The general rule is that if a bill remains unpaid for around 90 days, an automatic cease request will be placed onto the account which physically ceases the service down. The TV is different - that can just be unblocked as such. The phone line has to be physically reactivated. Not sure why they are saying that a BT engineer is required though as this there should now be a stopped line (your old line) showing at your address which can both be restarted in 10 working days. As long as the order is placed on Sky's network, the phone and broadband will be provisioned at the same time. With regards to the number - Sky reserve the right to change a customer's number at any point, the customer does not own the number.In fact, Sky doesn't even own the number, Offcom does, and they simply assign number ranges to the communication providers. Locutus is correct - once a number is disconnected, it goes into quarantine for 90 days and is then available to to be re-assigned to a new customer.

Sky in Newcastle........ Sounds like one of the outsource partners The Listening Company then....... I would say they would be interested to hear of this, but as an ex employee of there's I know they are pretty useless and will just bury their heads in the sand........

One of the big things is dependant on the exchange, and whether they are "unbundled" and have equipment present from other suppliers, such as Sky, O2/Be etc. If not (which it very much sounds like in your case) then the provider will rent the service from BT Wholesale. There is very little margin in this for the company, so generally around the £17 mark is the going rate. Best thing to do is type Sam knows into google, visit the website and look at broadband availability. Type your phone number in, and look to see if a) the exchange is LLU enabled and b) whether any provider has their equipment in it. Speaking from experience, Sky connect is awful - poor speed, heavily contended and throttled badly during peak periods. I can't complain though as I didn't pay for it (I work for Sky) - The Sky network though, completly different kettle of fish, it's excellent so was happy when my exchange become unbundled. It might be worth checking with Sky as well to see if your exchange is due to be unbundled anytime soon as a rollout programme for further exchanges is currently happening.

If I was being biast, I would say go with Sky as I work for them. On second thoughts...... I found o2 great for BB - getting uber fast speeds. I have a seperate Ukonline connection at my parents and the o2 one at my place is so much better. no download limts either

That part made me chuckle

Would be very concerned if this was a [problem] as the site is run by the royal mail!!

Just a quick question on this as I had some dealings with power 2 contact a year or 2 back. Just taken this from credit solutions / p2c's website: We have all the tools you would expect for Trace activity, including: BT OSIS Database – allowing new telephone numbers to be acquired and also enabling discreet neighbour tracing. Note the bold part - is that actually legal? Not 100% au fait with a a lot of the legalities, so more intrigued really Thanks

Be careful when accessing the link for Capri skies - AVG just popped up a virus alert when I loaded the page.........

From experience in the past, getting BT to do a stop / start order on the line has had the desired effect as well. It can be a lottery sometimes depending on the people you speak to. This isnt *generally* the case. The new provider can give advice on how to get this removed, however the majority of tag issues nowadays are not actually tags, but still the physical service from the old provider. It is then up to the customer to arrange for this to be removed Though i do agree there are some cases when the receiving ISP can get these removed, generally when it's a simple issue such as routing still being left on Openreach's systems, or an incorrect ned type marker still present.

Thanks for your response Sali I spoke to them earlier today, and they advised I should send me complaint through to the general manager for the unit. Bearing in mind that it's run through an outsourcer, should I send it for the attention of the gen manager, or should I bypass them and go straight to the trust instead? Ta

nope - just take the base package with BT and then whatever calls package you want with your preferred supplier

PDS would be if no help to fix this fault........ it sounds to me like the phone line was activated remotely, and BT actioned a visit reduction and didn't send an engineer out when the line was activated. I imagine their records would have shown all wiring was in place. Usually the simple fix would be for an early life cycle failure to be logged to BT to get an engineer out to resolve. Ida is correct - and yes, I do work for an outsource partner. And outsource partner team managers do take over phone calls.

You say Sky tried it on......... but no reference to Sky in your post? or am I missing something?

Change your provider to someone who doesn't mess up so much.... Have you asked tiscali for a copy of their formal complaints procedure? Have you complained in writing or just verbally into their contact centres?

You will prob struggle. Best advise is to go through trouble shooting with tech support to see if they can improve your sync rate. Problem being is that speed is never guaranteed using a copper phone line - there could be a numbe of factors - poor quality wiring, poor quality phone line, line length to the local exchange etc. If you are deemed to be receiving an "acceptable" connection then they will not terminate without charges - problem being a 0.5mb connection is quite often classed as acceptable......

That doesn't always work......

As long as Virgin's service is WLCi / CPS based then there shouldn't be a problem, which i'm 99% sure it is.

Hi All, I have been having a few problems with some of the administration / care of my patient notes etc after a recent day surgery procedure i had. I will detail the issues below, and some further advise would be helpful: I was recently diagnosed as suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand (it's fun typing this with one hand!!) and chose to use a hospital about 20 miles from me using the choose and book service as they could do the procedure a heck of a lot quicker than my local hospital. The hospital in question have an NHS treatment centre there, which is run by an outsource company on behalf of the NHS. I had my first appointment with the consultant there, and was referred to a nearby private hospital for a nerve conduction study. I attended this appointment a week later and was told to await the results and a further appointment at the treatment centre. I was given an appointment a week later, and attended. I was told that it had been decided surgery was required (carpal tunnel release), and the usual pre-op tests were completed. I had a number of questions regarding the surgery, however I was told that i was unable to see a doctor / consultant that day, and would have to ask on the day of the procedure. I then proceeded to book in for the procedure around 10 days later On the 29th may, I attended the treatment centre for the procedure, and was told I was the down on the surgeons list to go down first. They completed the normal checks / paperwork etc. This is when the problems began. the surgeon came round and asked why I had not had a nerve conduction study which surprised me slightly. I informed him I had, and gave details of this. He then said my notes gave no indication I had been referred for the conduction study. I had to give them full details of what had happened etc etc and they tried to track the results down. They finally managed to track them down and the procedure happened 3 hours later. Annoying, but no biggie, these things happen. I found it very difficult for me to get my questions answered, and it took a lot of pressing from me for this to happen, but I still was'nt entirely satisfied. I was told an appointment would be sent to me in the post for the dressing to be changed and this duely arrived. I attended the appointment on tues 2nd june at 5pm. It got to 5:15 and I hadn't been seen yet, so had a quick word with the receptionist and she said I was next to be seen by the nurse. I continued waiting till 5:40 and was starting to get worried. I went and saw the receptionist again and she said I should have been seen by now and chased it up with the nurse. She then came out and said she thought I had been a no show, and they lose had lost the tracking tickets they use for patients which indicated I was there! I was Annoyed now, but bit my tongue, and got her to change my dressing. I then went back to the reception area to book the appointment for the stitches to be removed. I was told that their systems were down, but they would book me in for wednesday 10th June and send a letter out in the post. It came to monday just gone and I had not received anything, so I gave them a call first thing. I was asked to give my details and they would call me back. It got to 4:30 in the afternoon and I had still not been called, so I called back. They tried to transfer me to outpatients 3 times but twice is just kept ringing, then the third just cut off. I called back first thing yesterday morning, was transferred to outpatients again and got the option to leave a voice mail, which I did. I asked the lassy who I first spoke to why no one had contacted me back, and she assured me that the message had been passed on. It got to 3pm and I still had not been contacted back so I called them Again. I was then told that an appointment had been made for me for this friday, but no one had given me the simple courtesy of calling me and letting me know!! She also informed me that an appointment for wed 10th had never been made. As you can see, there has been a number of administrative cock up's along the line here, and it seems their processes are pretty poor. My concern is that this could happen to other people as well. I have been lucky that my procedure was simple. I will add that the actual patient care I received was top notch, and I have no issues with that whatsoever. What are the next steps I should take? My main aim is for them to acknowledge their shortfalls in this case and give some kind of assurances that they will review their processes to ensure these things don't happen again. Thanks for reading, any comments or advice are appreciated Mike

Have you tried to call HP using one of the numbers from the link below? HP (Hewlett Packard UK)

That's good news, glad you got it sorted

I most certainly will do. Thank you for the advice, it's appreciated. Really not sure how they think they can try and charge this. Ah well, it's #440 we haven't got so could be an interesting battle

Bump - Any advice anyone?

The address given by Ukaviator will go to the customer relations team and they should be able to resolve it pretty quickly. In the scheme of things, these are pretty simple queries and should not be difficult to resolve at all, so it is really surprising you are having all these problems. I think i remember seeing a memo on internal systems saying the process has recently changed (I work for one of Sky's outsource partners) so it could be that people are a little unsure about this. A letter to the CR team should sort you out pretty quickly.

Hi Guys, Not sure if this is in the right section, if not could a mod move it please. My other half got a letter from the financial advisor who sorted out our mortgage and some associated insurance polices. The IFA works for a local estate agency chain on the south coast. This was done just under a year ago. We recently cancelled the bupa policy they set up for us as we couldnt really justify the cost of it. We have just had a letter from the finance dept. of the estate agents stating we owe them approx #430 due to the commission they have had clawedback from them by bu.pa due to us cancelling They claim when we signed up for the policy we agreed to sign up to the policy 4 years. We were certainly never told this as we would not have agreed to it. I can't find any of the paperwork for it, and as its a weekend, the team at the head office don't work. Can anyone offer any advice? Thanks

An virgin media "debt" of mine did the rounds. Went through moorcroft, who were quite amusing on the phone. Then to Wescot. Or it might have been the other way around. Then i got some letters from a solicitors firms called Garlands. Seemed rather heavy handed as they claimed I owed them 32 quid, when it transpired they owed me 21. I should have sent a DCA onto them