Tiscali

We'd used Tiscali for email/dial up form many years without problems - then it was taken over by TalkTalk & the nightmare started! It decided that we owed them £29 when we weren't due it a penny! Despite explaining this to staff (who had difficulty with English) on numerous occasions, we began receiving three/four telephone calls from it each day.

When we eventually managed to get someone to confirm that we had no outstanding invoice & account actually showed a credit it still did not stop the harassing calls. It even suspended my email account a couple of times because of the 'unpaid account'.

Even emailing them did not stop it. It went on for four months - it even referred it to debt collectors (who thankfully were far more efficient). It's eventual explanation was that there was a 'system error'. Had to refer the matter to Otelo in the end.

I wouldn't advise anyone to touch this company.

Tiscali is the worst broadband band provider, along side Talk Talk. I changed from Talk Talk to Tiscali hoping for a better service as the prices were cheap. I spent so much time calling Technical Support that my phone bills were huge as these calls are expensive. The support was polite but mostly useless and time consuming. Now that Tiscali and Talk Talk have joined forces, God help their customers. STAY AWAY.

terrible terrible service- Tiscali gave wrong and conflicting advice on how to change phone number- spent hours trying to resolve problem- operators redirect to each other, giving out different phone numbers, waiting to be connected back and forth- can never call back a customer service operator to hold to account. Communiction with their service is like talking to a machine. There is no example in natural human or animal discourse where living organisms relate to each to each other in such a way. Service is more akin to a maze of brick walls.

I took the plunge and switched to Tiscali for TV, Broadband and Calls after years with my previous supplier. It's saving me over £50 a month and to date, I'm completely satisfied. I've found the Customer Service Team charming and efficient over the phone and via e-mail. Before I made the switch my server would crash and freeze at least twice a day. Touch wood, I've had a continuous service from the word go.

If one ever gets through to tiscali, when you get through to customer service, it's generally either difficult to understand or the line is very bad. They even managed to spell my email address wrongly and said they would correct it, which they never did. Later on another person said it could not be changed and the only solution was to give me 2 email addresses and that I would still only pay for one. It would appear I'm paying for three! From mid-Dec to early Feb I rarely got through to the internet.

Recently went onto Tiscali's 8mb broadband package, from that point the incoming line stopped working, despite umpteen phone calls to anywhere in the world.

I am still without incoming calls three weeks later.

They told me a BT man was coming to check the line I had the afternoon off work, no one came.

Whatever you do, don't switch your home phone line to Tiscali. They may lose you somewhere in the ether! Having been on broadband with them for many years and generally not had too many problems (apart from the great email debacle recently which made the national press) we were quick to snap up the cheap broadband, calls and line rental package they began recently. They seem to have got everything wrong from day one, having promised us a letter to warn us of our 'switch' date when we would be without a line 'for about an hour', they never did inform us. Then on 31 July at their request BT disconnected us, and Tiscali failed to connect us. We have spent about £100 on mobile phone calls in that time, most of them to Tiscali in Bangalore, Scotland and somewhere in England while a whole raft of people promise us they are trying to sort out the problem. Most of the time our broadband has still been working, though it disappears at weekends for some reason, but our phone is dead. It is a complete disaster. Just don't go there.

Tiscali charged for Broadband a month before it was able to be connected, due to line problems not their fault, but I haven't managed to get a refund.

I signed up for their Free Weekend package, which is supposed to give evening calls at 5p for an hour, but my bills show varying charges for these.

Substantial percentage of my bills so far has been long expensive calls to Tiscali, usually going over the same things again and again to many different agents, all assuring me the matter will be dealt with within 48 hours.

When I had trouble getting broadband connected, I felt the possibility of an unsuitable BT line could have been investigated a lot sooner instead of weeks of trying everything else possible.