Dear All,

Some interesting information obtained during a telephone conversation today with Sean Stephenson, Managing Director of ISP Freedom2Surf, about the sorry state of their tech support department which is on an 0870 number and to which calls routinely take between 45 minutes and 2 hours to get through to (it starts off saying you are eg 27th in the queue and this only reduces once every few minutes).  In addition to this online support tickets logged on their website also tend to be completely ignored, so forcing you to dial the 0870 number.  Also a geographic alternative St Albans number was removed for tech support some months ago.

It seems that Mr Stephenson is not offering any immediate hope that call queuing times will fall to only a minute or less (not least because Pipex who own Freedom2Surf regard it as their budget retail brand and so actively prioritise their business Nildram brand to have far shorter tech support response times than Freedom2Surf) but apparently resigned to the fact that those F2S customers who actually want to speak to a human will have to continue to queue he says he has decided to replace the company's current 0870 numbers for technical support with geographic phone numbers in a few weeks time, when significant changes in their call centre arrangements are implemented.

So it would seem that in this case that Freedom2Surf accepts that it is bad enough to upset a customer by starting to disconnect their broadband connection due to technical issues but to then make them pay £5 to £10 to find out why it has been disconnected only adds insult to injury.  Also at least if call queues continue to remain at 30 minutes or more F2S can't be accused of doing it to try and profiteer from customers.  To be honest I got the distinct impression that Freedom2Surf were only getting a penny or two a minute from whichever company provides the 0870 number and have been horrified to learn that an 0870 may cost their customers up to £21 an hour to call. :o

Anyhow here is one of the few cases where a company running an 0870 has finally thought better of their decision. [smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

Unfortunately, most of them just look at the income generated (and ignored by Ofcon).

Heinz wrote on Jun 20^th, 2006 at 7:51pm:

Unfortunately, most of them just look at the income generated (and ignored by Ofcon).

And they ignore the long term damage done to good customer relations by the abusive relationship that is involved.  But then outfits like Royal Bank of Scotland and the Dixons Group only got where they are today through strong arm muscle rather than through decent customer service.

And to perpetuate the scam they actually tell blatant bare faced lies to their customers in a basically criminal fashion about the underlying pricing of these calls.  Basically the whole 084/7 industry is reliant on a gigantic sophisticated form of telecoms theft.

I thought we had a thread on companies that have switched back to geographicals. If we have, I can't find it so I'll post this here.

Rowe's of St Piran provides both geographical and non-geographical numbers with the same prominance. There is even mention of Say no to 0870 on the home page.

Dave wrote on Jul 4^th, 2006 at 5:38pm:

I thought we had a thread on companies that have switched back to geographicals. If we have, I can't find it so I'll post this here. Rowe's of St Piran provides both geographical and non-geographical numbers with the same prominance. There is even mention of Say no to 0870 on the home page.

Sorry but whoever heard of them?

Yes, they do have a say no to 0870 banner on their website, but they are trying to still sell 0870 numbers, and still call them National Rate etc.  They even suggest that they are more appropriate for customer services, and after sales because they cost the customer more!!

http://www.rowesofstpiran.com/uk/ngnbenefits.html

wrote on Jun 20^th, 2006 at 4:27pm:

Some interesting information obtained during a telephone conversation today with Sean Stephenson, Managing Director of ISP Freedom2Surf [...] he says he has decided to replace the company's current 0870 numbers for technical support with geographic phone numbers in a few weeks time, when significant changes in their call centre arrangements are implemented.

NGM, a member has just requested an alternative to F2S's technical support. Despite the above assurances, last year, from the company's MD that the 0870s would be replaced by geographicals, it is still using 0870s.

The relevant thread in the Geographical Requests section can be found here.

Last year? The date is June 2006. Is the date incorrect? Otherwise, at a stretch, "a few weeks" from the date of the conversation could be anytime now.

Freedom2Surf is now part of Tiscali.

Dave wrote on Jun 5^th, 2008 at 4:44pm:

Freedom2Surf is now part of Tiscali.

Who one suspects no doubt also describe 0870 as "National Rate" on the phone bill side of their service (not that I am a customer).

So you can kiss goodbye to any hope of a non ripoff NGN number to access Freedom2Surf customer services.  This gentleman at Pipex who originally told me they were switching to GNs was clearly a classic large company bare faced liar who has long since pushed off in to the sunset along with his share options.

Anyone still with Freedom2Surf should move to a decent quality internet provider like www.adsl24.co.uk or www.idnet.co.uk (geographic phone numbers for all contact) or www.beunlimited.co.uk (0808 Freephone number for all customer contact). All of these companies also provide excellent full speed broadband at all times unlike the evening snails pace now on offer from Tiscali's Freedom2Surf brand. >:(

NGMsGhost wrote on Jun 7^th, 2008 at 12:26pm:

Who one suspects no doubt also describe 0870 as "National Rate" on the phone bill side of their service (not that I am a customer).

Indeed. Tiscali lie about their 0845 numbers being charged at "local rate" (see here) and have also claimed their 0870 was "national rate" before switching to 0871. Apart from cancellations, which is 0845, all Tiscali and Pipex numbers are 0871.