Cancelling UTVip XL

Knob

Hello all,

about a week ago I sent a message to the utv admin stating that I wanted to discontinue my subscription to their flat rate service.I didn't want to do it there and then but required info on what specific details they required and how the procedure works.

I received an automated reply which had been assigned a ticket number along with links to their site.

I've heard nothing since.Will anyone actually reply to my message or what?I'd like to get signed up to another ISP before the hassle of christmas arrives on my doorstep.

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by Knob
Hello all,

about a week ago I sent a message to the utv admin stating that I wanted to discontinue my subscription to their flat rate service.I didn't want to do it there and then but required info on what specific details they required and how the procedure works.

I received an automated reply which had been assigned a ticket number along with links to their site.

I've heard nothing since.Will anyone actually reply to my message or what?I'd like to get signed up to another ISP before the hassle of christmas arrives on my doorstep.

I think you would be best off to call them and tell them. They may need it in writing from you.

Why do you want to leave UTVxl?

Knob

Tried that and they told me to contact the admin.I'll try ringing again tomorrow and being more masculine about it

Leaving them because to be perfectly honest the quality of the service isn't up to scratch.Slow browsing/downloading,disconnections,constant re-dialling,etc...

Da Man

Yeah, I went through the same procedure with them. E-mailed them twice, got no response. Then I called them and seemingly the service had been cancelled as per my e-mail request. It's bad that they can't answer the e-mails properly.

dahamsta

I agree, it's one aspect of UTV's business that needs a lot of work. In an ISP even 48 hours is too long, emails need to be turned around in 12-24 hours. Not responding at all is dangerous is most businesses, and just silly in one driven hard by word-of-mouth and peer support. It's a little disheartening to see issues like this in a progressive company like UTV.

adam

DundalkDuffman

I too had problems with UTVip, same as you guys, disconnecting and slow. I got my automated ticket on 12 August and eventually phoned up and cancelled on the phone(they made me do it via email as well). I too was disappointed as in the beginning I had talked up UTV to everyone I knew interested in it. What have any of ye done about flat rate since???



30.9.03

Hi,

Can you let me know if this problem is still ongoing or if you have been in contact with someone in support to try and rectify the issue.

Sorry for any delay in replying to your message.

regards
Brian
Sales & Admin.
UK 0845 2470000
RoI 1890 926000

Support
UK 0845 2470001
RoI 1890 926111

"This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system, do not use or disclose the information in any way and notify me immediately. The contents of this message may contain personal views which are not the views of UTV unless specifically stated".

>UTVip (IE) Flat Rate Customer Feedback
>========================================
>
>This message was sent from the online flat rate website by ***************************>
>Message: I am experiencing problems logging in and to be more exact being
>thrown off my connection in the past three weeks. I understand that this
>may happen but if I was more cynical I would be inclined to think that
>UTVIP are more interested in having the flat rate package taken up. I
>would be interested in this but frankly following the number of times that
>I have had to reconnect and at lower bps would not instill confidence in
>me.
>
>I have also just received a HTTP 500 internal server error when trying to
>use your support request form.
>

car

I too have had loads of prob's with UTV, I am currently very angry with them as I have been waiting since the 27th of September for my broadband connection. A very long wait.......

Basically i had the same hassel as I wanted to cancell my UTVIP XL account and migrate to their broadband service, they canceled my broadband order once as they said they didnt have my payment details on record. but when I rang them and said they recevied my payments for my UTVIP XL account for the last 5 months with no hassel that of course they had my records on record and sorry for the mishap.

now they are telling me that have signed up with another company and that they have cancelled my order, I dont know where they got this notion from.

Their customer service is complete rubbish, I have been dealing on a daily basis of customer complaints for the last 3 years and I know that if I have treated a customer the way they are treating people that I would have been fired.long ago.

To put a long story short, Isent them an email (not a very nice one though) telling them that if they basically dont get their act together that I am going to take my business else where.So, I will let you know how I get on.

Have the others of ye, have the same bad customer service from them.

Our man in Havana

Some posts from utv.support newsgroup.

I noticed today your direct debit was returned unpaid!
> >
> > We put the money in the account on the 16th, expecting Utv to deduct the
> > money on the 17th, (which didn't happen) another direct debit just set
up,
> > which I didnt think would take the money yet, got taken out on the 23rd
> Utv
> > got returned unpaid.on the 24th.
> >
> > Will you try to take from our bank account? or should we send you a
> cheque?.
> >
> > Sorry for this error, we have never been late paying, and never had any
> > intentional of this happening.
> >
> > Kind regards
> > xxxxxxxxxxxx> >
> >
> >
>
> Notice the same thing. UTV say the 17th and nothing hapens till the 23rd
or
> 24th.
> That said the statements are never ready on the 12th. Isnt there a time
> period between statement and dd? Eircom its 21 days. UTV leave no time if
> you need to qurey the bill.
>
> My 2 cents
> Peter Norton
>
>

Explain that one folks. More Bad service me thinks.

oscarBravo

In the interest of fairness, also from utv.support:

Peter, as our admin (who are generally no-techie) don't have access to these
groups, queries along these lines are best emailed to them on admin at u.tv

HTH

Martin.

It helps to address administrative queries to administrative people, rather than technical support.

edit: oops, better munge that email addy!

Our man in Havana

But still no response as I would consider it a serious issue. People incurring bank charges because UTV dd later than advised.

Also People cannot query a bill if statements dont issue on time etc.

Anyone in here care to comment or are yee all still brown nosing with UTV?

oscarBravo

No response to email sent to the admin address? Or no response from admin on a tech support forum that they don't read?

Our man in Havana

No response to any email.

dub45

It's a little disheartening to see issues like this in a progressive company like UTV.

I would be interested to hear your definition of progressive and how you consider it relates in any way currently to UTV? I am not being cynical in asking that but I was once a firm advocate of theirs and would have gladly recommended them to anyone (and did frequently) but not any more

Anyone in here care to comment or are yee all still brown nosing with UTV?

At last someone thinking the same as me (God help you:))

I am astonished at the level of support that UTV consistently receives. I was once a staunch supporter but now am a firm critic thanks to UTV themselves.

Some people seem to be prepared to put with anything from them.

My experience of Clicksilver is that it has been a complete shambles from its inception up to the beginning of this month. In spite of that some people both here and in the UTV support group seem incapable of criticising them. They were actually expressing gratitude when UTV finally admitted there had been a problem with Clicksliver (which resulted in some people getting apalling speeeds) instead of screaming from the high heavens.

Can you imagine expressing gratitude to a waiter/waitress who arrives two hours late with your meal in an expensive restraurant? I thought not. But thats the equivalent of what lots of UTV supporters are doing.

I have raised the issue of compensation for long suffering Clicksilver customers both on boards and in the support group and UTV have simply ignored my question.

In the longer term such blindness on the part of customers does not actually help the Company as the day of reckoning will eventually dawn.

oscarBravo

As someone who is still happy with the service provided by UTV, I take exception to remarks like "brown nosing."

I don't have problems with my UTV service. I get connected almost every time on the primary number. When it's busy, rollover works. Surfing and download speeds are fine. Don't know about pings and don't care.

When I post positive things about UTV, I'm posting from experience and for balance.

I have raised the issue of compensation for long suffering Clicksilver customers both on boards and in the support group and UTV have simply ignored my question.

Whenever people have raised the question of compensation on the support forum, they have been instructed to mail admin. And yet, people persist in asking tech support people administrative questions, and persist in complaining about the techies not answering.

when UTV finally admitted there had been a problem with Clicksliver

I don't remember them ever denying there was a problem. As an aside, when the problem was discovered, it turned out that one of their upstream providers had told them that there was no throttling in place, when in fact there was - hardly their fault. And, at least they admitted there was a problem, instead of silently fixing it.

Like others, I wish UTV would answer emails more promptly (not that I ever have cause to email them) - it seems to be the principal chink in their armour.

dub45

I don't remember them ever denying there was a problem. As an aside, when the problem was discovered, it turned out that one of their upstream providers had told them that there was no throttling in place, when in fact there was - hardly their fault. And, at least they admitted there was a problem, instead of silently fixing it.

If you look back over the support group you will see that the issue of Clicksilver speed was consistenly raised almost from the time that Clicksilver started. UTV never acknowledged that there was a problem and regulary ignored posts on it. They lectured people on the quality of their lines, the weather and eventually fell back on the MTU tweak - though how they ever expected a tweak to make up for the lamentable speeds that customers were getting is beyond me.

UTV showed no urgency in adressing a problem that was affecting their so called premium product for three months and even when the recent main thread began about the problem and as it gathered momentum it was ignored for about a week.

No matter where the problem lay UTV as provider is responsible for it and it is up to them to have a suitable mechanism in place to ensure that their customers receive what they are paying for. If you get stale bread from your grocer its probably gonna be the bakers fault but you dont accept that as an excuse the grocer is the one whos selling it and who takes your money.

Most businnesses with a problem could blame one of their suppliers I am sure. Would UTV accept you not paying your monthly bills if you told them that your supplier (your boss say) was at fault for not paying you in time? I think not!

When I post positive things about UTV, I'm posting from experience and for balance.

When I post negative things about UTV I am also posting from experience and for balance!

Whenever people have raised the question of compensation on the support forum, they have been instructed to mail admin.

There are plenty of non technical issues raised in the group and after all it is the one and only place for public communication between utv and its customers - referring such matters to admin is agood way of attempting to stop a momentum growing. As soon as I raised it on boards with UTV they stopped replying to my queries.

It is also noticable that UTV never issued any apology for the fact that there had been a problem for so long which would have been a good public relations exercise. It is also noticable that here again is a non Clicksilver user speaking up to some degree anyways on its behalf.!

oscarBravo

Originally posted by dub45
If you look back over the support group you will see that the issue of Clicksilver speed was consistenly raised almost from the time that Clicksilver started. UTV never acknowledged that there was a problem and regulary ignored posts on it. They lectured people on the quality of their lines, the weather and eventually fell back on the MTU tweak - though how they ever expected a tweak to make up for the lamentable speeds that customers were getting is beyond me.

Martin Lyons, October 24:

We are seeing speed issues with *some* customers in varying exchanges
which does make it hard for us to pinpoint (several UTV owned companies
in the ROI use our own BB service). Our bandwidth is nowhere near
saturation and the tunnel used to route yourselves through to our network
seems stable and fine.

[...] In order for us to chase this issue up through the chain, could anyone
getting
substandard speeds (obviously the people in this thread) please send me an
email with the subject "DSL Speed issues" and include their full name and
home telephone number. This will allow me to then pass this upstream and
apply a lot of pressure to get to the bottom of it. The more names I have
the
easier it will be for me. My email address is [...]

The general consensus we are getting from Eircom & Esat regarding this is
that contention seems to be kicking in a lot sooner than expected on this
service (across the country). Compared to the UK where I have yet to
experience an issue that has been put down to contention :-(

I'm sorry I missed this thread recently, but its been hectic here this last
few weeks :-(

Hope to hear from you soon via email.

From Martin again, October 29:

Looks like some sort of throttling/rate limiting has been inadvertantly left
in place
by one of our upstream providers (that drops the DSL tunnels onto our
network).
This had been previously checked and doublechecked and we were assured that
no limit was in place....but information this morning suggests that info was
just
wrong. We're getting this lifted asap. Will post more info hopefully in an
hour or
so.

UTV showed no urgency in adressing a problem that was affecting their so called premium product for three months and even when the recent main thread began about the problem and as it gathered momentum it was ignored for about a week.

No matter where the problem lay UTV as provider is responsible for it and it is up to them to have a suitable mechanism in place to ensure that their customers receive what they are paying for. If you get stale bread from your grocer its probably gonna be the bakers fault but you dont accept that as an excuse the grocer is the one whos selling it and who takes your money.

Most businnesses with a problem could blame one of their suppliers I am sure. Would UTV accept you not paying your monthly bills if you told them that your supplier (your boss say) was at fault for not paying you in time? I think not!

You say "it is up to them to have a suitable mechanism in place to ensure that their customers receive what they are paying for."

Given that UTV are relying on Esat and Eircom to connect you to them, do you mind explaining to me how the bloody hell they are supposed to provide you with a service if one of those companies doesn't supply that connection properly??

When I post negative things about UTV I am also posting from experience and for balance!

Fair enough, but no-one's calling you offensive names because of it.

There are plenty of non technical issues raised in the group and after all it is the one and only place for public communication between utv and its customers - referring such matters to admin is agood way of attempting to stop a momentum growing.

Referring administrative questions to administrative people sounds like a fairly coherent strategy to me.

It is also noticable that UTV never issued any apology for the fact that there had been a problem for so long which would have been a good public relations exercise.

I refer you to Martin's second quoted post above: they ackowledged that there was a problem - more than most providers would have done. It wasn't their fault, so I don't see that an apology is necessarily called for. If you want to talk about compensation, do what you have been told to do more times than I can remember: take it up with admin.

It is also noticable that here again is a non Clicksilver user speaking up to some degree anyways on its behalf.!

I'm not speaking up on behalf of Clicksilver, as I don't have any experience of it. I'm speaking on behalf of myself, in anger at being accused of "brown nosing."

If you want people speaking on behalf of Clicksilver, you need look no further than your favourite newsgroup:

Aidan Roache, November 5:
Clicksilver's running beautifully at the
moment...

Aldomar, October 29:
Clicksilver is as good as when I first got it. Many thanks...

dub45

In summary - they acknowledged there was a problem three months after the introduction of Clicksilver and after three months of increasing complaints many of which did not even attract a comment. Look back back at the newsgroup.

Bear in mind that this is a product that people are paying almost €50 a month for and for some of that time at least some people were getting less than dial in speeds.

The quotes you mention in favour of Clicksilver are after the fix!
You will not find any similar ones before the fix I dont think. The current quality is what we are paying for after all and what we are promised so why should we be especially grateful?

I consider that any Company that is supplying a service is responsible for the quality of that service. would it not be a grand life for every businness if they could blame their suppliers and be able to avoid any responsibility for the product/service they offer?
It is up to UTV to have a mechanism in place to ensure they know what the customers are getting. Are UTV to be just passive suppliers of someone else's product. If thats to be the case then what exactly is UTV's contribution to the Clicksilver product?

If you disagree with that thats your privilege but I dont think you would accept that attitude from many other businesses.

UTV's customers deserved a formal apology for the fact that many of them since Clicksilver started had received a poor product and very poor response from support. (and that is not even to take into account the initial migration fiasco and the actual introduction of the Clicksilver product which was such another fiasco that they even admitted in the newsgroup that there was no internal communication on it in UTV)

Customer complaints were not taken seriously and they were given wrong information about the quality of their lines, the weather and their MTU's being at fault. If you look elsewhere on boards you will see that one of their most consistently loyal supporters Jonski started a thread (in desperation?) asking for suggestions on how to improve his Clicksilver experience.

And I did not call you any offensive names.

Further I might add that my telephone query experience with UTV on the few occasions that I rang them was lamentable.

My clicksilver modem was delivered to the wrong address in spite of me specifially confirming with UTV (on the day the modem was to be delivered) that they had the correct delivery address and I have had the experience of having an email response to me from UTV support from which it was clear that they had not even bothered to read my original email.

Believe me I started out on the Clicksilver trail (even turned down the offer of a free Esat connection but thats another story)as a very strong supporter of UTV alas no more.

oscarBravo

In summary: some people had a problem with their Clicksilver service. I get the distinct impression that others did not. Some people found that adjusting MTU values helped, others didn't. Some refused to adjust their MTU on the grounds basically that "I don't see why I should have to."

It is up to UTV to have a mechanism in place to ensure they know what the customers are getting. Are UTV to be just passive suppliers of someone else's product. If thats to be the case then what exactly is UTV's contribution to the Clicksilver product?

Your local shop is a passive supplier of someone else's product. What exactly is their contribution to the product? They're a retail supplier of a wholesale product, get it?

If your local shop supplies a product that is defective when they receive it, what are they supposed to do? One possibility is to get it from a different wholesaler. News flash: there's only one wholesale supplier of DSL in this country. Maybe UTV will get down on their knees and apologise for another company's shortcomings - if they do, I hope it gives you the warm fuzzies you're looking for. For myself, I'd rather lay the blame firmly where it belongs.

Customer complaints were not taken seriously and they were given wrong information about the quality of their lines, the weather and their MTU's being at fault.

Customers were given the information that was available to them at the time.

Customer: My DSL is slow.

UTV: We'll check it. (to upstream:) Is there any throttling in place on DSL?

Upstream: Nope.

UTV: Are you sure?

Upstream: Yup.

UTV (to customer:) No problem this end, have you checked yadda yadda?

Customer: Yes.

UTV (to upstream:) Are you sure there's no throttling?

Upstream: Yup. Oh hangon...

...and you think UTV should be apologising?

And I did not call you any offensive names.

I never said, or implied, that you did.

Mr Burns

The problem is that people on these boards think and proclaim that the sun shines out of UTV's arse and that they can do no wrong.

UTV have become complacent since they wont answer queries from customers regarding billing or throttling of DSL.

UTV have become dominant and are now abusing their posityion and these boards simply are maintaining the status quo.

eth0_

Originally posted by oscarBravo
News flash: there's only one wholesale supplier of DSL in this country.

That aint true

dub45

Customers were given the information that was available to them at the time

It is not that simple. UTV chose to ignore the fact that groups of customers around the country were experiencing problems at the same time and in spite of the fact that there was a reported pattern continued to ignore that fact. Now such a pattern would logically suggest there was a problem above and beyond the line, weather and MTU that UTV were continually suggesting.

I was (rightly!) sceptical about the MTU thing because it was seized on in the group as a panacea and it was not the answer nor was the line quality nor was the weather. It also ignored the fact that some people were on occassion getting quite good speeds so obviously the MTU thing was not relevant then.

Now a simple question what do you consider UTV's role to be in the provision of a dsl service? What is their added value?

If we as customers have to put up with them blaming their suppliers when something happens why should anyone be with UTV at all? We would all be far better off with Eircom. As it stands being with UTV means that it will take longer to have any problems that arise sorted. Particularly as they have now proven that they are incapable of listening to their customers until people are literally screaming and threatening to 'walk'.

Maybe UTV will get down on their knees and apologise for another company's shortcomings - if they do, I hope it gives you the warm fuzzies you're looking for. For myself, I'd rather lay the blame firmly where it belongs.

I have no wish for them to get down on their knees in such a way and for the life of me cannot understand your stridency. It is common courtesy not to mention good business practise to apologise to customers when you have not provided good service and in this case they have not.

And I dont understand your stress on only some people having problems. What relevance has that to the issue. If you have a look at the thread in the group you will see that quite a lot were and besides even if it only affected a few thats not acceptalbe or maybe you consider it is?

Would you be still defending UTV if you were a Clicksilver user who had been getting very poor speeds almost from the time it started?


Oh and by the way I think the question of a refund for customers who got both a very poor service and a very poor product is far more relevant to the support group than a discussion on central heating problems:)

Mo'

Originally posted by dub45
....Would you be still defending UTV if you were a Clicksilver user who had been getting very poor speeds almost from the time it started?....

I, personally, WOULD stick up for UTV as they were and are at least , interested in their customers problems and don't rely on the fact that they can still fleece us for line rental in a months time anyway!!!!!!

I am a UTVipXL customer on an €ir***m ISDN line and have never had any major issues with UTV. The only issue I had was when I upgraded from PSTN to ISDN and €ir***m neglected to inform UTV that if this was done, they take back the CPS on the customers line!!! UTV had it sorted within a week......AND credited me with a months sub for the hassle.

The reason they are probably not responding as rapidly to support requests lately is that so many are abandoning "the rat" for their service, they are trying to keep pace with demand while fighting with 'the incumbent' for better service.

Since switching to UTV, my telephony bill is now less than HALF of what it used to be. Due to the ISDN, I am NEVER disconnected and downloads are very consistent. The only minor issue I have now with internet usage is with the ISDN TA (Draytek MiniVigor) supplied by Eircom which is not fully XP compatible.
Call me a 'Brown-noser' if you will but as long as I am with UTV, I will be paying less than an €ir***m customer on my phone bill every month.

Money talks....bullsh*t walks......!

That's enough to keep me faithful for a long time. :cool:

dub45

I, personally, WOULD stick up for UTV as they were and are at least , interested in their customers problems and don't rely on the fact that they can still fleece us for line rental in a months time anyway!!!!!!

Well the part of my post that you quoted related to Clicksilver customers and I asked if you were on that service and receiving poor service would you still be defending them.

In relation to your post I can say that my own experience while I was on dial up was fine and that is why I was very anxious to stay with them for Clicksilver and I did recommend them to lots of people during that time on dial up.

The reason they are probably not responding as rapidly to support requests lately is that so many are abandoning "the rat" for their service, they are trying to keep pace with demand while fighting with 'the incumbent' for better service

This is a presumption that you are making on UTV's behalf. UTV have in the past used very good customer service as a competitive advantage and this resulted in customer loyalty.
But just like Eircom they are in business to make a profit and lets not forget that. They appear for whatever reason to have not kept up their resources as new products have been introduced. Good customer service costs a business money. They have acknowledged in the support group that they have been stretched. But as a business its up to them to have the resources in place. If in future, as apparently recently, they are going to allow their customer service to deteriorate then why would anyone go with them? they will be losing their one big advantage.

I, personally, WOULD stick up for UTV as they were and are at least , interested in their customers problems and don't rely on the fact that they can still fleece us for line rental in a months time anyway!!!!!!

Well it took UTV a long time to sort out the Clicksilver slow speed problems and if you look at the support group in general they dont exactly rush to comment on Clicksilver issues. And dont forget that they have been 'fleecing' those of us who were consistenly receiving bad service since Clicksilver's inception and can continue to do so irrespective of the service quality we receive for the balance of our 12 month contract! They are not alone in the 12 month contract thing of course but its still there.