HomeChoice

I have had homechoice for about 4 years. It was great for me. Very reliable. I had no problem whatsoever with the TV or broadband. Then Tiscali took it over. I lost my VOD in April 08 due to an upgrade process. Appalling customer service. And then 3 weeks ago a letter out of the blue that they were unable to upgrade me, and my tv and broadband and phone would cease on 16th Oct 08, gave me my mac code and told be to go elsewhere. Well I have. I've got sky, and, whilst I don't think their customer service is great, it's much better than Tiscali, and everything else about sky is so much more slik. I am writing this after a very smooth transition to sky broadband. A great relief to be rid of Tiscali

I had great service from my home choice box for two and a half years but then Tiscali took over and my box packed up.

That was 6 weeks ago and despite numerous phone calls with average hold time about 15minutes and various promises, I still have no service.

Phone dead as of seven days ago. Have made 48 phonecalls to their "customer services". Have been told that we cancelled our contract, that it's a BT line, that we have never been a customer, that they have to send an engineer round, that it's nothing to do with them. Was finally promised someone would call me back today with a solution. Guess what, no phonecall as of yet.Have racked up a massive bill and all I get is rude and ignorant people, some of whom can't understand basic English, all telling me it's not their problem. But they're still charging me...

Tiscali TV hasn't been working for us for four weeks. I have been missing my favourite show, I'd Do Anything and thank God for BBC I-Player. If it wasn't for that, I don't think I would be sane now.

Four weeks is an extremely long time and the responses have not been to the point. Ever since Tiscali took over from Homechoice, we have been overcharged, it takes longer to get through to the customer support department and the responses have been very vague. So vague that the things to do such as "rebooting your box" and "how to select channels" are not even relevant to my question!

I am absolutely furious that Tiscali have taken over...where is HOMECHOICE when you need it?!

I've been a Homechoice customer for over 2 years but will no longer be one in a month due to Tiscali's takeover of them(Read my Tiscali review). Homechoice's broadband service was good however if you had a billing problem or a problem with the tv you had to deal with one of the few people they employed to deal with customer service once you got through to them after a 20minute to an hour wait. After an hour I have been cut off.During my time with Homechoice they have:1. Told me they never answer customer emails.2. Tried to overcharge me by direct debit and refused to send me a direct debit form until I threatened to report them to OFCOM.3. Then tried to make me pay extra for paying by cheque as I refused to let them overcharge me until I threaten to report them to OFCOM again4. I have also been yelled at by a customer service operator who I was put through to as he was in the wrong department.

If you are with homechoice, leave them and if you arent, I suggest you put your money elsewhere. Worst customer service in the UK, in my opinion

The only reason I chose HomeChoice for my digital TV was because the street I lived in wasn't cabled. I used to have Telewest (now Virgin) at my old address and cannot fault their customer service and delivery. The remote control broke and the service cannot be used without it as the box doesn't have a manual over-ride. After initially ordering a new remote it took 11 calls over 1 month to receive it. Everytime I called I was told it hadn't been ordered and that they would have to start the process again. Once it arrived I had to call to ask for a refund for the lack of TV for a month. They don't offer this as standard. Also when chasing this request I asked for a manager as I wished to complain. Apparently the phones from the call centre operator don't transfer to their managers and I was told I'd be called back. This never materialised. Also when the box goes down so does your broadband unless you have an ADSL modem which I didn't. The TV service isn't very good and the box needs a regular reboot. Also channel surfing is slow to catch up.

To cancel Sky sports you have to give Homechoice 28 days notice, Telewest was 1 day and it was immediate.

Am about to move out of the area and again there is no cable. Have decided to go with Sky as the deal they are doing comes in around £20 per month cheaper which includes free evening and weekend calls (currently don't have this with HC), more channels and have heard they are much better.

When I called to advise of my house move from the area and to let them know I wanted to cancel I asked what I needed to do with the box and remote. I was advised to bin them, hardly very environmentally aware! I then called back two nights later about the TV service being down and asked the same question only to be told I had to send it back to them and they refund the postage. Failure to do so results in a £115 fine. Nobody seems to know what is going on.

I would not recommend Homechoice to anyone unless you are a masochist who enjoys hanging on phones for hours and then being abused simply for making a complaint. Homechoice are, in my opinion, a very amateurish service provider and the services they do provide are nothing special and certainly not value for money. Try any of the other providers first and only choose Homechoice as a very last resort. Buy a FREEVIEW box for a one off payment which allows you to watch the same channels you get from Homechoice without having to subscribe to their service for the next 12 months!

We had a few glitches with the Homechoice at the beginning due to faulty hardware (see comments posted at the time) but generally it's been working well. And we're quite far away from the exchange (2km, according to "Sam Knows")... So it's possible. But the general feeling is disappointment because of the content issues listed above... Plus now it's part of Tiscali, so we live in fear... To be fair, we've enjoyed the Video on Demand and films, but overall I would not recommend it with enthusiasm.

Currently my TV picture freezes several times in an hour and certain channels are unavailable. The message I get on the screen is "channel is unavailable at present, please try later". It's now a good week I have this problem and called the hotline several times. They told me that my service exchange point is Kensal Green and that they have some problems there hence other customers experience the same.

Do you live in Kensal Green area and experience the same problem? Did they tell me the truth?