Hi, I'm wondering whether or not to sue tiscali or at least give them a threatening complaint letter regarding the service they have provided over the long 10 months of my contract with them (horay!, 2 months to go!).
I think that the use of the word "Unlimited" in a broadband product, such as 2 MB Unlimited Broadband is inacurate. As they have a fair usage policy that restricts heavy usage during peak hours (1800-2300 hrs). So, would this be a breach of the trade descriptions act if they advertise an "Unlimited" product and impose restrictions on heavy users during peak hours, which effectively makes it a limited product? The trade descriptions act is supposed to prevent companies making inacurate or misleading statements regarding their products, so this should not happen.
This issue also leads me to the distance selling regulations...
Now, there are a lot of people on the tiscali forums (including myself) that have complained about this fair usage policy. Because when I bought the product online the advertisement looked like this:
Tiscali Unlimited* 2 MB Broadband £17.99 per month.
And right down at the botton almost invisible and tucked out of the way you have:
*fair usage policy applies
Now dosen't this breach the distance sellers regulations? Because before you purchase a product online, arn't you supposed to be told exactly what you are getting and any policies that apply in reasonable plain text so you can make your mind up BEFORE you commit to buy?
And when I found out about this policy it was a good 1 month down the line, that was after the 6 weeks it took them to actually get the service running. This means that I am currently paying for a 2MB service that has a maximum download speed of 250 kb/ps during off peak hours. But during peak hours it's around 25 to 50 kb/ps as my usage is being managed under this policy. And tiscali refuse to divulge exactly what they consider to be heavy usage, this becomes a problem, because I keep a copy of my data records (downloads per day totals) and if they did I could possible prove that my usage falls well below what is considered heavy usage. There are a lot of people that I have spoken to, that also claim that they never use the service during peak hours and yet they have been warned or "capped" for no reason whatsoever.
People are just not aware that these restrictions are in place until it's too late. And under the distance sellers regulations you have a right to cancel, but because they take so long to advise you of this, it's way past your 14 day cancellation date. Therefore you are locked into a 12 month contract for a service that you can only use when you are unemployed. As it's only off peak from the time you goto sleep to the time you come home from work.
I am also wondering if tiscali have a legal duty to refund some of the additional costs that where incurred by me at the beginning and later on in my contract with them. Because I registered for broadband on the 27/01/2006. It took them 6 weeks to provision the line, and during this time I used their dialup (pay as you go). Now they where only supposed to take 10 working days to install the broadband, am I legally entitled to claim the cost of these internet calls back from tiscali because of their delays in provisioning the service?
And... In april 2006, I had to temporarily move address whilst my landlord did repairs on my flat. The same thing happened then.. I asked tiscali to transfer the service to my new address and they didn't. So for 2 months I had to use dialup and had to pay for the internet calls... So for 2 months I was without broadband and had to pay over £100 to BT for using dialup. Does anyone think I would be able to recover some of them costs? Tiscali did refund me 2 months broadband, but did not accept liability for the phone calls to the internet. Even though I provided evidence that I had done so with their own internet usage data and my BT itemised phone bill.
Any suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated... as it's impossible to complain to tiscali as I have to speak to their offshore call centres or communicate via e-mail to the same country. They either ignore you or give an illegible response.
Thank you.
p.s: if you don't beleive me, just follow this link
Broadband Provider - Tiscali Broadband and ask yourself, is this clear enough?
Are tiscali in breach of Trade Descriptions and Distance Selling regulations? 
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