be finding a new provider 12 month contract or not. This would certainly be 0 rating but 1 is the nearest. Please do not consider Tiscali. Its not worth it.

Posted by Beverley Harvey on the 23rd December 2006

in march 05 went on business 1000 @£29.99.in march 06 found the price had dropped to £19.99.rang them to update new price,some tech. problem unabled him to adjust but it would be sorted and they would let me know when sorted.of course no one phoned.next bill same old price.phoned again 2 wrong departments went to tech support as it was tech fault with id/password .the man fixed the problem over the phone after being put on hold for 20 mins.guess what he lied same old price next bill.twice i have been told it has been sorted i have even been given a wrong number by 1 of the staff. i have phoned over 40 times over the months.it drives me mad.2 weeks ago i rang again as i now can get business 2000 for £15.99.i`ve been through 3 departments to sort it. the indian lady said it was sorted and it would be on the next bill.i asked her to have a bet on it but she just said it was sorted.i have had no confirmation of this and wait for the bill to arrive for £29.99

Posted by Keith Chaloner on the 14th December 2006

mmm wish i had reserched tiscali b4 going with them

i tryed to speak with ttech support but they couldnt understand what i was saying

i asked to speak with a manager but they refused to let me

i tryed to cancel but because the account is in my wifes name they wont cancel till the speak with her even though my name is on the account too ARGH

Posted by Greg Smith on the 13th December 2006

my partner signed up for tiscali and we began the usual crappy year service everyone else has already complained about. unfortunately after requesting cancellation three times and it not being actioned, we cancelled the direct debit. they then suspended the account and will not cancel it until 'payments due are made' when they will cancel it. as if!!!! tried switching to bt with mac code but tiscali said it was cancelled so no mac code transfer worked... then bt said marker on line so no broadband from anyone until it is removed. tiscali say account still suspended. you have no idea how much crying is appealing right now.

Posted by S Whistance on the 12th December 2006

I only lasted 3 days with Tiscali 1Mb Broadband before packing it up and sending it back to them. Sure the service worked (sometimes) in the day but come evening it was impossible to connect. I am now being threatened with legal proceedings (for £18!!). Tiscali don't give a sh*t about their customers but will pursue you to the ends of the earth for their next monthly payment. Please, Please, Please steer well clear of them. I am with Virgin now (moved house) since they don't have a 12 month contract and the service has been perfect!
Why the hell do most Broadband providers make you sign up to a 12 month contract anyway? If their service is any good in the first place why would you consider changing?
You have been warned!!

Posted by Tim Breeze on the 10th December 2006

Tiscali was ok at 1Mb till last August till they did "some work" at the local tele exchange. From then on I was only able to recieve a download speed of 256ishKb. After numerous phone calls and long waits with promises and excuses, I have just switched to BT broadband and now receive a speed of 4.7Mb/s average. The third world call centre is very polite but usesless. Get your act together tiscali. £14.99 a month for little over dial up speeds is a rip off.

Posted by Stuart Oliver on the 8th December 2006

Hello Everyone:0
i've been with tiscali for 2 months and i can say that is one of the worst internet ;/ I like play on online games but i cant i got always much lags,kick ;/ And with transfer is sometimes horrible 7 kb/s ... So all in all Dont Sign Up with this service :)

Posted by Mentol on the 7th December 2006

One day I have been with Tiscali and I have already received my first FUP warning. Having had no broadband for two months I had a few updates to download when I connected. How many warnings to do you get? What is the download limit between 6 and 11pm? Will you always be sharing with excessive users if you go over their bandwidth limit? Can I get out of this if I've only just signed up?

Posted by Gareth Webb on the 6th December 2006

I'm having huge problems with Tiscali as I can't play any online games between 6pm - 11pm. I've phoned technical support and they have told me that this is because a lot of people use the service at this time. I can't understand why I cannot connect to any games. My browser works well and my connection is showing 8mbps. I've only recently joined so I am stuck with them for months and I don't want to use this service if I can't play games

Posted by Daniel Cuthbert on the 5th December 2006

I had to disagree with a comment made on this page about tiscali failing at all customer service apart from taking your money. With me they failed to do that as well!. when i signed up for dial up a few years back, it went ok for a bit, then suddenly i had months of being disconnected/reconnected because their operators couldnt seem to write down my bank details without c*cking it up. eventually they threatened to take me to court for the money owed, despite giving them the correct details on at least three occasions and me phoning on another half dozen times to be told "oh yes your details are correct - our fault, dont know why this is happening.

to give thyem their due, eventually they admitted they didnt know which was their ar*e and which their elbow and "waived" the outstanding amount owed, this went part way to compensate me for the hours of my life wasted on their (no)helpline.

i must also say that when i was looking for a broadband provider they were cheap so i thought "what the hell they might have improved". I got the modem quickly and everything has worked ok, its not that fast but its ok i guess.

Tiscali - If it all goes without a hitch your fine, if you have a problem give up and go to a company with at least a small idea of what customer service is.

Posted by Chris Tanner on the 1st December 2006

DONT SIGN UP they are absolutely useless no customer service ....a fair user policy which cuts your speed below dial-up.......after 10 day cooling of period they send you FUP on the 11th day.....useles....abissmal...gonna cancel my direct debit and then fight it out.......may be without broadband for a while but for me dial-up is quicker anyway
no zero ratings so it has to be 1 star

Posted by Alex Wight on the 30th November 2006

Tiscali technical support don't answer my technical questions. When emailing tiscali on anything non technical I get 'this is techical support so we don't answer'. So don't expect an email from tiscali except your bill and adverts. Wating for a MAC adress to move (lots of phoning, lots of waiting).

Posted by Dan Canham on the 30th November 2006

Oops, I rated Tiscali mistakenly with 3 stars! Sorry everyone, that should have been 1 (there is no 0 stars option available)

Posted by David Bage on the 28th November 2006

Tiscali are without doubt thhe poorest excuse for a service provider I have ever encountered... Here's my story. (and letter that I sent to them - twice now)

27th October 2006 - Filled out a request to have the connection moved to a new address. Received an automated email that this would take 5 - 10 working days.

15th November 2006
Called at 10:30am - Rep took personal details then "transferred" me which had me cut off
Called at 11:07 - Rep took details, I informed them that on Oct 27 2006 I request a change of service address but still nothing and the service is STILL at the old address. Tiscali cease & reprovide email states 5 - 10 working days. Am being transferred to different number now, and have once again been cut off.
Called broadband technical support department speak to Manish. He has taken my old details and new details. Put on hold while they perform a line test on the new address. I have stated that unless they do something about it quickly as their own email states 10 days MAX (has been ongoing since Oct 27th I will be going somewhere else and they can forget about their money. Have been told the service available on 22nd). To clarify this further. Manish informs me that there is a note on my account from a BT engineer that the service will be switched on October 22nd. I asked why I was not informed about this and was told that there were problems with their (and I quote) "email department".


23rd November 2006
Called at 15:03 - Rep took personal details then was placed on hold AFTER I informed him that I STILL did not have an internet connection. He reiterated all the old address / new address details then proceeded to tell me that an order had NOT been placed!

Tiscali have repeatidly failed to provide me with a service that I have paid for and I consider them to have breached their contract. I am cancelling my "service" (used in the loosest sense of the term) with immediate effect as you have failed to provide me with the service that I have paid for! They have been given ample time to perform the action I requested back on the 27th October 2006. I am sick and tired of being fobbed of with excuses from their call centre staff who have cut me off on several occasions and have now apparently lied to me re the email from the BT engineer! The call centre staff do not care about customers, they will lie to them and try to get them off the phone with a seemingly endless arsenal of excuses as to why they are unable to deliver! The new address is now switching to NTL and shall not have BT line.

08450 774488 - Tiscali's cancellation line.

24th November 2006 - Emailed letter of complaint to Tiscali using their complaints form according to article 18(b) of their Terms & Conditions

below are some points in Tiscali's own Terms and Conditions. Maybe helpful should you be looking for a way out?

17.2.2 at anytime if you move to a new address to which we cannot provide the broadband service. In such case you must contact us in advance by telephone (please see "Contacting us") and produce written proof of your new address;

17.2.4 at anytime if we suspend your use of the broadband service under this contract and such suspension has continued for more than 28 days.


19. Events outside of the our reasonable control
We will not be liable to you for any failure to deliver the broadband service or for any breach of contract, where the failure or breach is due to a reason outside of our reasonable control.

Posted by David Bage on the 28th November 2006

TISCALI are utterly crap.
I ordered it in the middle of october, its now nearly the end of November and we've been told week after week that the modem will arrive in 3/5/10 days. It's still not arrived.

Their customer service is appalling, A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME.

Tiscali are completly unprofessional, total liers and i now i want to swith to BT-But how long will it take Tiscali to understand that our patience was lost far too long ago and that we now want to cancel everything?

Posted by Nichola Fair on the 25th November 2006

tiscali brodband is the worst service u could ever imagine i am supposed to get 8 meg i dont even get 1 i try playing only games and just lag like crazy i try and download something and it takes hours and their fair usage poliacy is a joke. It is cheap because it is terrible avoid at all costs bt should ban them.

Posted by Lewis A on the 24th November 2006

well i am with tiscrappy
and i am fedup
i pay for a 8mb line and get 1mb if i am lucky
i phone and get told by someone in india that i was on the wrong package and it has been sorted.
wrong my speed is even worse now.
so i phoned india again this time to get told it must be my computer :(
even when i told them i have tried a brand new computer they said it is your computer sir.
unfortunitly i am on broadband business to avoid fup
and trying to get hold of someone where it don't cost me a fortune to keep repeating myself .
think getting a call from vis is more likely.

if your thinking of going to tiscali i have one word for you

DON'T

-*

Posted by Ady on the 23rd November 2006

iv been with tiscali for 2 years,,,,,,'

please listen i felt i had to make a post just to add to those already here to try and help someone else from this nightmare.

tiscali as a company quite simply do not give a damn about there customers. they take your money without fail. they never get that wrong. thats the only part of there service that works without fault.

problems include.....

there fair usage policy is broken. either the system they use to enforce this is broken or they simply put people onto a poorer seervice completly at random without warnings. between the hours of 6.30 pm uk time and 10 45 pm uk time your tiscali. will

disconnect.
have a huge latency
drop packets of information causing all sorts of problems.
be unreachable.

if you ring customer support brace yourself as it's without doubt the worst you will ever encounter. no matter what your problem is they have the same answers.
reboot your machine. re install your modem. change the filters. use the alternate slot behind the face plate on your telephone line. a bt engineer will contact you within 48 hours if you have a mobile number. if you dont YOU have to pay to call them back and hope they have an update .
a bt enginner is a waste of time. they know the problems they just mask them with the same old bull each and every time.

iv stayed with tiscali for this long as moving just seemed like such a trauma and i read so many horror stories about leaving them and them making it awkward that i just got complacent and tried to make do.. enough is enough

MOVE TO ANOTHER ISP. even better dont join tiscali in the first place.

Posted by Rob Kynaston on the 23rd November 2006

Tiscali broad band is an excellent service provider am happy that am an customer of tiscali...good service

Posted by Rakesh on the 19th November 2006

Looking for a cheaper and unlimited package because I can't get a faster speed, so I've been trying to join Tiscali from Orange using a MAC code, which Orange and Ofcom say is valid, but Tiscali say is invalid. Apparently, they can't process new codes which have been around fo months by now. It's almost as if they are stalling and denying me the chance to change ISP/LSP. Tiscali have changed their tune from not being able to process a MAC because it's an invalid code, to that their system is outdated and that new codes given by BT Wholesale are valid and the fault lies with Tscali's software, online and internal. Tiscali are breaching Ofcom's code of practice and denying consumers the opportunity of switching ISP using a new MAC.
Mind you, having read these reviews, maybe I'll walk away and think myself lucky.

Posted by Steven Millard on the 16th November 2006

We had no problems with Tiscali until we moved house.
Trying to get the line swapped over has been a nightmare.
Firstly they cancelled the order with out telling us because the line could not support the same mb speed. We then agreed to go with the 1 mb. 3 weeks later we still waiting. I called daily, one call would result in them saying it would be on today, the next would say 3 days, then i was told it should be already working and then that the order had never been actioned in the first place and so on. Dealing with their technical team and customer service was diabolical. I am ashamed to say that on one occasion I sobbed in frustration.

Then a miracle occured, a little more digging on the net and we came across a number for the UK switchboard. I called this and asked for the complaints department. I was put through with no wait. They were so efficient, we were given a case manager who was contactable. He said he would call me back with more info within 24 hours it in fact took 5 minutes. I was told it was a technical issue and they were sending the broadband signal so he would have to pass it on to a technical dept and that they would get back to me within 48 hours. That afternoon they called me and informed me that there was a fault at the exchange and he would liase with BT personally and that I should give it another few days as he didn't know how long the wait for a BT engineer would be. The following evening when we arrived home from work it was fixed!! I had a call from them today confirming a BT engineer went out and fixed the fault. It was such a difference I cant beleive how quickly it got done after this endless frustration. It comes down to their customer services in India they are very polite but apart from the prepared info they are given they know absolutely nothing. It is disgraceful, and I am sure it is very frustrating for them as well. Tiscali really needs to pull its finger out and train staff properly especially if they are meant to deal with technical issues.

The magic number is 02070 872000
If you are getting no where with Tiscali I cannot recommend enough calling this number.

Posted by Al on the 13th November 2006

Waiting for Tiscali broadband since 06/10 and wishing I never ordered from this incompetent company. I checked with BT and confirmed that nobody has marker on the line. Does it mean, in theory and hopefully also practice, that Tiscali did not go through the initial process of enabling the line for 'their' broadband and I can ask someone else to provide brodband on the line? I asked them (many times) to cancel the order when they did not deliver within the time stated, but they are ignoring it, always replyng that I sould call the technical help. Well, I have no technical problem - I have no brodband from Tiscali and I do not want it (who would, after waiting for almost 6 weeks after they advised as "within 10 days"). Have I got a case? Can I just go ahead and get brodaband elsewhere as 'there is no marker on the line'. Or am I in danger that they will demand for the 12 months contract to run its course, despite the fact that they did not deliver the services in time stated. BTW, I, probably very foolishly, ordered their brodband talk as well, and that was supposed to be enabled already (but of course no broadband). I am puzzled (besides being very annoyed).
HELP PLEASE!
Thanks
Minus 5 stars!

Posted by Jiri Musil on the 13th November 2006

My Girlfriend has Tiscali, for about 3 months her service was fine; and she received her 2MB Unlimited* connection without any problems. Then after those initial months hitch free; online gaming started to become a problem. At first it would vary, slow one day, ok the next. Then it was always slow, making any sort of online shooter extremely frustrating; as I'm sure any gamers out there will agree.
The next problem to occur was P2P traffic, upload and download speeds appeared to be capped going no higher than 3KBs each way; which is appalling considering it should be well above 100KBs at least! She received no notification regarding "fair usage" it's just rubbish. Lastly about a week ago her internet connection became completely dead. I am a fully trained IT technician; so I checked all of the settings on her network, and router configuration. All of which are perfect, so she phoned their 'support' (I use the term loosely, as they have less computer knowledge than the piece of paper they're reading from) they told her she would need to unplug her wireless access point/ router, and install the router they supplied. This would be lengthy and pointless; I know the reason they wanted to do this and it is to generate an error code; as opposed to diagnosing the problem themselves. She told them that her router couldn’t connect to their PPP server, (PPP – Point to point protocol – a type of synchronous connection between computers) this however completely stumped them as they had no idea what she was talking about. She demanded to speak to a manager, he started off with all the normal rubbish to fob you off with, but as soon as she started speaking in computer terms; he instantly jumped to: ‘we’ve been having problems in your area’ – obviously rubbish as none of the other 4 phone calls had brought this up. On asking when this would be resolved he said that he’d just find out…. On his return he told my girlfriend that there were BT problems in the area beyond their control. This is the perfect excuse, as it’s not their fault, and in their eyes they don’t have to do anything. Well I work for BT, and just so happen to be in the line fault testing department, so I ran all the normal checks on my girlfriend’s line and there’s no problem what so ever.
So the only possible explanation left is that she has actually been cut off completely by Tiscali, despite the £15 direct debit they are too happy to take each month.

The bottom line is that Tiscali are liars and thieves, and genuinely do not care what their customers or anyone else think, once your locked in to the contract nothing else matters. The Customer service though, is quite simply beyond belief, you cannot speak to anyone English, on one particular phone call where my girlfriend couldn’t understand a word the operative was saying, she requested to speak someone who could speak English properly, the reply; they hung up!!!
My advice to all, BT!!! BT own the network that all of the other ISPs use (apart from a couple like C&W and Colt; who have their own cables) and do not force 75% of people onto a fair usage policy to save money; instead they spend more of they’re own money on new cables and equipment to keep to their contracts with customers.

Thank you for reading my rant, it needed to be said…

Posted by James on the 13th November 2006

I’m in the process of leaving

They wrongly accused me of breaching their fair use policy.
I requested details as I know they are wrong.. All I got was automated answers to emails.
When I rang and EVENTUALLY got through (to an Indian call centre), they said they couldn’t help and I must email. So no chance of getting any answers to my questions.

Be aware that Tiscali DO NOT support the migration scheme and actively make it difficult to leave them (Read other complaints all over the net).

The good news is that with 3 alleged breaches of their fair use policy, I was automatically offered my MAC code which means at last I can get away.

- Mediocre Speeds
- Awful Service
- Non existent telephone Support
- Difficult to leave / No migration support

- Why take the chance
- Pay a little more and go elsewhere

A good site for ISP comparison:

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php

Posted by Howard Bell on the 12th November 2006

I've been with Tiscali just over 6 months now paying £14.99 a month after being with that useless OneTel for several years. I've rarely had any issues so far except for one evening when I couldn't get on and couldn't get through to their customer services/technical support. When I did eventually get through I had a little rant about keeping people on hold for so long and they saying the lines were too busy and being cut off. If the whole system is down, leave a message so callers don't keep ringing back every few minutes wondering if it's just a problem with their individual connection! Never had any FUP warnings since I've joined and found the setup process really easy and hassle-free. I hope I don't experience what some of you guys have as I haven't the calmest of tempers...

Posted by Millie Roy on the 10th November 2006

I was with Tiscali when it was called Libertysurf - I transferred over to Tiscali broadband and I am a very HAPPY MAN now that i have FINALLY dumped them.
They promised me speeds of 1Mb and all I ever got was slightly faster than "dial up" - I complained constantly - They finally agreed to reduce my charges to £9:99 a month for unlimited access and then they began to drop my line every evening at the same times between 5pm and 11pm.
I could connect to the server but none of the messaging services worked.
I have been trying to cancel for 4 weeks - I sent them numerous e-mails, Rang every conceivable number to them and was always left hanging on the phone listening to music before finally being transferred to a dead line.
I decided that the only way to get them to talk to me was to cancel my direct debit mandate - They agreed to cancel my account but grudgingly - they said it would cease on the 30th of this month and then I would have to wait 10-15 days for them to remove the marker on my line - Then and only then i could arrange a new provider.
They refused to give me a MAC code - Then this morning the switched my connection off before the agreed termination date - Saying that i had terminated the contract because i had cancelled the direct debit, They said that they were going to leave the account suspended indefinately and also leave their marker on the line, They said this would continue until I set up my direct debit again and they would re-instate my cancellation.
I contacted BT and explained what they were doing - BT was appalled that they would treat their customers like this after being with them for nearly 10 years - albeit with a less than adequate connection.
My telephone is with BT and BT own the line - BT said that they have the right to remove any equiptment from their exchanges if their customers requested it.
I thank you BT - BT s now going to remove the Tiscali marker and then supply me with BT total Broadband.
I would advise all Tiscali users out there - GET OUT NOW - WHILE YOU CAN - It seems that the only way to leave Tiscali is to actually die - then they will accept that they are going to get no more money out of you.
I am looking at the rating scale here - I want to give them a minus score but as there is none I will give them one.
I would just love to be a fly on the wall when BT contact them to tell them they have removed their marker from my line.
I am very pleased I did not have the Tiscali call package too - Tiscali need to know that they cannot blackmail their customers in this way particularly when they don't own the equiptment .
My advise to all you out there - Be wary when you think about transferring from BT to CHEAPER phone providers - once you have changed - you could be trapped with a company like Tiscali without the Clout of BT to help you out.
First change back to BT - then dump Tiscali.
Goodluck

Posted by Paul Wheatley on the 10th November 2006

What an utter pile of rubbish, signed up thinking they'd be good for online gaming, been with them since friday, now going to multiplaydsl. If Tiscali let me cancel, which they should do under consumer rights.

Posted by Graham Auld on the 6th November 2006

I am currently with tiscali (after much patience) now they would love for me to say "this is perfect broadband provider 10/10 a+++ " but unlucky for them i dont lie in public.

As far as i am concerned they have 3 problems:
1) Their stupid FUP this is in the terms of you agreement but as usual it is in the fine fine fine print this states from 6 pm - 11 pm you cannot overload your connections with downloads lucky for me i do work at them times so it doesnt affect me as much but still on a week end that is taking thes piss.
2) Their techinical surpport is usally some indain name name ali o0r something weird like that who u cannot understand or dont know anything about computers who work for abour £2.00 a hour so as usual you have to figure it out yourself.
3) Finally getting your line switch if you are moving home in there term this take 5-10 days if you are using a new number but to my surpise :O it took a whole month and when i phone up they said they were restarting the contract from day one so after treating to take them to court and go to the papers and letting our village know because our village all use tiscale they agree to not restart my contract and give me my moneyback which is good.

But let us not forget there are other bad companies - another one would be AOL - so to sum my point up if you feel like you are getting robbed go to you local solicitors and find out how to take action and never back down.

Posted by Tallan Sisson on the 6th November 2006

DONT SIGN UP!!!!!
Tiscali is a scam!! They mislead you into thinking you're getting something that you don't. It took almost a month to receive my modem after many lengthy phonecalls to find out what the delay was only to be lied to and told it was a problem with bt(which it wasn't)
Four days after activating my modem i received an email stating that i should not be downloading between 6pm-11pm!! I purchased what i thought was 8mg unlimited downloads?
Unlimited yes but restricted to the times people who work are either at work or in bed! What alot of good.
I have since received another email warning me that if i continue to download during the peak times i will capped, i thought i was being capped already, the pages take forever to load (thats if they decide to) and i can't view things i can on my mums aol. My mums old dial up was quicker than our 8mg! I have tried to cancel with Tiscali but was told that I only have 14 days to cancel from the date you register with them, what a joke, 14 days after signing up I was still waiting to receive my modem, oh and you can only cancel if you haven't activated your account so what good is that to anyone. I am seeking legal action as to what I can do to get away from Tiscali asap!
They deserve 0 stars

Posted by Nicola Hagley on the 3rd November 2006

A friend of mine recently signed up to to Tiscali on the 2mb package. That was in September. It's now November and he hasn't even sniffed broadband yet.

The main problem is that the customer service people don't know what they are talking about. They are full of false promice which gets both of us very annoyed.

If anyone has been reading the comments on this page, listen to them. Seriously, it's for your own good. Especially the "avoid like the plague" comments.

I've had to say 1 star but I would have said zero. Even if he does get it working, as soon as they kick in their "Fair Usage plc" I think I'm going to sue, and I'm sure a lot of you would back me up, because it's cheating money from a service which you don't get.

Broadband should be for everyone, not just for people who want to check their e-mails on a Sunday...

Posted by Ashley Bradshaw on the 2nd November 2006

Having read your comments I can see that I am in for a rare treat with tiscali. Have had the Service for 2 weeks. Worked fine for 7 days then went down and have been unable to re-connect. It gives me Error 691 which according to Tiscali's own website is a username/password error. Confusing since I can log onto their website with these details but not regain my internet connection. When the phone team reset the password it made no difference. My e-mail query received a response to a completely different question. I can see its all going to be rather depressing. Still if they persist in giving me stupid answers to my queries I will go to the complaints team. If still no joy cancel the whole thing and my direct debit. When it was working it was rather good, not much use since.

Posted by Steve Gore on the 2nd November 2006

those dam disconections drive you mad i am looking for another supplier now

Posted by John Row2land on the 1st November 2006

tiscali are the worst server ever tyring to play online games is a joke diconnected no download and all other aspects please do not bother with the hastle peeps just dont need this these days especially if you do university and u need to search for information

Posted by Scott Russell on the 29th October 2006

This article is lengthy so please be patient! I have been a broadband customer with tiscali for the past 10 months, and quite recently I joined their discussion forum. This forum is where existing customers can discuss problems they are having with their service. I recently set up a poll on this discussion forum to find out how many customers are affected by the fair usage policy.

To my amazement, tiscali responded by pulling the broadband discussion forum and deleting all of their customers negative comments regarding their Fair Usage Policy, requests for a MAC code and any other negative comments regarding their service. The broadband discussion forum is now invisible to me and perhaps other customers who have posted negative comments.

But, in the last 6 hours before this happened, I read through other customers comments and I can now conclude that the Fair Usage Policy is imposed on 3/4 (75%) of all customers, regardless of heavy usage during peak hours (1800-2300 hrs). The reason for this conclusion is because of the overwhelming comments stating "FUP imposed? Don't use broadband during peak hours." or "FUP Warning, Why?".

I posted a comment which probably hit the nail on the head, I said:

Conspiracy theory! I think tiscali are imposing their Fair Usage Policy on customers randomly, because if they didn't they would have to invest in more equipment and services to meet the needs of their customers. By Imposing the Fair Usage Policy in this way is like spreading butter on bread... they have to spread out the available bandwidth thinly in order to cover their ever expanding customer base, if they didn't they would not make money. The only reason that the Fair Usage Policy does not apply during off peak hours, is because there are less users on the sytem, therefore the bandwidth does not have to be spread thinly and you get what you pay for. Any letters or e-mails regarding this policy is met with an automatic response letter that displays the terms and conditions of your contract and the fair usage terms and conditions. So with no comeback and no way to contact them regarding this issue, tiscali win hands down.

They are even cheecky enough not to divulge specific details of what they consider to be heavy usage. For example, how many kb per second you can use during peak hours. If they did that, then they would be open to all sorts of complaints, as Tiscali allow you to see how much data you are downloading through their Internet Usage Screen, which could be used as ammunition against them. I have read comments also stating that tiscali have denied people access to these records in order to avoid conflict.

If nothing that I have stated here was true, then why did tiscali pull the forum and delete the comments of their own customers? I beleive this was a last resort attempt to silence the hords of unhappy customers, so that the new customers that join would not be subjected to potentially harmful information that could influence whether or not they cancelled their broadband during the cooling of period. After that, the contract is binding and tiscali wins another victory, and you can complain as much as you want... you will be lied to and ignored until your 12 months is up. If you want a MAC code to migrate or leave, it will cost you 12 months worth of broadband charges.

I am only detailing this information as a friendly warning to others who are considering joining tiscali. DON'T DO IT! Unless you want 12 months of misery and disatisfaction. You will be pleased to hear the some customers are rallying together to make individual complaints to BBC's Watchdog regarding the way tiscali are operating their service. If you are unhappy with Tiscali, write to watchdog and add to the ever expanding evidence that tiscali is the worst Broadband Provider in history. I would not be suprised if the company does not go bankrupt from their own incompetance.

Posted by Graham Brown on the 25th October 2006

NEVER EVER EVER get tiscali! They cut your connection if they class you as a "heavy" user! Like downloading mp3s, games, videos etc - using the bleeding internet in other words!!!
People saying it good value may want to re-evaluate as there are much better and faster deals around from people like Sky and Cable... If you don’t use torrents etc, it maybe liveable with... but I don’t know a single person that does not download "large files", even windows updates are big.

Contract is up with them soon so I'll be speaking to Cable and their 8Mbps service most definitely!!!

Posted by Mike on the 24th October 2006

Hello, I've been with tiscali for a while now and I was intrested to find out how many broadband users are actually being affected by their Fair Usage Policy. I have published an online poll on their Broadband Discussion Forum named "Fair Usage Poll". If you are a tiscali customer and are being affected by this Fair Usage Policy, I invite you to log in and submit your vote. The results will be posted in 2 weeks on the forum and here (assuming that the moderators don't pull my thread by then). Thanks!

Posted by Graham Brown on the 24th October 2006

DON'T sign up with Tiscali!! Their FUP is a joke. I had two warnings about my "excessive use" before they took action! Upon receiving the first warning, I stopped downloading torrents during peak hours. Not long afterwards, I received a second warning - I can only think it was because my iTunes automatically downloaded a 10 mb podcast!! So, after my second warning - no torrents, no iTunes!! Except I got my third warning last week - for going on youtube. What a joke!! My broadband is now capped. I can't wait till my contract is up - I'll sign up with ANY ISP BUT Tiscali!!

Avoid.
No stars if it was possible.

Posted by Carl on the 20th October 2006

Like everyone says.. avoid like the plague. I've had nothing but trouble with them. I've never heard of this FUP FUD until they sent me one warning letter.. After that i immediately stopped the downloads, but they kept telling me that i'm going over some quota on the FUP.. even when i was out of the country for two weeks without using the internet at all.

Weeks and weeks go by and i keep sending them emails with no replies, or dumb replies.. Then i make an official complaint with OFCOM and a letter to tiscali. Two weeks later Tiscali sends me a letter which to me looks automated.. Saying more and more BS, as if they didn't read my 3 page letter..

Now during off peak, internet's SO slow.. During peak hours i can't even visit google.co.uk. It takes about an hour for that to load.

Basically i'm claiming that they broke their side of the contract by not giving me evidence of what i did, not communicating with me, and not providing me with a stable connection.

I hope everyone makes a class action suit against them. I hope they lose everything, and i hope they suffer for the crap they put us through.

Posted by Xushi on the 17th October 2006

stay well clear tiscali are rubbish slow speeds, terible service move house took a month to switch my broadband over

Posted by Daryl Fox on the 16th October 2006

Tiscali have been fantastic. I've gone from 512 > 1Meg > 2Meg + Anytime calls. What can I say, an excellent product at a very good price. I'm looking forward to upgrading to 8Meg.

I've only had to call their Indian tech support once (but at least someone answered the phone quickly). Poor chat kept asking me the bleeding obvious, so, admittedly I ended up leading the support person in the right direction and towards admitting it was their problem, but hey, I'm a technical guy. It was no problem.

Now if you really want to see bad service you need to go with NTL. That organisation (if you can call it that) is just awful. Ohhh the hours I spent on the phone and the threatening letters they sent me, just because I cancelled my service. Really shocking. Hey ho.

Posted by Grant on the 13th October 2006

I will echo what most people have said...avoid Tiscali at all costs, no customer service skills, no replies to e mails, the guy in India has no idea what you are talking about, a very shoddy company

Posted by John on the 11th October 2006

I have Tiscali and theres always problems with our internet , you sign a 1 year contract for nothing their service is non existent and their internet always slow and most of the time cant access any websites, is there a way we can take legal action against them and have them closed or contract broken? If there is any lawyers reading this plz let me know.

Posted by Ryan on the 9th October 2006

Useless! Avoid like the plague...it takes over an hour to get through to any phone number other than the new sales phone number, they break for days (I recently went 3 days in a row where I had no broadband connection through technical issues) and they recently wrote to me confirming I had asked for my broadband account to be cancelled - when I hadn't!!! I have now been on hold for an hour and a half to make sure they don't connect me, and will continue to write on sites like this about Tiscali until they answer the phone and correct their mistake. Which will probably be at least anothe hour or so.

Posted by Richard Wylie on the 9th October 2006

Dont do it, tiscali are shit only got uk call centers for sales, there technical support monkey dont know anything. All they care about is taking your money, they mislead lead you into a contract, there FUP is a joke, they even told me the modems they send out are rubbish and advised me to buy a router!!!. i think im going to change my number and see if that will get my line released

Posted by Orbital on the 8th October 2006

lowest rating i can give them. very slow downloding speeds, broken connections and poor customer service/technical help.
moved house and applied to have the connection moved to the new number in mid august, re-applies in september due to request 'not going though', it's now october and still no connection. avoid.

Posted by Mark Griffiths on the 7th October 2006

i signed up for tisclai 6mnths ago and for the 1st month it was fine .... then all hell broke loose .
my download speeds plummetted and whenever contacting tiscali i got lies for 4 weeks ... then the "fair usage" policy was explained to me .
Why was this not explained before they took my cash ???
tiscali should be avoided like the plague and i am currently taking legal action against them .

Posted by Roger Brandsworth on the 7th October 2006

There are few words to describe Tiscali's service - one would be disgraceful , but hey .. you think they care with 4.49999 million other customers ??

Posted by Malc Nunn on the 7th October 2006

I am glad to find so many websites with so many negative comments about Tiscali, as I have had numerous problems and thought perhaps it was me!
I have Tiscali Broadband, but it is rubbish, sooooo slooow! Judging from comments I have read Tiscali also make it extremely difficult to cancel your contract. I am going to do so though and intend to cancel my direct debit befiore I contact them. I have just signed up with another ISP for a free trial and will see if they are any better than Tiscali, but I am damn sure they can't be any worse. I resent that I am obliged to rate them as I wouldn't by choice even rate them as 1.

Posted by Dorothy Newbery on the 6th October 2006

I wish I had visited this site before signing up to Tiscal. I am at the end of my patience now after 7 weeks without Tiscali sorting out our broadband problem. Up until 10th August I had no complaints about the service but it suddenly stopped and I have since had to access emails remotely. I have wasted endless money phoning their offshore, unhelpful and often unintelligible help line operatives and being passed from one section of Tiscali to the other. The customer care is abysmal, we never get calls back, we are told one section of Tiscali cannot talk to another, and we cannot get access to someone of sufficient authority in Tiscali to get to grips with the problem and sort it out.
Having read other users reports of difficulties getting disentangled fro their contract leaves me even more depressed.
Yet they are still advertising on TV. They ought to get their pitiful organisation shaken up and offer a proper service to existing users before more poor victims sign up to them.

Posted by Geoff Brooks on the 5th October 2006

on the 7/09/06 ordered tiscali max over the phone and asked advisor if i could pay for 12 months contract price in advance.the advisor replied no problem so i gave my master card details to him.within half and hour later he called me back stating 12 month pament are not acceptable by billing department so it has to be direct debit mandate.i told him to cancel my account which he did. i called aol on the same day to register .when i give my home tele no she said that there is a uncompatible product in my bt line which need to be clear first .i rang bt to find out what was my bt line they said is tiscali marker.i called tiscali to remove it.
it took a month to renove it.basicaly i had to call them every day to remind somebody.

Posted by Kabir Ahmed on the 3rd October 2006

Tiscali are the most FRUSTRATING and UNRESPONSIVE ISP on the planet. I have written to them, recorded delivery, no less, in an attempt to get them to clear my line. This is after MANY letters and emails that were by and large ignored. The responses I did get were of no help.

I cancelled them in August after TWO MONTHS without my broadband service. It goes without saying that I was still paying for it throughout this period!

I STILL have DSL on my line, no MAC code and still have money coming out of my account.

Think of it like this. I was just a regular broadband user, no heavy downloading or problems with the FUP. Then, for no reason and without warning THEY pull my broadband service. THEY can't get it back for at least 2 months so I am forced to cancel. Having cancelled, THEY still prevent me from changing ISPs and haven't refunded me yet. NOTHING YOU CAN DO OR SAY WILL MAKE THEM LISTEN!!!

PLEASE DON'T consider signing up to them. This is a NIGHTMARE. What can I do???



No rating!

Posted by Paul Jackson on the 2nd October 2006

I'm still with tiscali (see earler note posted below). I complained and complained and complained. They where disintrested in my claims that they mislead me into a contract. They advised that I was made aware of the FUP before I agreed (NO I WAS NOT).

I have just lost all strength to fight this battle with their offshore support team. I eventually lost it and advised via e-mail: "Please cancel my service and send me a MAC code, as for the modem... would you like it sent to you via the mail or the tip via the bin... its up to you!". Suprisingly I got no response to that message.

I thought to myself, I've only got 6 months left with them... I will attempt not to have a nervous breakdown before my contract is up (fingers crossed) and then get rid of them forever! (Horay!).

Until then, I have to put up with:

25 kb/ps during peak hours (normally 240 kb/ps during the day).

Repeated unexpected line drops for no reason.

Being charged for the same price as tiscali MAX (8MB), but receiving only 2MB Unlimited* (their support team advise they are still in the process of upgrading the lines with BT - how convenient for tiscali!).

I posted a question to them yesterday, I asked "When can I get tiscali MAX?", they advised "We are still upgrading the lines with BT". I checked with BT, BT said "Your line has been upgraded, you can get 7MB on your line". So, my conclusion is tiscali train their support staff to frequently lie to their customers. Because, over the 6 months of being with them... lie after lie after lie". I've just had it with them completely.

I now give them a rating of: think of the largest number known to man and times it by oh... that number again. That's how much I loathe them.

Posted by Graham Brown on the 24th September 2006

Aviod tiscali like the plague. I have cancelled my account and they kept taking money until I cancelled the DD. I have been trying to migrate from them since Aug and they will not clear the line. They keep blaming BT........who say they have had no contact with tiscali about my line. I have no BB for the past 6 weeks with no idea when it will com. Spend £££££ on there phone lines talking to liars, cheats or idiots ( or they think I am one). I have given up. I have reported them to ofcom and that is another joke....regulators my arse. They have supposed to have signed up to there migration policy...ha!
I think a war should be waged against Tiscali....boycot them....report they....THIS COMPANY SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED NEAR CUSTOMERS!
rant over
no rating

Posted by Alexander Brown on the 24th September 2006

Very unhappy with Tiscali!!!! Problems with the service. My partner had to talk the 'technical guys' through the issues. Have been without service for over 35 days now and cancelling has been a nightmare. Promised disconnection at the end of the week and the DSL line is still connected! Customer Service and technical support are rude and will not escalate the problems...instead they hide behind computer screen information and telephones. The managing directors of this company really need to get a grip with of these problems. Advice to all thise thinking of joining Tiscali....don't! Those who are coming to the end of an unhappy contract....insist that they provide you with the MAC code making the transition to another provider, easier.

Posted by Andor Valon on the 22nd September 2006

I attempted to get the internet from Tiscali. I had problems even registering with them because of failure to ring me and arrange details things only happened when i rang and complained about not recieving my modem.

My account was set up with them on the 3rd of August. Since getting my modem on the 14th of August it gave me internet speed of not much more than dial-up, not the 8mb broadband i was paying for. So since then i have been trying to solve this problem, emails and phone calls later, still no result. Then at the end of August the internet stopped completely, since then i have not had the internet and am paying for because of tiscali's incompetance. Today i have tried ringing the disconnection team because it has gone past the point of trying to fix the internet to the point of wanting rid of ticali. They say that i hsve not phone them and that emails do not count as a point of contact. They also say that if i cancel now i am supposed to pay the remainder of my contract. Surely they have not held their side of the contract so the contract should be nulled. After offering me no help, they then say i can talk to the specialist team, this is the first time this has been mentioned. They are going to ring me in the next three days. This problem has persisted since the 14th of August with no result and little interest from Tiscali. I do not trust them as a company to be competant enough to provide me with internet, and i now just want to be rid of them.

I phoned Tiscali technical support last night, after a twenty minutes conversation (costing me money) nothing was solved, it was left with someone supposedly ringing me back in the next few days, but then the person on the other side said they may not phone back it just depends.

Do not get the internet with tiscali.

Posted by Stephen Wake on the 12th September 2006

I am depressed to read the bad reviews about Tiscali for their 'Fair Usage Policy ' and Customer Services...I have just spent a whole weekend experiencing nearly all the bad things written about them here! I kmow they are a rubbish company after only a couple of months with them. But until I can move on, what exactly do I have to do to play regular online games after work and before bedtime? Change company asap is the answer - but who is more reliable! Anyone else at a guess!

Tiscali should call their 2 Mb 'UNLIMITED' £17.99 package (though it's available now for £14.99)! 2 Mb RESTRICTED usage! I tried to find out how to understand the limitations to manage it myself and avoid another warning (even though I'm NOT using P2P or other heavy stuff), but the staff were...well, dim at best! No answers beyond don't play games online then. They were seriously evasive. Eventually said the limit is about 14,000mb a day and disconnected my call. But that still means nothing to me.

I rate Tiscali --0. Someone clever please sue them. They must be breaking soooooo many contracts, being this unfair and dishonest, not informing customers fully, evasive with answers, illegally taking money from bank accounts, etc. Grrrrrrrrr!

Posted by Michela Roberts on the 21st August 2006

I was made quite aware of the FUP before buying the package (although i do wish it was not called "unlimited" but "managed" or something of the sort) and they have done a good job of sticking to it, I was sent 4 warning emails (each twice, in case of accidental deletion etc i guess) before they put me in with heavy users, and it was quickly sorted out via email, as i dont approve of phoning "national rate" phone numbers. Response was within a day and quite polite, and have offered me a good overall service at low cost

Posted by Steve E on the 19th August 2006

Technical support is appaulling! Some of the rubbish they came out with was just astounding, and they lied about my problem being reported to BT! They did nothing untill I rang back, then was told I was referred to comp manufacturer (blatant lie!). Ohh and p.s. no online gaming during peak times (6-11, so errrr... when else? I'm either asleep or at work!). My service is now limited because my girlfriend is playing an online superbomberman type game. Avoid like the plague!

Posted by Steve on the 17th August 2006

The Customer service at Tiscali is awful. I have not been able to access my online billing for over a month. I have reported it by phone a number of times (have gone through all the procedures that they recommended) and was told it would be fixed. I have made endless calls (for which I have had to pay and have been kept waiting for ages on most occasions) as well as have had endless email correspondence but still cannot access my bill. I have now given up on Tiscali and have just cancelled my subscription and will now be looking for a provider that can give me a decent service. This was not the first time I have had problems with them. I really don't think they even deserve 1 star but I couldn't submit without it.

Posted by Delise Tattum on the 15th August 2006

I felt I was mislead into beleaving that tiscali was "unlimited". I was completely unaware of the Fair Usage Policy until it bit me on the bum. I'm usually quite good with legal stuff but unless you know what your looking for, it's hopeless.

So, we've all been in that situation. A company claiming an "unlimited" service and cannot fulfil it's claims. The Unlimited* (*fair usage policy applies) scam. You need a magnifying glass to see this clause that they put on their web site.

I confronted them and advised them that I entered into a contract without being shown all the relevant facts beforehand. I wrote to them and told them they where in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act & the Distance Selling Regulations.

This is because you cannot claim to provide or even use the word "unlimited" without fulfiling a customers expectations of this definition (That's the trade descriptions). And, if you sell a product over the internet or by phone, you have to tell the customer exactly what the service entailes before you agree to the terms and conditions (Distance Selling regulations). I also lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority for using the word "unlimited" when in fact it's not.

My best advice for this situation is to:

1. Stop using your service immediately.
2. Send the modem back to customer service (with a letter explaining you wish to cancel the service and why).
3. Cancel your direct debit or payment arrangement with them.

If you get any recovery action, wait for the CCJ forms to arrive and state that you admit 0% of the money owed. And then, (with a small legal fee) Counter Claim for being mislead into a contract without being made aware of the facts. That's what I intend to do. But make sure you know what you are talking about and read into the legal stuff before you take this action.

I have had loads of problems on top of this. It took them 10 weeks to provision the line and get it up and running. I had to use tiscali dialup during that time and got a hefty phone bill (which they would not reimburse). I moved house to get repairs done by the housing associatiion and they did not transfer the service. But, they did give me the money back for the time I was not connected. But the dialup charges I got ate into this credit. They gave me £42, but my phone bill was £120.

Overall, if I was to give this company a mark between 1 and 5 it would be minus 1 trillion. Really bad service overall.

Posted by Graham Brown on the 2nd August 2006

A fault with the ADSL equipment at the exchange has revealed just how bad Tiscali's support is. They keep you hanging on to their semi-premium rate number forever and don't do anything. After a fault BT (telephone) disconnected the equipment and told me to contact Tiscali and get them to tell BT Wholesale to fix it (convoluted but not BT's fault). Tiscali keep promising to do something, but after a week have not done anything at all.

Posted by Tim on the 25th July 2006

I've read all the comments, the contents of which come as no surprise. In the end, it all depends on what you want to do on the Internet. Right now I'm getting 1mb for £12.99 and I'm very happy.

BTW: Steve, here's the link to Tiscali's Fair Usage Policy:
http://uk-tiscali.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/uk_tiscali.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=355&p

Posted by Marve on the 22nd July 2006

This is undisputedly the worse company I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with.
I had the same problems as steve where unlimited usage does not actually mean unlimited usage. As a result they limited my connection to lower my bandwidth to 8kbps (thats slower than dial up) whilst having the nerve to keep charging me the £25 a month. I contacted them to cancel my contract immeadiately with no response for 8 Weeks. It was only after i went to the bank and told them to stop payment that tiscali called me to threaten legal action for non payment (you can't contact these guys, they contact you only when it suits them). Even when i switched to another broadband ISP, tiscali were still billing me and threatening legal action.

Avoid at all costs, for proof how bad they are, contact their customer services.

Posted by Misc on the 18th July 2006

I have had a lot of problems with tiscali their customer services e.t.c is rubbish. I wrote to them to discuss my problems with my connection, when I received the , the second letter they they finally admited as I thought, my account had come to an end. I have heard a lot of people complain about them.

Posted by Plantsrain on the 8th July 2006

Tiscali was the worst company that I have dealt with. I do not even think that they deserves a 1 start rating!!!

In late March, I had ordered the Tiscali package and called back a day later wanting to load the Dell promotion - was told to cancel my account with them first (and will only take 10-15 days at most) before they can load the promotion deal.

Today is 27 June and I have been left battling with different teams over three months:

- 0870 & 0845 within Tiscali support team & cancellation team who repeats your question 4 times back to you and only to find out they are not able to help and you have to talk to someone else...

- formal complaint team: that get you to call back to their incompetent teams again....

BT was not able to help as Tiscali was still holding my line even after all those time..... no other place to go.... maybe moving the house??

If I could give a negative star - I certainly would, it was stressful and costly to deal with Tiscali as a company. I was thinking to come back..... I will think a million times before I do.

Posted by Audrey on the 27th June 2006

I used tiscali for some time and every time I needed to contact their technical support people, I was thrown by how condescending they were.

I frequently had problems with lost emails and broken connections to the internet which their technical staff blamed on me, but which mysteriously reappeared without me touching anything. I migrated away to Zen, but my problems with Tiscali did not stop there - they carried on billing me for over 3 months, despite multiple phone calls to tell them to stop. I've still not been refunded.

Posted by Matthew Shepherd on the 24th June 2006

I've been on Tiscali for many many years now, ever since I got the internet. They have never been anything but a great service. The most ive ever known them to not have a service was once, and it was down for a week. But out of about 5 years, that's not bad I guess. I get their package of £25 for 2MB unlimited broadband and free national phone calls. The fair usage policy isnt that bad, basically it's just if you use P2P (that's limewire or bittorrent or something like that) between 6PM and 11PM they cut down your usage. If they cut down your usage, you can email them saying you wont do it again and you're alright. They also give you 2 warnings before they cut your usage, so you know if you're doing anything wrong. You wont get caught out really unless you are using P2P.

Posted by Thewakeupcall on the 20th June 2006

Ordered as part of the telephone package - got the 2mb - and came within time set out. Download speed okay and i use it quiet a lot. Only problem so far is the constant disconnections, cannot find the reason behind this and still looking for answers. Apart from that, good service

Posted by Darren Shaw on the 20th June 2006

I have wondered why my download speed is no better than dialup Steve has explained - my contract is up in August and I will be looking elsewhere. Caroline is correct with her comments - but wait and see your download speed

Posted by John Somerville on the 19th June 2006

The website does not mention the fair usage policy that tiscal adopt ! This effectively means that if you use anything more than occasional browsing during peak hours - you will share your bandwidth with people who are classed as heavey users.. The really annoying part about them administering your bandwidth is that they forget to switch it back again. I am very disappointed with the service they provide I currently utilise their 1meg not so unlimited broadband (managed at peak times - and most times because they forget to switch off the software that manages my download speed)

You will find yourself tied into a 12 month contract with them - they will also offer you your MAC address to go elsewhere - but they forget to tell you that they will still continue to bill you.

Overall AVOID like the plague...!!!

Posted by Steve on the 1st June 2006

I ordered my Tiscali broadband online via their website, one week later the package arrived and was connected almost immediately.

Had no problems when it came to installing, as it was easy and straight forward (ideal for beginners).

I pay £14.99 for the 1Mb package, although ideally would have preferred the 2Mb package, which to my disappointment was informed is not available in my area as I am located too far away from the exchange.

Apart from this there have been no problems so far with their service.

Posted by Caroline Mann on the 4th May 2006