wonky pig? more like pear shaped! (Wonkypig.com)

Member Name: luke_

Product:	Wonkypig.com
Date:	11/10/01 (205 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheep

Disadvantages: being cut pff when you shouldn't be, bad after sales technical support, they make up the rules as they go along

WonkyPig are a fairly new ISP trying to make an attempt at providing a 24/7 0800/0808 internet service for 56k and 64k isdn connections for £10 per month. Shortly they are introducing a 128k isdn option.

My account with them was terminated mid last week.

For about a month it was ok. I was getting cut off when i shouldn't have. 'No cut off time' they said initially. I was being cut every hour, this then changed to every 2 hours when they anounced it was now 4 hours cut off time officially. Although, i could dial up 1st time nearly every time and downloads were respectable for 56k.

Then my account gets suspended and i'm accused of 'multilinking' which is impossible for me as i only have one modem but i was patronised by one of the accounts people over the phone feeding me a load of rubbish and my account was eventually reconnected.

8 Days ago I was unable to connect to my account, no email, phone call, warning or what ever. So i had to ask a friend to get me the support number off the site. I phoned up wonkypig to be told my account had been terminated because i was 'abusing the service.' I finally got a word in edge ways after the guy on the other end of the phone let me 'have a go' at talking, i asked how i was 'abusing the service.' I was told simply that I was using the service too much!

Thinking about what I had been told for a second gave me the impression that wonky pig had just terminated my account because I was using a service I had paid for? Seemed rather stupid, but after constantly being rudely interrupted by one of the members of the accounts team I gave my opinion only to be half way through what I was saying when I was yet again interrupted and told i have been excessively using the service. I was told its not meant to me 'always on' which I fully understood to begin with. You cant expect a dial up connection to be 'always on.' Oh and I had b
een using too much bandwidth!

After reading through what changes wonkypig have made to their terms and conditions since last time i read, there is no specification on how much bandwidth you are allowed to use weekly/monthly or what ever. I never used the service as 'always on.' It's more like 'always getting cut off.' Terms and conditions say that I'm entitled to re dial if i'm disconnected yet i'm being persecuted because i was cut off so many times in the past few weeks. Eventually I was told that my account would be reconnected but closely watched this time for any abuse. I agreed to this and expected to be able to access the service.

Still unable to connect to wonky pig I phoned up the day after to go through exactly the same conversation I had the previous day with all the arrogance of the previous person i spoke to. This time I was eventually told that my account cannot be reconnected becuase it's all automated by computer. The computer has detected my abuse of the system and 'locked me out' and there's nothing that any one can do to get my account reconnected! So, it's nice to see who's in controll of these situations isn't it? It seems as though the computers at wonky pig are totally running the show and they say what's what. Is this the way it should be? I don't think so. Either the fault of a very badly designed system or just a lack of human intelligence to operate the system correctly.

After gettng in what little arguments I could, I finally thought enough is enough, said I'd be looking for a new ISP.

Wonky Pig will definitely NOT be given any reccomendations in the positive sence but only warnings to steer clear of an ISP that can only go downhill if this is the way all customers who like to use a service they pay for, are treated.



Its just like most mass market ips's

There is something called a contention rat
io. This is where an isp buys enough bandwidth that *should be enough* then over sells it 20 times. Their gamble is that at any time, only 1/20th of their users will be online at any one time.

Remember BT Internet on watchdog last month? They have been accused of shifting high users to a different dialup number to compensate for this very problem. Very similar situation here.

Yet, at the end of the day, as the punter you dont mind being kicked off 2 hourly to reconnect. Now, as many people will know, there are alot of people out there who register for a monthly charged isp in exchange for 'free dialup number' in order for frequent use.......to save on the phone bill.

This way is obviously more economic to pay for internet access should you be dialling for more than an hour a day.

So, we have a company after the mass market. Stack um high and sell um cheap . . . then cut off the customer when the big red light shows on the useage monitor.

Does the company care? I do not believe so. Each individual customer is worth very few dollars, this is the term in which they think. Cut a few high users, those who, as they see it, use more resources than they have paid for. This will make way for an extra 2 or 3 lower useage customers through that same pipe.

Logic says, well, why dont these high usage customers upgrade their connection to that above dialup (ie broadband). . . . but wait a minute. . . what if you live in anything other than a major city ???? In fact, not ALL bits of ALL cities are capable of adsl or cable modem.

So your stuck with isdn at best. Your stuck with a dialup isp. Your stuck with contention ratios.

Any good to come of this??? Well, at least I'm not on aol ;-) Are all dialup isp's on contention ratios??? I think so, but those on 0800 or equivelent dialups will be forcing the issue more....afterall....the isp will be getting 1p a minimum each minute your connec
ted to an 0845 isp.

Remember, everything is commercial at the end of the day. If there is a dollar to be made. Someone will attempt to make 2 from it.

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