Leaving Timico - problems

Hi everyone.

Need help please.

Finally decided to leave Timico. Upf! Contacted the new ISP, switch went surprisingly smoothly.
I am now with Pulse8 with pings around 9-10ms. Hurray!
However Timico keep sending me requests to pay the bills. They say they have NOT receive any notification from my new ISP! I told them that I am migrating two weeks before the switch date. I sent them emails with details etc. Also they want minimum 30 days notice and to charge me for TERMINATION!

What I am supposed to do now? Any ideas?

30 day notice period is in your T&C's so you have to pay a months subscriptions anyway. Not sure when the month starts now with the new MAC rules as it used to be 30 days from the date you got a MAC. Obviously that isnt aplicable now


They dont charge for migration but do for termination. Those 2 are different things. I would PM Neil he will look into it

Edited by bobble_bob (Sat 19-Dec-15 20:00:43)

Hi

According to the new Ofcom rules ALL I have to do is to contact my new provider.
How can they expect me to do anything else?

I did contacted Timico BEFORE the switch asking for the procedures and charges. They told me exactly what is on the Ofcom website. Unfortunately that was only a telephone conversation.
The customer support via email is like different company. They don't reply for emails (three days in my case). They tell you to pay for termination when no termination was requested. They say 30 days but WHO should give them the notice? Ofcom says its NOT me.

"You only need to contact the provider you wish to switch to, who will notify your old provider of the intended transfer - you do not need to cancel your contract with your old provider. "

LINK: Ofcom Website

AND their own customer support tells me over the phone that I don't have to tell them anything. So what now?

"They dont charge for migration but do for termination" - they DO charge for both.
Migration is £20. That plus half of the month for what I used - this is how much I owe them and I am happy to pay now. But it appears that they are interested in more money.

I stand corrected, according to their T&C i found this

Migration out, using Notice of Transfer (NoT)
£20.00
Administration fee including Openreach charges

To be honest this is the first ISP ive seen that charge to migrate away from them. Once Pulse8 took over your line, Timico should have been made aware of this and this would have started the 30 day notice period, so worse case this is when your 30 day notice period started and you would owe 30 days from them

When i left i emailed/rang and left a ticket saying i give notice from the day i requested my MAC and that seems to be enough. Paid a months notice and that was it

I would still PM Neil, he seems to be able to get things done

I think there is no such thing now as a notice from the customer. Ofcom does not require customer to do anything else but to get in touch with a new ISP.
The new ISP notifies the old one and the customer receives some messages with the details. Together with broadband I migrated my landline. BT sent me two emails and a letter. First email was on the date when I sign with Pulse8, the second one was on the day of the switch.
No such messages from Timico - quite opposite - demands to pay for services that I am not using or baseless termination charges.

I had phone with BT and FTTC with Plusnet. Three or four months ago I migrated the phone to Pulse8. All went like clockwork, as you describe. I didn't contact BT at any stage.

About a week after that completed I ordered FTTC from AAISP, without notifying Plusnet. Again, no problems at all. Both AAISP and Plusnet did exactly as specified by Ofcom.

Is it normal for an ISP to charge you to leave them? Ive never seen it before

It's certainly unusual. You'd have thought previous Timico leavers would have mentioned in as well. Though most if not all of those so far have been ADSL24/Coms people getting out penalty-free.

If it's in the T & Cs .... But if it is, you'd expect it to be highlighted somewhere as it's equivalent to a joining fee or a deferred extra £20 on it if there is one.

Yea its harsh for people that got migrated over from Coms and didnt know anything about it. I know its in their T&C but who actually reads them and with no other ISP that i know of charging a fee to leave, its fair to say Timico would have been the same.

Obviously not.

It would also depend if they were given notice of a terms change of which they could accept and then carry on (as long as those terms were disclosed too) or move away penalty free.

If they didn't get such a notice, but instead just a "we're taking over your service, business as usual (for the user)", the new terms (and charges) could be disputed as unenforceable as they were never disclosed prior to the customer then being made aware of them at the point of wanting to cancel.

Matt

Did you see the email I sent you yesterday Matt? (xilo address).

Well despite leaving just after the takeover i got all the emails as Timico thought i was still a customer. No where in the emails did it say about a fee to leave. Infact im pretty certain it said everything would be staying the same

Edited by bobble_bob (Sun 20-Dec-15 14:30:19)

IMO timico should of made all those who they migrated from comm's aware of this leaving charge before they where migrated , also does this leaving fee not fall fowl of ofcom's rulings, in that it could be seen as a hindrance , personally i wouldn't pay any leaving fees

Matt might be best placed to answer this, but is there a reason for a charge? Does it cost the ISP (other than monthly subs from the customer) to let someone leave? I always thought it was the gaining ISP that did all the legwork so to speak

I'd say it depends on the service they currently have. The NoT process really didn't change anything in regard to charging over the MAC process.

SMPF services going to another SMPF provider, like with the MAC process, the charge was always on the gaining provider (ignoring any minimum term the old service may have been in).

MPF services would never "migrate" in the traditional sense. One would stop (cease) and the other would start (provide) on the same day but both sides could have their own respective costs. Certainly TTB consider any end of service (i.e user requested cease or a "move" to another CP") as a chargeable event.

Matt

Even so, having read his reply , my position hasn't changed in that they should of made potential charges clear, also why a connection needs to be actually ceased in reality is a little backwards with today's tech capabilities isn't it ? or it should be, seems like an unneeded nonsense to me, and as for both having costs the customer should only ever be expected to pay for a cease or new provision /activation ect ect , never to both loosing SP/ISP & Gaining SP/ISP In such a predicament both could end up whistling for your fees , imo, high time that the situation got changed with MPF providers It all should now be GPL migration should it not ?

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 20-Dec-15 22:52:52)

Hi there,

Sorry you're having problems with our service. Our standard policy is 30 days notice period. We do also have an administration fee but this doesn't apply to ex-Coms customers until 1st January when our new T&Cs come into effect.

You're right that we *should* have received notice from your new supplier and used that as the start of your 30 day notice period if you hadn't got in touch with us. But I think you said you had already told us you were leaving, in which case we should have used that date.

Please can you PM me your details including any ticket numbers you had/have for the cancellation and I'm sire we can get this all sorted for you.

Now they want to suspend their services.
https://i.imgur.com/kSJ6dln.jpg

Is this the most incompetent customer service of all ISPs or is it something else?
Phoned them several times, everything taped this time. Stay tuned.
TBC.

Edited by deleted (Sat 09-Jan-16 20:16:52)

Did you PM Neil, as he requested?

What i would be concerned about is how the service will be suspended. I know you arent with them, but will they place a cease order on your line, or just simple delete you from their authentication servers?

Doubt they would chase you with debt collectors for £18.90

Hi there,
I wasn't able to investigate this previously as you hadn't supplied any details to me. I can now look into this using the account reference you've provided and will be back to you later this morning. I'm sure we can get this straightened out.
Thanks for your patience.
N

Hi there,

This looks pretty straightforward, but I'll email you with more details as I can see you've been speaking with customer service.

Your service is fully cancelled, so there is nothing to suspend (it's a standard letter the finance team send). But you haven't paid us for 1st-31st Dec, hence the chasing letter.

If you pay the bill, you'll stop being contacted...

N

Morning,

We had a similar problem, we migrated from ex-Coms-Timico to Zen, with notification being sent mid-November (from myself and Zen).

We had an invoice for December (expected) and paid that, but then we had an invoice through for January.

I called up and this was cancelled, and a part refund for December will be along sometime (thanks Danielle).

Timico are looking in to this as it's not the first time it happened (I was told), and they believe it's down to transfer notifications from new ISPs going to Coms instead of Timico.

Something to bear in mind - call Timico to confirm you're leaving.

Thanks - absolutely, please call 01636 858919 or email [email protected] with any problems and we'll sort them out. If you feel the Customer Service team aren't doing what you need by all means PM me and I'll try to sort things too.

Thanks and good luck with your new ISP.

Just to clarify a couple of points, what is the correct process for leaving Timico and does everyone now have to pay the £20 charge?

I'm furious as Timico downgraded us from an unlimited Coms customer to a capped connection and they've billed us a ridiculous £30 for going 10GB over a 200GB limit with *no* warnings at all. The previous month which I missed we were billed £20 for going a whopping 8GB over the 200GB limit with no warning.

I've had a fibre order in since December but due to Openreach being useless that's still not happened, I can't believe after having just forked out £50 for a mere 18GB of data (even Vodafone only charge me £20 for 20GB of 4G data) that I'll have to pay even more just to leave a company I never chose to be with in the first place.

On a side note, what is Timico's network - Talktalk LLU?

John

Yea its TTB LLU. Whats the connection like besides the download limit? Stable? Dont see many Timico threads now so either everyone has left or they're pretty good.

Your best off asking Neil if he still visits these forums. There was a concession period for ex Coms customers but they may have passed

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Yea its TTB LLU. Whats the connection like besides the download limit? Stable? Dont see many Timico threads now so either everyone has left or they're pretty good.

Your best off asking Neil if he still visits these forums. There was a concession period for ex Coms customers but they may have passed

The connection itself is fine, the issue was that with ADSL24/Coms the cap only applied during peak hours which Timico apparently can't do. So I put an order in for fibre with another ISP last year which was meant to be available at our cabinet but that's still not happened which seems to mean that we 'agree' to the new terms which means I have to pay to leave.

It was irritating to be downgraded from the old billing system (which I never went over once in all the years I was on it) but to get hammered with such ridiculous charges and absolutely no warning at all either is really poor form. I had actually been impressed with the response Timico had given on this forum (much better than Coms ever were) but I guess that was just the grace period.

I'm looking at alternatives now, one offers a capped BT connection the same as we had before (100GB peak, unlimited off peak) or unlimited Vodafone LLU - I'm thinking if we've managed this far with Talktalk LLU it's perhaps worth considering Vodafone LLU.

John

Edited by Johnmcl7 (Mon 07-Mar-16 17:45:22)

Uno offer the exact same service as Coms/ADSL24 did. That is TTB LLU, 8am-8pm peak and weekends off peak

Or you have Pulse8 im with that do TTB LLU unlimited all the time. A few choices if you're happy with TTB network but want to move ISP

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Uno offer the exact same service as Coms/ADSL24 did. That is TTB LLU, 8am-8pm peak and weekends off peak

Or you have Pulse8 im with that do TTB LLU unlimited all the time. A few choices if you're happy with TTB network but want to move ISP

Yeah, it's Uno I'm looking at because as you say it's what I had before and my brother is with them in the same area and had no issues. It's only a 4Mb/s connection otherwise I'd probably look at a completely unlimited package.

John

Uno unlimited is only about 99p more if I remember correctly.

Yea im sure they have reduced that. When i looked at them (or Xilo as it was back then) before joining Pulse8 im sure it cost a fair bit more

In reply to a post by professor973:

Uno unlimited is only about 99p more if I remember correctly.

The unlimited package is actually slightly cheaper (100GB capped is £15 exc VAT, unlimited is £12.50 exc VAT) but the capped one is on BT and the uncapped one is on Vodafone LLU. I'm perhaps wrong to be wary of Vodafone LLU since it seems I'm on Talktalk LLU at the moment with no issues.

John

Depends which package.

SOHO = BT
Business = BT
* Extreme = C&W/Vodafone
* Pro = TTB

Matt

Don't know where you get those figures from, unless they are BTW only prices. Unlimited Talk & Surf (Resold TTB) which is what I am on and referring to, certainly is not cheaper than the 100gb service. That said, both cheaper than you will find elsewhere and about £4 cheaper than the figures above (£23 inc v.a.t)

Edited by professor973 (Tue 08-Mar-16 10:51:39)

In reply to a post by uno:

Depends which package.

SOHO = BT
Business = BT
* Extreme = C&W/Vodafone
* Pro = TTB

Matt

Is the Pro, Soho Pro or just Business Pro? When I put the phone number in I'm only getting Soho and Soho Extreme under the SOHO options so I assume if there is a SOHO pro option it's not available on my line. Thanks for the response.

John

In reply to a post by professor973:

Don't know where you get those figures from, unless they are BTW only prices. Unlimited Talk & Surf (Resold TTB) which is what I am on and referring to, certainly is not cheaper than the 100gb service. That said, both cheaper than you will find elsewhere and about £4 cheaper than the figures above (£23 inc v.a.t)

Those are the prices it shows on the website for me:

https://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-pmNk8XC...

Two different suppliers with the LLU option being Vodaphone - Would you not have to add the cost of line rental if you took the LLU option, as they don't do SMPF for TTB and wonder why Vodafone should be different..

Edited by professor973 (Tue 08-Mar-16 12:23:06)

Just got a marketing email from Timico despite leaving nearly a year ago. Been told a zillion times ive been removed from the mailing list but still get the odd mail from them

In reply to a post by professor973:

Two different suppliers with the LLU option being Vodaphone - Would you not have to add the cost of line rental if you took the LLU option, as they don't do SMPF for TTB and wonder why Vodafone should be different..

I'm looking at broadband only prices so I was assuming I'd keep on paying the same cost of line rental to BT and it would just be the ADSL part would change - my concern is I don't really know anything about Vodafone LLU.

John

BT line rental is a complete ripoff, particularly if you don't use a huge amount.

Look at Uno's rental and call charges! Also I have my line rental with Pulse8Broadband, at £14pm, while my broadband is with AAISP.

(That link probably defaults to Business lines, so click the Home tab).

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

BT line rental is a complete ripoff, particularly if you don't use a huge amount.

Look at Uno's rental and call charges! Also I have my line rental with Pulse8Broadband, at £14pm, while my broadband is with AAISP.

(That link probably defaults to Business lines, so click the Home tab).

Thanks for that, to be honest I had no idea it was possible to avoid the high BT line rental charge. The phone almost never used for outgoing calls and the only feature I use on it is Caller ID for the BT Call Guardian service (which I assume would still work). I'll clearly need to look into this further as £22 all in unlimited is a lot better than £17 line rental and £18 broadband.

The only issue is I currently have an order for BT fibre with BT so I'm wondering if there may be a higher cost to change? It's been open since December as the cabinet is at capacity, I've been thinking perhaps just cancel it as I've no idea if it's realistic to have that change any time soon.

Rather hilariously I did get a response back from Timico today to a mail at the weekend asking about the huge charges on the bill and it's just a generic 'our service promise' mail which contains nothing about the original mail apart from the name/order number so clearly time to leave either way.

John

The order for fibre from BT I believe can be cancelled at pretty well any time. Whichever ISP you then placed an order with would still be waiting for capacity to become available, and that needs discussing separately.

BT insists on you having their line rental in order to have their broadband. Sky and TalkTalk similarly. Plusnet allow you to have your line rental elsewhere, as do most smaller ISPs.

Where does this £22 all in come from please? What combination?

From what I read, Call Guardian should work fine as long as you have caller display, as it appears to be a function of the phone not the BT Retail service. Caller Display is what takes my rental from £13 to £14.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 08-Mar-16 19:09:36)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The order for fibre from BT I believe can be cancelled at pretty well any time. Whichever ISP you then placed an order with would still be waiting for capacity to become available, and that needs discussing separately.

BT insists on you having their line rental in order to have their broadband. Sky and TalkTalk similarly. Plusnet allow you to have your line rental elsewhere, as do most smaller ISPs.

Where does this £22 all in come from please? What combination?

That is going with the phone and ADSL from Uno on their unmetered Talk Surf package, actually it's a little higher at £23 inc VAT. I need to check on charges as I don't want to change to a cheaper package then find I have to pay additional charges to go to Fibre.

From what I read, Call Guardian should work fine as long as you have caller display, as it appears to be a function of the phone not the BT Retail service. Caller Display is what takes my rental from £13 to £14.

That's my understanding as well but thought it worth checking as it's a great system.

John

I put my notice in to cancel Timico and I'm gob smacked at the costs they're quoting - I thought I'd be due to the £18 for the month but there's a staggering £40+VAT they're charging as well?!

It says this cost is a fee for 'termination of your services with Timico' - I'm planning on changing to another provider but it seems to suggest this fee would be payable anyway.

I'm really annoyed for being conned by these scammers, that was a nice bit of sweet talking on the changeover to punish idiots like myself who stayed - over £120 for going slightly over a limit which Timico downgraded us to (and with no decrease in line rental) and leaving their terrible service is unbelievable. Better yet they have the cheek to comment that they would be delighted to welcome us back in the future after so thoroughly ripping us off.

Edited by Johnmcl7 (Wed 09-Mar-16 17:33:36)

If you're on a bundled service, that sounds correct if done within 12 months if the service starting. Should be less after that time. At least the cost to them...

Matt

In reply to a post by uno:

If you're on a bundled service, that sounds correct if done within 12 months if the service starting. Should be less after that time. At least the cost to them...

Matt

It's not a new service, I've not changed provider in many years - Timico bought over Coms who had bought over ADSL24 who I was originally with. The only reason I want to leave is the ridiculous excess usage charges, the line rental is £18 for Talktalk LLU with a 200GB capped package (Timico kindly downgraded that from unlimited without a reduction in price) which other companies are charging less for unlimited packages on TTB LLU plus a whopping £50+ for going 18GB over the 200GB limit with no warning at all.

I guess I have to chalk this up as a hugely expensive lesson (over £120 for this), looking at reviews now for Timico this is how they operate.

John

We recently had someone in the same situation, it was SMPF to SMPF with us. The customer had to go back and forth a little but they did "correct" their initial charge due to being ex-ADSL24/Coms circuit and that such a migration had no cost to them.

Matt

Neil from Timico did say ex adsl24/coms customers would be let off the charge for leaving but only for a period of time. Do any other ISPs charge you to leave?

They never once told customers about it though. OK it was in their T&C but who reads them

Edited by bobble_bob (Wed 09-Mar-16 18:29:55)

In reply to a post by uno:

We recently had someone in the same situation, it was SMPF to SMPF with us. The customer had to go back and forth a little but they did "correct" their initial charge due to being ex-ADSL24/Coms circuit and that such a migration had no cost to them.

Matt

Matt, thanks for taking the time to respond - I appreciate it, I've sent a mail to Uno as it's probably easier to do it that way.

John

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

They never once told customers about it though. OK it was in their T&C but who reads them

Particularly when it's a takeover and customers are assured nothing will change.

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Neil from Timico did say ex adsl24/coms customers would be let off the charge for leaving but only for a period of time. Do any other ISPs charge you to leave?

They never once told customers about it though. OK it was in their T&C but who reads them

Yes. Uno charged me to leave.
We are fairly certain that this was not mentioned on the website at the time we signed up and understood that the one month rolling contract meant there would be no additional charge.
More fool us *sigh*.

In reply to a post by sylphe:

Yes. Uno charged me to leave.
We are fairly certain that this was not mentioned on the website at the time we signed up and understood that the one month rolling contract meant there would be no additional charge.
More fool us *sigh*.

You have to pay to the end of the contract, otherwise that would be theft.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by sylphe:

Yes. Uno charged me to leave.
We are fairly certain that this was not mentioned on the website at the time we signed up and understood that the one month rolling contract meant there would be no additional charge.
More fool us *sigh*.

You have to pay to the end of the contract, otherwise that would be theft.

And as I already said - there was no indication of this at the time! If there had been then I would not have signed up!

So you're saying you're entitled to free Internet. I don't think you are. You have to pay, like everyone else.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

So you're saying you're entitled to free Internet. I don't think you are. You have to pay, like everyone else.

What rubbish! I can see you are a cheerleader for Uno, but you are being ridiculous.

I'm saying that I far as I was aware I was paying a monthly charge and there was no leaving charge mentioned.
If a leaving charge had been mentioned then I would not have signed up.

In reply to a post by sylphe:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

So you're saying you're entitled to free Internet. I don't think you are. You have to pay, like everyone else.

What rubbish! I can see you are a cheerleader for Uno

Hardly!

I'm just pointing out where you are wrong, even though you think you are right.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by sylphe:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

So you're saying you're entitled to free Internet. I don't think you are. You have to pay, like everyone else.

What rubbish! I can see you are a cheerleader for Uno

Hardly!

I'm just pointing out where you are wrong, even though you think you are right.

No you're not.

Someone asked if any other ISP charged you to leave. I replied that Uno do. That is correct.

I said that so far as I was aware when I signed up there was not a leaving charge. That is also correct.

I have not said that I was entitled to free broadband as you claim.

So when does your contract with Uno end?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

So when does your contract with Uno end?

I replied here to the question of whether any other ISPs charge you to leave.

Uno does.

In reply to a post by sylphe:

I replied here to the question of whether any other ISPs charge you to leave.

Uno does.

It all depends on the agreement you made when you signed up. It's always best to read contracts so there are no surprises.

Post deleted by bernado (Quote gone awry)

Edited by deleted (Tue 12-Apr-16 11:09:54)

In reply to a post by sylphe:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by sylphe:

Yes. Uno charged me to leave.
We are fairly certain that this was not mentioned on the website at the time we signed up and understood that the one month rolling contract meant there would be no additional charge.
More fool us *sigh*.

You have to pay to the end of the contract, otherwise that would be theft.

And as I already said - there was no indication of this at the time! If there had been then I would not have signed up!

I guess you missed this statement directly underneath the phone/broadband packages https://www.uno.net.uk/packages/soho-broadband/ -

"Certain one off charges apply to all broadband services, including but not limited to activation, migration and cessation of service. Our suppliers do charge fees for cessation of service as well as some migrations to other providers which are passed on to you."

Always best to investigate things fully before entering in to arrangements, otherwise you only have yourself to blame regrettably (though you may chose to not see it that way).

Edited by deleted (Tue 12-Apr-16 11:08:41)

For the people who have left Timico, what kind of bill did you get for leaving?

On May 8th I notified them I would be leaving, and that my new ISP was going live on May 13th - they didn't get back to me until May 18 (1 day after my billing, which was charged for)

When they finally got back to me, I was told there would be a £40 charge for leaving. Whatever, it was worth to leave with the terrible new caps they placed on everything - doubling the download limit (100gb to 200gb) does not make up for completely unlimited off-peak we had under ADSL24 and Coms. 200gb in 2016, thats what, 2 current gen games? A few console updates? Forget any streaming movies, or even YouTube videos.

Today (June 7th) I received yet another email, with a bill for £53. Just wondering where they come up with these numbers and why, when I emailed with regards to paying my bill when they initially took over the line, they replied instantly, but when I contact them about leaving, they wait until the day after my latest bill - 10 days later - to contact me.

Just glad to be rid of them, to be honest, but £53 is a [censored] joke