Toucan
Average Customer Rating:
| Toucan is now part of Talk Talk, please visit the Talk Talk page for more information |
| Toucan is now part of Talk Talk, please visit the Talk Talk page for more information |
KEEP AWAY.
These people are driving a normally very patient man crazy. You never get anywhere near the 8meg you pay for, if you phone tech support your just wasting your time as you get sent around in circles until you give up or get fed up paying for the no solutions service. Then you may phone customer service (if you want someone to really annoy you ) they won’t listen and keep repeating that you should phone tech support even when you tell them repeatedly you have loads of times and that is why you are now phoning them. They wont let me out of the contract even though they are not providing me with the service i pay for. My contract is finished in November and i have been contacting toucan to solve the problem since the start of my connection. Also if you upgrade to Vista you may find you need a new router. Toucan will waste 2 of your phone calls and two hours of your time (at tech support rate) before they say look mate Vista does not run with your speedtouch 330, go and buy a new router). Which i would have done if they had addmitted this earlier, but i spent my money phoning them.
Thanks a lot.
Appallling non-service. See attached email I will be sending. (the one star I’ve rated them is undeserved but it’s the only way to post.)
help@toucan.com
cc surfsupport@toucan.com
Dear Sir or Madam
Toucan has been my ISP for some years and, until recently, I thought your customer service was good: whenever I had a problem, the operators did their best to sort out and, ultimately, resolve any problems I had, even if sometimes these took some time to be remedied,
However, over the last five days I have been appalled, astonished and disgusted by the abysmal service you have provided, which has been massively compounded by various of your operators lying to me.
A brief history:
My Windows (XP operating system) computer needs to go back to Germany to be repaired. I could live with this were it not for the fact that I need to complete my on-line tax return by 31 January, a task which will incur a fine of £100 if it is not completed on time. A friend lent me his Windows (Vista operating system) laptop computer on which he hoped I would be able to do my tax return.
Sunday, 25 January: I spent much time on trying to connect the laptop to the internet via Toucan; I was on the phone to your so-called helpline so often I forget how many times I tried contacting you.
I do know that on Sunday, one of the many Toucan operators I spoke to advised me there was an incompatibility issue with the Toucan modem and Windows Vista (a point made by several of your operators) and that the solution to the problem would be to purchase a router: I did this at the cost of £39.13 from PC World.
The router installation disc asked me to select one of four types of internet connection, none of which I recognised so I was forced to ring your helpline again. The operator I spoke to confidently assured me he would talk me through the installation; needless to say, he failed but told me my ADSL filter was faulty and that I should purchase a new one. By this time it was about 4:30 pm; shops shut on a Sunday at 5:00 pm, so my partner and I hurried off in the car to PC World to get a new ADSL filter before the shop shut. We managed this, at the cost of £7.81, only for me to discover that, after more calls to your helpline, your operators could not get me connected to the internet.
Monday, 26 January: in the morning, after several phone calls, your operator’s tests on my line and the news that my ‘status had been elevated’, I was told, some time between 11 and 12 am, that there was a problem on the BT line but that an engineer from Toucan would call me back within 24 hours; lie number one. The next day, some 11/2 hours after the 24 hours had expired I had to ring back Toucan to ask what had happened to the engineer’s phone call ‘within 24 hours’. I was told an engineer would call back within three or four hours, which would have been between 5 and 6pm; lie number two. After the time slot had passed, I rang yet again to find out what had happened. My tone was undeniably angry, though I was at pains to remind the operator that that my rage was not directed at him personally but at corporate Toucan. I was told that a call back to me had been made at 3:15 pm but that I had been on the phone at the time; has your engineer never heard of answerphones? Does not common courtesy and intelligence suggest that the engineer should have left a message saying he had rung but that I was engaged and that I should ring him back when I was free? The operator also promised that he would try to get an engineer to ring back that evening before 8 pm and that the operator would definitely ring back that evening to see if the engineer had rung; I waited from approximately 5 pm till 8 pm; lie number three – neither rang back.
Wednesday, January 28; I rang yet again; this time, lie number four, I was told an engineer would ring back between 11 am and 1 pm. I rang yet again at about 1.20 pm to ask as to why nobody had rung back as promised. I was told an engineer would definitely ring back today between 5 pm and 8:30 pm, ‘guarantee call back’ (your operator’s words). Well, I’m writing this at 8:20 and, so far, have had nobody call me back. I’m exhausted now (not entirely due to Toucan but you shoulder the majority of the blame) and I’m going downstairs for dinner. I’ve been at this phone since before 5 pm; is lie number five just around the corner? Wait and see for tomorrow’s exciting episode.
Thursday, January 29; it’s 6 am and, yes, you’ve guessed it – lie number five was on schedule last night; no call back, no connection to the internet.
I rang this morning and asked what had happened. Surprise, surprise, up came lie number six, just like that! Your operator told me an engineer tried to ring me yesterday at 6.30 pm on 0208xxxxxxx; that is simply untrue because I sat by my phone from before 5.00 pm until about 8:20 pm. Dialling 1471 on my handset confirms that the last incoming phone call was at 14:44, from a hospital. I was also told the engineer rang the mobile number I gave him; I cannot confirm or deny that because the mobile was in my partner’s possession (it’s hers) and it was switched off. You will not be surprised when I say that I do not believe the engineer rang the mobile number.
I have been given yet another time slot during which an engineer will call me back: 11.10 – 12.10 am. You will not be surprised when I say that I do not believe this will happen.
I am sick and tired of phoning Indian operators (on phone lines that are often of poor quality) whose accents are sometimes difficult to understand, and who seem incapable of resolving the problem but who seem perfectly capable of lying to me. I am sick and tired of having to repeat my personal details and the nature of my problem.
I have probably rung Toucan helpline about 20 times since Sunday; if we assume an average of 10 minutes per call (including waiting time with your dreadful and irritating ‘hold’ music), that equates to an astonishing total of 200 minutes, or 3 hours and 20 minutes. I dread to think what this has done to my phone bill. On top of this time on the phone, I have had to sit by my phone and computer waiting for engineers to call back within the time slots I’d been given; if you add up the time slots I’ve itemised above, you’ll find they total 91/2 hours, to which should be added nearly 2 hours ‘extra’ time I waited in case the engineer was late, giving a total of 111/2 hours waiting time.
Because of all this, I asked the operator to transfer me to a customer services operator based in the UK and on a UK landline; he agreed to do this but, lie number seven, actually transferred me to woman with a virtually impenetrable accent on an extremely bad line. I understood so little of what she said, but I think she told me she was based in the Phillipines. In desperation I scoured Toucan web sites for a number that might get me to a UK phone operator. Unfortunately, all I got was a Tiscali number (apparently a sister company under the same umbrella; for some strange reason he would not divulge the name of the umbrella company). I explained the problem as briefly as possible and he agreed to give me a UK-based Tiscali help number (0871 222 3311) I could ring; lie number eight – an Indian operator answered me when I rang.
I don’t know how many more phone calls I will need to make, how many more lies I will be told or how many more hours I will sit waiting for an engineer to call back. What I want is for someone to urgently ring me back on the above number and let me know what is happening and when I will be reconnected. Needless to say, there is no point giving you my email address because I cannot connect to Toucan.
Ps Might I suggest Toucan’t would be a more appropriate name for your company?
I was with them and was unable to receive a signal and they are still trying to charge me for a service I was not receiving. Avoid at all costs…
I signed up with Toucan in 2005 when their helpcentre was in Ireland. The only problem I had was back in 2007 when broadband didn’t work for about a week and they compensated me with 3 monthe free broadband. Since then they were taken over by Pipex. I’m happy with them and when I wanted a router they provided it free with a new cheaper package.