Broadband Nightmare

As you may, or may not have noticed, my posting activity, both on the blogs and OrionRobots has been less regular than it was before.

It has suddenly become difficult, as my home broadband (from where most, if not all my interaction with the site is made), is now dead. As a doornail.

I made the mistake of opting for e7even broadband. They performed an “upgrade” in the first week of January, and on January the 4th, I lost all form of connection. They became uncontactable, by phone or email and didn’t respond for a long time to any written communications.

Now I am having to either post from work, or via an old 56k modem which I managed to dig out. So I advise you all to seriously avoid this company, and if you are using them, to cancel, and try and reclaim your money from then with a credit card chargeback (which I couldn’t as it had been too long from the payment date). This highly disreputable company are not even contactable by ofcom - who I have also been speaking with to try and resolve the situation.

The company owe me money until around July. They also have not removed their marker from my line, thus obstructing me from simply going with any other broadband provider. In the UK, because of the way BT operates, although it is I who pays the line rental, a misbehaving broadband company can indefinitely prevent you from getting broadband elsewhere by simply not getting around to cancelling it from the line.

Anyway - if you are affected by this - some links to vent your frustration:

• http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk - The ADSLGuide is a well known source of information concerning broadband companies. This board is where other users of e7even have tried to consider ways to get some sort of service again.
• E7even did have their own page on ofcom - who have heard of them, but seem absolutely powerless to do anything. The page is gone now.
• otelo was another service to complain to regarding ISP’s, but also who seem powerless to actually take any action, they have since been closed down.
• broad-bandits used to be a site gathering complaints about all broadband providers - e7 seem to have the most.

I am in the process of trying many different ways (multi-pronged attack if you like) to get a phone line which I can use for broadband. I also recommend that people beware of paying third parties line rental on wholesale deals from BT. If you have any kind of issue with the BT line, the middle party may actually become unhelpful, and BT will point blank refuse to help you directly - after all, why should they - your contract is with the other third party, even though it is only BT engineers who can actually repair the line problem.

One thing I have learned from this is to take great care with services as important to me as broadband and phone. I admit until these point, I really had not considered how much I took it for granted. But I will not be buying the cheapest broadband any more. I will be looking on the forums and internet at what customers are saying about them, carefully weighing the deals, and only agreeing to paying monthly for any services.