mister p.

I was thinking at one point of sounding out this isp with a view of joining them; however, neither by telephone nor email could I get a response.

When I reported my experience on trustpilot, onestream had my post removed even though it is a genuine experience. So the post is here instead - try to get this removed!

I found due to needing to call PP about something that my telephone number is linked to a paypal account - I do not have a paypal account.

Over the course of three weeks - obsessive - I have telephoned them to get the account removed from my telephone number; I found it disturbing after all what other details are linked to my number, bank, name, address...

Not one I have called have helped, I have had dubious excuses thrown at myself as to why, but no unlinking.

1... I have paid for something online and the online merchant has used paypal behind my back - as I rebutt when you purchase something there are clearly at least two ways to pay, paypal or a proper online card merchant, and besides surly a paypal payment would show on my bank statement - to which the phone is slammed down by them.

2... That I should contact my telephone company to have them do something about my telephone number being linked to a paypal account - rebuttal why does everyone else have to run around for paypal changing their records? - phone slammed down by them.

3... I have called paypal before.

I could go on and on with the scams and fastones they have pulled, but suffice it to say that this is a company that the employees think they can do what they want.

BTW also can not make a complaint, unless you are a member aka have agreed to their conditions and rules - WTF!

Also keeping one in a telephone queue for as long as they do is rude.

Recently told Trustpilot to delete/remove all my posts and basically close the account.

Why? Well, a company (onestream.co.uk) which is an ISP in the UK, did not pick up the phone, or respond to an email I sent, so I posted what happened to myself on Trustpilot. The company then complained to Trustpilot about the post claiming I was not a customer and then that I had no contact with them either. Trustpilot removed my post with the proviso that if I could supply proof, then the post would be reinstated - I refused and made a counter argument, that if they check my post in this way then they need to check every post on their site to make sure that there was contact, otherwise if they do not check every post then they should not check mine either, just for fairness.

I received an email from someone called manuel, who did a cut'n'paste job of trustpilot rules - my reply 'that is not the question'.

He then, made a more compressed and more personal explanation of the rules - but again this did not answer the question/point, and was basically going over the same point he tried to make in his first email; I suppose he thought it would be rude to just repeat the cut'n'paste job, or would the rudeness be too obvious LOL!

He then did the same thing for a third time.

It was obvious that he was trying to avoid addressing the point I had made and therefore validating my point/contention - a typical neo-liberal move, he also got shirty when I pulled him up over his claim that there was no pre-screening of posts by my replying that there is just post-deletion.

So I told them where to go and close the account and delete all posts.

[12/01/24]

Update to above.

Believe it or not, I rejoined trustpilot, but have just closed account with them, for a variation of above.

I made a post about sainsburys supermarket, it was removed, then made a second more detailed post about the same company, which was also removed, in both cases it was stated that their software had done this, that mistakes can be made, but they were sure it was the "right call".

I replied to both, got a email to both replies stateing that if i could proof that I had a purchase with sainsburys by way of invoice, delivery proof etc that they would consider reinstating the postl my reply was that this was inapplicable, to which I am.was still waiting for a reply.

I think that these posts were deliberatly removed because i used the word 'discrimination' and trustpilot can not have that, for some reason.

Where do I begin?

Even though they claim I can access my bill online - I would have to allow them to track my activities while I view my bill and any other account details via cookies that have been deliberately mixed - marketing and essential cookies -to cause obfuscation. According to the GDPR one is not supposed to have no opt out of marketing cookies, yet BT deliberately flout the rules; I say they flout the rules as I have told them. They say as a defense "but other companies use cookies"; which bring us to the next problem - everything you say has to be contradicted, argued and quibbled; you are not allowed to be right, or to go away thinking you have won. Its like they want to control your thoughts, like an adult controls a child.

Every call is a war. You call for something that has no need for them to access the account - such as how does something or other work? - of course they claim they cannot do anything until they access your account.

They constantly claim that you have not tild them why you are calling - yet it is the first thing you do. They even claim this when quite clearly you have repeatedly told them why you are calling - which I have cottoned on to as a tactic by the telephone staff of trying to get you to change the subject - a bit like going to a tarot card reader, and keep going to different tarot card readers, until you get the reading you like; with them just keep saying you need to tell me the reason for the call, until you change the subject to something they are happy with.

They claim they have no account details on the screen, yet quite freely seem to know your last calls and the reasons for the calls, and your name.

They claim that you will not be charged for a paper bill; yet when it comes to the crunch you are charged for a paper bill, and when you call, you are told "that hasnt been written down."

On top of all this and more, there is the situation that there is no customer service that deals with the problems that customer service creates for the customer, and whenever you tell whoever you are on the phone with of what one of their colleagues have done, all that is said too try to wriggle out of commenting on a fellow member of staff is "but I wasnt on that call so I dont know what happened"; these two things combined make the BT telephone staff completely unaccountable.

Awful. Ask not what the call centre staff can do for you, ask what you can do for them.

I have had need t use an anonymous email service; after searching and testing I came upon anonymouse. All I can say is that it worked. Good job.

I made several calls yesterday. Let me rephrase I was forced to make several calls yesterday.

I originally called due to a contradiction in their terms for a £60 voucher. At clause 5 they state something like you are not eligible for the voucher until or for 90 days. This is followed by clause 6 that states that once your line has been activated then you will receive the voucher. I called them to explain. I got the usual corporate blarney that tried to explain away this issue. Of course the explanation barely was in line with the words in the clauses.

Other gems to note include the following from this call and subsequent calls include: the passing the buck tactic, forever accusing myself of not providing a reason for the call, accusing myself of calling the wrong number, condescension by phrases such as 'is your tea getting cold' or 'I think the simpsons is on now' ie trying to get myself to end the call without the agent having to tell myself to go away or end the call, myself having to repeatedly say 'as you are not helping please put the phone down', the abuse by these tactics of the caller, going beyond the norm of acceptable behaviour ie forever despite being told to go away refusing by remaining on the call, changing the subject when the questions that the caller asks or the points that the caller makes are too close to home, the complete make over of the call by the agent as if the caller has asked a different question entirely so that the agent can deal with the call as if an entirely different person is on the call, forever carolling to get what the agent wants... the list does just go on.

Overall, condescending, arrogant, devious, manipulative, breaking the rules of acceptable behaviour, forever angling for a result which is good for the agent and to hell with what the caller feels or wants. Did I mention selfish?

I would give minus stars if I could.

Also why give a telephone number to contact them on their web page and it states to contact uswitch use this number, but if used you get through to a different organisation?

Just spent the better part of 90 minutes on three calls with these clowns. The first call the female representative could not get past forcing myself to answer a question which I could have supplied any answer I wanted and she would be non the wiser. When it became clear to her that I was not going to help her keep her job, she hung up.

The second call I asked another female representative whether they have call logging feature because of the question I was asked on the first call. This one tried to make out that she had no idea what call logging is, only to go on and use call-logging to tell myself that I had called before and what the call was about. She them went on to pull a classic call centre trick, that is say just wait a moment, then after a certain amount of time has elapsed, come back to the phone put the phone down, because there is a rule that states that if a certain amount of time has passed with no sound then the hapless employee can put the phone down - no thats not using the call to keep her job - now is it?

The third, I was to a superviser, who subsequently refused to answer questions about what had happened on the first two calls, who deflected, who made excuses about deflecting, then made an excuse for herself to put the phone down. And just as she was I told her to eff-off. And she and they deserve it.

Needless to say but I have just sent them an email to close the account.

I have used this service for some years now. It is the only company that I would give top marks. More recently I found that they have an onion address which I now use. So this makes them even better. The searches always bring relevant results. Its always difficult to write lots about a company that is good.

[EDIT]

I have noticed of late, that their search engine in displaying results is not working properly. When one place a '-' in front of a word then one does not want to see that word in the results. What is happening instead is that one gets every search result with that word; this is an error, and its a general error.

As we all should know by now GG offer a lot of services, including youtube. To be able to post on youtube you need an account. So now you have setup an account - with a password. And I want to emphasise with a password. So now you try to login from another machine/browser. You are blocked even though the password is correct. So what then is the point of the password? Ok so you can reset the password - or are required to reset the password to something different. But... but... but... to get through to this you enter the current password, which means the current password is OK, as they recognise it. SO what is the FRIGGIN POINT? So essentially, if you dont bow down, and drop your trousers and do everything they want you have no account for no good reason. Also, if there has been a serious security breach as they claim is the reason for forcing a password change then surely this procedure allows the scammer/hacker to reset the password?

Also, the forcing of double authenication, via blocking access to your account, unless you supply a code that is sent to your moble - I have deliberatly not enabled double authentication.

And, I delberetely, have opened an account from one machine with the intention of using that one machine only to login - but gurgle still makes the claim that there is something different about my login and force the double authenication procedure - same OS, same router, same isp, same browser same...

I have posted reviews on trustpilot of various companies. I was doing so just a week ago where I posted one review and it was accepted, then I went to post another. Its at this point that I was logged out. I contacted them by email to explain the problem. Just got a reply back today. Apparently their "advanced software" had noticed "patterns" and this was why it happened. They have not explained what they mean by pattern nor offered to rectify the situation. I am just without being told (manipulation) banned from posting out of the blue with no adequate explanation. So ironically I am posting on sitejabber about trustpilot - ha!

[UPDATE] - OK, since the above this has happened. They reinstated my account - or did they? You see despite being now able to login and see my reviews, I can only see my reviews when I am logged in. If I am not logged in my reviews do not appear in the general timeline. I have contacted them about this a couple of times, and they claim that there is no problem. So I made a more thorough check. I used two browsers. One browser I was logged in to trustpilot, and the second I was not. Sure enough, I could not see my reviews on the browser where I was not logged in, but could with the browser I was logged in with. So I made one final complaint. I mentioned yet again what I had read twitter were doing, and that is "shadow accounting". This practice is exactly as I have just described. It is where for all intents and purposes when logged in you can post and see your reviews - but no one else can. This is what trustpilot is doing as well.

[Further update] - They have relented and given back full site privileges.

Upon the first three calls I made to this company, all three women I talked with, subsequently wrote, on my record, that I had not answered security questions. I pointed out when I found out about this that the opposite was true. The manager I was talking with found that I was correct, and he apologised profusely; but that set the tone of my stay with plusnet.

Here is one for you, just to show that they are playing the caller and are not very good at it. I state that they must have my details on the screen as I am calling them using the line I rent from them The reply I got was sublime and went something like this "No, no, no, it doesnt matter that you are calling us using the line that you rent from us, we have no details on the screen, it is a white screen, a blank screen. I am waiting for you to give me the answers to the questions so that I can pull up your details (drum roll for the punch line) Mr Jones!"

Here is how it ended. I had had enough of them, so I put in a termination of contract request. This takes two weeks to go through because of the BT engineers. Near the end I cancel the termination request, and I am told that the termination request had been cancelled. But as it turns out there is a difference between what they claim is happening and what will happen. At the end of the two weeks on a Monday I awake, do my stuff, and then went to switch on the internet. Nothing - no connection. Same with the phone line. You see by the end they were taking my protestations personally, and this move by plusnet was personal. They had no intention of cancelling the cancellation.

So I would say stay away.

Cant login to Amazon when using tor. Cant even retrieve a lost password without going through the 'spanish inquisition'. I will buy from elsewhere then - shall I amazon?

I for one do not trust call centre staff as I have been lied to by them too many times. The call centre staff that this company employ are no exception. Case in point, yesterday I called using a phone I have never used to call Nationwide before. I was not asked any identifying questions before being put through to someone. This phone is also not registered with them. Yet after ten minutes (approx) the woman slips and tells me my name. I point out approx two minutes later that she had told me my name. She went into denial. You know the kind of denial that call centre staff excel at. That is change the subject, make an excuse such as I dont recall doing that etc... Not only this but she had asked previously whether there were any other questions I had that she could help me with. So of course I started asking questions about their telephone customer service, to which she tried one way after another to not answer any questions. I said to her you have no intention of honouring what you promised. After 26 minutes she put the phone down on myself. This is another thing. Tell them to put the phone down as they are doing nothing but string you along and try all sorts of tricks to wriggle out of doing what is asked, including claiming that they do not have permission. But they all work for the same company and if one can do it they all can do it. Which by-the-way they do on almost every call.

They use voice recognition software, and your training it. Thats what you are doing by answering their remedial 'security' questions.

Never a straight answer is given. They are only interested in hijacking your call to get what they need to keep their job.

I have never heard of this company before I got mail from them.

They got my details somehow through equifax, so zopa claim.

I didnt like this. I dont like this. I never asked to be contacted by them.

In my eyes not good. I recognise they are a business and they want to get customers, but do it some other way.

Basically money was taken from my account.

Lloyds have not refunded the money, as is claimed they will do on their online guarantee.

Lloyds have not followed the rules of the FCA in this matter either. Despite claiming they are regulated by the FCA in most of their documentation.

BTW they are not only regulated by the FCA but are also authorized by the FCA which means they definitely have to follow the rules of the FCA.

They have lied both to myself and all outside bodies ie the FOS, FCA.

Their staff have lied about my behaviour while in one of their branches. I was accused of being aggressive and threatening. But here is the problem. Three hours later I returned to the local branch, only to have the woman who subsequently lied about my behviour, to not know who I was or why I was there. You would think with someone who had been aggressive and threatening with you three hours earlier, that you would remember who that person is. It does not pan out.

Avoid these clowns. Deal with them at your own peril.

I have contacted these clowns on numerous occasions in the past 24 hours. Reason is that I received a letter from a company offering me a loan that I have never had any dealings with. This produced an itch that needed to be scratched. So I contacted the company. It turned out they had got my details from equifax. I have no account with equifax; (I did quite some time ago have a trial account that was cancelled before I had to pay anything). But as I write I have no account with equifax. I then contacted equifax for an explanation. I have been given the run-around. The indian call centre staff are almost incomprehensible, as anyone speaking english is to them. They are not interested in what you want; they are only interested in what they want. I like the way the caller can go into a rant about why they are calling and the problems they are having, and the question comes back from the hapless call centre staff "why are you calling" (I call it the magic eight ball, that is if they dont like what you say they pretend you havent said anything and ask why you are calling over and over again until they get an answer they can deal with - like shaking the magic eight ball when you dont get the result you wanted). At all points when I contact them they presume they can pull up my details from a non existent account, and dont know how to cope when you challenge them about that.

The excuses they have given. They have tried to blame a building society or a bank for giving equifax details. But this is a red herring as its the banks and building societies that come to them for details. They have tried to blame the electorial role and myself for not ticking the box that stops one from being placed on the open register. I always tick the box to stop that from happening.

Here is another for you; it quite clear from the tone of the conversation and the way the conversation is progressing what you want to be done by them. Instead of doing this, they ask whether you want it done. I reply "what do you think?" bear in mind the general direction of the conversation. If they dont get an answer that complies with what they want they pretend they dont know what to do. They even go as far when challenged about this to say something like - well judging from what you have said I would say you would like me to do this. But still nothing is done until they get a certain three letter word.

I had one of their call centre staff, come back from yet another break, to then ask me whether I am going to answer his questions. But due to my considerable experience calling call centres I immediately knew what he was up to. He had gone away to ask a supervisor for permission to put the phone down on myself, and had been given the go-ahead to do so as long as he once again checks by asking myself that question before putting the phone down. I told him of this instead of answering his question, and included that he was using the call to keep his job. He agreed before putting the phone down on myself.

All I can write is morons.

Lloyds bank, when I was with them, conned me out of a fraud claim, to which I went to the Financial Ombudsman. Despite all the evidence, that is a BCOBS 5. 1. 11 guideline by the FCA that Lloyds was ignoring, even though Lloyds claim they are regulated by the FCA, the FOS found nothing wrong. They claimed or claim that they find a solution which is fair to both parties. It was not fair to myself though, as I had provided evidence that I had already repeatedly done what Lloyds had asked for, but the FOS just claimed 'do it again'. Did you realise that only 1 out of 4 claims are found in favour of the issuer of the complaint at the FOS, and that they are funded by the Banks through the dealing with complaints on behalf of the banks - the FOS is a cheap way for the banks to deal with a complaint in the banks favour. And why shouldnt it be like this if the shoe was on the other foot and the FOS was given money from taxpayers through the government the onus would be to find in favour of the taxpayer - would it not. A law unto themselves. They operate with impunity. It is their own fiefdom.

I have since discovered that when they are producing a verdict, they not only use what is fair, but they use what is fair in relation to the terms and conditions of the financial company. They also claim they use FCA rules - but there is a problem with that. The FCA rules do not apply to individual account holders. That is if you have a current account with a bank then you are not covered by the FCA. Also the terms and conditions of the bank does not need to include anything about the FCA. This means that should the individual sign up for a current account and the FCA is not included, in the terms and conditions then you as an individual are not covered by the FCA. So how can the FOS use the excuse that they use the FCA rulings in their deliberations; I ask you? Only I suppose, if the terms and conditions include mention of the FCA; if not, then lets move on.

Due to this even I agree that Lloyds have done nothing wrong; at least legally.

I have now have more info after receiving the SAR documentation. I noticed that what Lloyds Bank had provided was scant. Plus there was no mention of listening to the recordings I had made of Lloyds Bank telephone staff. But focusing upon the scant information, made me thinks of three questions to put to the financial ombudsman. The first is do you bother to check that the information given by the financial institution is correct? The second question - do you bother to check the information is complete, and the third question do you check to see if the information supplied has not been 'cherry picked' by the financial institution to influence your decision? I called them this morning and the FOS do not check - period.

Update - As it happens the SAR that was promised by the FOS would answer my questions did not. So I was cheated out of £10.00. I keep contacting them asking questions and now they are stonewalling. I contacted the ICO about this whole situation. The ICO contacted by email the FOS and the FOS responded to the ICO almost simultaneously. But any replies to myself take at least five days to be responded to if I am lucky.

Its quite clear that the recorded conversations I had with Lloyds was not listened to at all by the FOS. The recordings are a vital evidence, so vital that it would determine a decision.

Upon further scrutiny, the FOS have admitted that they ask for information from both sides then select what the FOS think is relevant. In other words, because of this practise they conduct an investigation for themselves - as it turns out just like the ICO do.

I have been with them for 6 months; in six months I will be leaving. Why, they are not superior as they claim. Their lines are run on BT lines just like any other internet company in the UK, and their customers service is just like any other internet company in the UK.

I had need to call to ask questions. When I got through I had the call be put on hold/mute indefinitely at least three times. Due to my considerable knowledge of call centres (particularly talktalk/bt) I knew that this is a tactic that call centre staff use to force you to go away. Of course making sure that they dont actually tell you to go away, or be caught in any way putting the phone down on you.

I also had the privilege of one of them saying that she had no details about myself (again due to my considerable experience of call centres I knew this to be a lie) and later after I sent an angry email to them about what had happened, I was proved to be correct, as they was able miraculously to find all the calls I made - how strange!

There is nothing different about this company from talktalk, bt, plusnet et all...

[UPDATE - long overdue]

This company did not like the following review about what they did and had it effectively removed from trustpilot, so I place it here as a permanent reminder to both trustpilot and zen-internet that they maybe able to remove from one site, but cannot expunge this from the web - enjoy:)

My experience with Zen could be indicated by how it ended; one morning I called five times only for their call centre staff to end the call while I am talking on each occasion - without even bothering to ask who I am; I then receive notice that they are ending the contract on the Friday to which they did.

Why, because I challenged them that they already have the caller details on the screen in front of them, and therefore have no need to put me through the spanish-inquisition - and putting the phone down five times on the trot, without asking my details is an clear indication that they knew who was calling and therefore I was correct.

For a week I have been raining telephone calls upon this outfit trying to get them to sort out a problem of their creation. That is they have stopped the use of my debit card on their guest accounts, which means I cannot make donations. They have been telling me that there is nothing they can do; but I know that they can as I have been in this situation with them before and their executive escalations department removed the problem.

This is what they have been doing instead:

Making opportunities for themselves to put the phone down, such as, after you have countered what they claim, they go silent for a short time say 120 seconds, then they make their putting the phone down speech ie I cannot hear anyone anymore, I am going to put the phone down, you can always call again later to get th problem sorted, thank you for calling paypal, have a nice day. Then they put the phone down.

Or a variation of this ie they do the putting the phone down speech ie I cannot hear anyone anymore, I am going to put the phone down, you can always call again later to get the problem sorted, thank you for calling paypal, have a nice day. Then they wait for for a couple of minutes before putting the phone down.

Here is the thing with both - who are they saying all that for if they are claiming there is no one there? Whose listening? Its just to make sure that they are covered using the recording.

They even put the phone down while you are talking, of course making sure that there job is covered by doing the end of call speech - and this is despite the fact that they are not supposed to do that - so they claim!

I had one yesterday telling myself that it was my card issuer that was causing the problems not paypal. I repeatedly called him a liar. He put the phone down while I was talking. I then contacted my card issuer, who assured myself that there was nothing wrong with my card. I also recorded this and the paypal bloke who was telling me it was not paypal. I returned to paypal to prive my point by playing the recordings to them. The woman while the recordings were being played to her make her job covering excuses and put the phone down. You see she saw it as an opportunity as I was not there or highly unlikely to be able to hear her or know what was happening to put the phone down 'scot-free'. Unfortunately for her I have two recording devices, so she was recorded in the act.

I am sure that if you were standing in the middle of a field covered with grass, and you said the grass is green they would say 'no its not'.

[UPDATE] There has been some progress. I now can use my debit card online to make donations. But this took a further conserted effort. I finally got thriugh to someone who in typical Paypal fashion symphases with my plight over the phone, but did not do anything there and then to releive the situation. A number of weeks later I find that this problem has gone. So I guess what I said to this guy got through.

But I still would not have an account with them, and still will have as little to do with paypal as possible.

Initially signed up with this outfit, but later cancelled due to the stupidity of call centre staff question "is this your account?". However a couple of weeks later I tried to resign with them (I know its not rational!). This time over the phone she said they were using the postoffice database for finding addresses. I challenged this as if one goes to the postoffice website and put a postcode in to their search box what fuelbroadband has is not the same as the postoffice database. Surely the postoffice is using the correct database. But no, don't admit we are wrong or lying. So I could not sign up over the phone. But I could do it online, that is of course if I ignore the error in their database - wrong address put in their by another isp - yes its a isp database not postoffice database. Anyway I signed up online and waited for the result. Failure. When asked via their site I was given that it 'may' be reltated to a credit reference agency. So I got a statutary credit report for myself from the credit reference agency. No footprint from fuelbroadband - they had not on either occasion checked the credit reference database. I called and pointed out this fact to them. Anyway, avoid if you do mind being lied to by hapless call centre staff. BTW this outfit was once called newcalltelecom.