SUED FOR 14 QUID STILL & UPDATED (World Online)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	World Online
Date:	30/12/01 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Aaaaarggghh

I always planned to come back and update this as promised. When I came to look how prominent it was in it's category, I was rather surprised to find it as the "top opinion". This gave me an extra incentive to include the latest developments, which are detailed below.

Bear in mind that this was originally written around Christmas time, which gives you the context to the seasonal feel to it.

Just before you start, you should know that the latest incarnation of Screaming Net/World Online is Tiscali. I'm not saying that Tiscali will be guilty by default but I sincerely hope that their approach is more customer-orientated than their predecessors.

Tiscali S.p.A was founded by Renato Soru, Chairman and CEO, in January 1998 following the liberalization of the Italian telecommunications market. In 2001 the company bought out the LineOne ISP along with World Online.

At present, Tiscali has the most interconnected network in Europe with over 350 tier 1 peering agreements and a connection to the USA.

As of December 2001 Tiscali has 7.3 million active users, and is the first European web property with 14.7 million unique visitors that in Q4 2001 generated 10.4 billion minutes of Internet traffic in the 14 countries in which it is present.

OK, here's the rant plus update at the end. Hang on to yer hats!!

It's time for a post-Christmas RANT. Yeah, I know it's the season to be jolly but I just have to get this one of my chest. It's a story of intrigue, double-crossing and thorough caddishness.

Many moons ago I decided to change my ISP to Screaming Net. Heard of 'em? Well, they were one of the first companies to offer free off-peak Internet access. Too good to be true? Absolutely! The deal was that you switched over your telephone service to them and took advantage of their soooo competitive rates (actually they were you moaning git). Screaming Net worked on the premise of b
uilding up a client bank to the point where volume would equal profit. Along with AOL, BT and others, the experiment was doomed to failure.

Do you know it's all so distant now...can't even remember who I was with before? Anyway, as you'd expect, NO CHANCE of getting through on a dial up. I changed my settings to automatically re-dial up to a 100 times and even this went round the clock sometimes. This went on for a while so I wrote to OFTEL to complain. They wrote back to say that they had named and shamed a number of telephone operators and that SN were one of the worst offenders. However, they didn't have the power to actually help in individual cases but had written to SN to draw their attention to my complaint. You see, on top of the c$*p service via the Net, my phone bills were all over the place as well. It was common practice to be billed for phone calls made 6 months previously.

Sometime last year, World Online bought up SN's customer book. Could things start to improve? What do you think? Almost immediately a charging structure came in for Net access. Admittedly it was only £3 per month to start with but this was to prove to be the thin end of the wedge. More importantly they took over my telephone service. Here again, phone bills all over the shop. Itemised calls over 6 months old rattled through my letterbox at regular intervals.

The shark then ate the sprat having been eaten by the mackerel. Tiscali (one of Europe's biggest ISPs) bought out World Online earlier this year. Cilla Black time again – surprise, surprise – the charging structure changed to £7 per month. Where was it all going to end? By now I was thoroughly p*ss$d off with the phone bill side of things and when NTL turned up in my street, an opportunity arose. I'm not keen on my paths being turned into permanent molehills but I'll forgive 'em that.

May 2001 – read the literature, spoke to my neighbour, sw
itched to NTL. OK, OK, let's get Tiscali/World Online/Screaming Net or whatever you are called off my back once and for all. So I sent an e-mail to Tiscali to confirm the date of disconnection and that I had received and PAID MY FINAL BILL. E-mail reply confirmed the necessary – I'M FREEEE!!!

Oh yes I am; oh no you're not (seasonal, eh?). The dreaded phone bills kept coming. My payment method was a credit card direct debit, which, apparently, couldn't be cancelled. My credit card people did say to contact them if there were any problems. I duly referred the subsequent bills and they gave me a refund and issued a notice of dispute to World Online. The coup de gras – about 2 weeks ago I had a letter from a debt collection agency threatening to take me to court over outstanding bills. Yes, a whopping £14 would blight my credit score and insult my pride. Strangely, the agency was very helpful when I rang them (always thought that they went round with croquet mallets stuffed inside sheepskin coats) and said to send in my documentation and they'd refer the stuff back to their client.

That's the latest as I'm still waiting to here back.

***My points are thus***
Screaming Net and World Online are truly terrible.
Why do companies try and shaft people over such trivial amounts of money?
Are all debt collection agencies as nice as this one?

You may have guessed that this is a matter of honour by now, as I'm not prepared to pay up. However, I really am not going to allow a CCJ to be registered against me either. The exciting conclusion will take the form of an update maybe in the New Year.

RANT over for now, right; let's get ready for New Year's Eve.

Marandina.

***Update March 2002***
We are now into March and I've had a final summons from Direct Legal & Collections a couple of months ago. They agreed to take my copy correspondence and refer it
back to World Online.

I've had a solicitors letter threatening to take me to court if I don't pay up. As I was in Leeds all week I had to pay as I couldn't meet their 5 day pay or contact demands. I'm still gonna take it up with my Credit Card company after I've paid them their poultry sum.

My final word is that World Online/Tiscali suck like a Dyson with Mick Jagger lips.

I'm considering employing my good friend, King Herrod who is an active lawyer and promised me a good deal (only kidding, Nick!)

BTW: I'm not usually like this. Just that some things really frustrate me. This being one of them!!

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