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