Xilo will not issue refund or reply to correspondence

From Xilo's website: "We aim to answer all support tickets within 60 minutes during office hours and 8 hours outside of these times."

I placed an order for broadband on 6 March which I cancelled on 9 March under distance selling regulations. The broadband was to be activated on 14 March. Xilo accepted my cancellation on 11 March and confirmed this by email 12 March.

I have raised several email and support ticket enquiries with Xilo asking for repayment of the £62.99 I paid them for this service. My last communication from Matt at Xilo was on 12 March when he asked for more time to look into the matter.

I have been patient, however as the delivery date was the 14 March, in my view the company should have either gone ahead with performance of the contract (if they believed that I did not have the right to cancel) or given that they had accepted my cancellation, repaid the price.

Section 14(3) of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 states "The supplier shall make the reimbursement referred to in paragraph (1) as soon as possible". Given that I cancelled on the 9th, confirmed this on the 'phone on the 11th, received email acceptance of the cancellation on the 12th, and was to have the service installed on the 14th I cannot see why the company would ignore my correspondence and not issue this refund.

I believe I have no recourse except through the Courts. I have prepared a summary cause action and intimated to Xilo via the ticket system and email that I would be commencing proceedings tomorrow morning if I had not heard a reply by close of business today. Xilo have disabled my access to the online ticket system so I cannot see if they have replied. This is fair enough as I am no longer a customer, however I have not received any email or calls to say I will be refunded.

I shall be raising an action in my local Court tomorrow morning, and cannot comment here while the matter is sub judice. However I thought others may be interested in hearing how this company deals with refunds as I have read on two seperate websites complaints about Xilo not refunding in a timely manner.

http://www.whoishostingthis.com/hosting-reviews/xilo/
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/otherisp/t/4155628-...

I look forward to the opportunity to present this matter to the Court and learn whether the Distance Selling Regulations do indeed apply to broadband service providers, and how the requirement to reimburse "as soon as possible" will be interpreted. I intend to update the community here and elsewhere after the litigation is concluded.

You're again posting incorrect information.

You sent us an email on Sunday - you had a reply within 60 minutes of raising this.

I will be updating that again soon regarding this post.

Matt

I can't believe XILO management have allowed to continue for the length of time it has.

It costs them more than £62.99 for their staff to investigate and dispute the refund. In addition, when compounded with the reputation damage on this forum, I can only say this is a poorly managed situation.

I'd say the impact on reputation from this forum alone could be costing them more than £62.99.

But hey what do I know?

small claims court it however publicizing a soon to be legal matter is not helping either party

You mean like this: Serious Fraud Office to investigate Autonomy, says HP?

All I can say is that if there is question of goodwill being shown by xilo in this matter, which if you had just waited I would be almost sure would have been demonstrated - whatever the legal position, if I was in charge there then unless the case for a refund is rock solid legally I'd now be telling you to get stuffed.

For heaven's sake, it's a mere six working days since you cancelled the order and you've already been making several stinks on these forums. Threatening legal action already? Very odd.

As for credit card refunds within six working days - how many companies do that? Many smaller ones have a monthly job for that, not an automated process linked to the ordering system.

I have been with Xilo for about 4 years and at the time of making the enquiry i thought they were excellent but then again they did not have my custom .

Now i think my broadband connection has been excellent but i will say on the various times i have had a few issues be it Xilo end or some other issue then when i ring up there technical support i find them disinterested as if I'm wasting their time.

They don't seem that helpful and i find the website one complicated chore to navigate around and there website design needs a complete overhaul and needs to be more user friendly and some of the guys who answer the phone need training on a customer cares side of things.

We are not all Broadband savvy and know all the technical jargon that goes with it and a bit more help and consideration when its needed would be helpful.

Seems Xilo lately are falling from grace as there seems to be a few disenchanted customers appearing on this forum not entirely happy with there service and customer support.

Sorry to hear this. We're a small company, and maybe this is part of some growing pains - largely though, we don't hear from many unhappy customers.

We are hear, we are receptive - if you've got any concerns, get in touch with me, lets talk about them and see what we can do to put them right.

We're techies at heart so fully appreciate your comments - we'll see what we can do to make support a bit more huggable and friendly but don't ever feel like you're wasting our time as you're certainly not.

Matt

You can't believe? Are you sure? It's less than a week!

Good look to tblackwood trying to take this to court - for £62.99 that's at best 2 or 3 days overdue.

When I called to confirm my cancellation the Xilo representative stated that the distance selling regulations do not apply to broadband providers, and therefore I was not entitled to cancel without penalty. I now understand that Matt is a director of the company, and yet he has asked for more time to enquire into whether contracts he makes in the course of his business are indeed covered by such regulations.

I would have thought that a company which has been trading for several years should understand which regulations apply to the contracts they enter on a routine basis, and therefore should not advise that statutory rights do not apply without their being sure of their basis for this assertion.

Matt emailed me on Monday evening to advise that my posts on this forum (but interestingly not the matter of whether I am entitled to a refund) are being dealt with by his solicitor. In addition, he has stated that unless I remove my posts within 24 hours he will instruct his solicitor to raise a claim against me.

In English law, a person who republishes a defamatory communication can also be found liable in damages. I would be interested to hear what the site owner / administrator thinks of an ISP member using legal threats in response to perceived criticism. I would consider that this could have a chilling effect on free speech and legitimate criticism of business practices by consumers. What would be the purpose of this site if members could not post their experiences in dealing with ISPs?

This is the second time I have received communications from Matt asking me to remove material I have posted to this site.

Matt did not state which parts of my post he considers incorrect or defamatory. Indeed I do hope that he does refer this matter to a solicitor who can advise him of whether he is obliged to give a refund and whether truthful but critical comments on a website would give rise to a defamation action.