If you are here for my business site and don't wish to take time out of your busy schedule then please proceed to my normal Mambo and Joomla CMS Consultancy home page. 

For those of you who have decided to read on - but who haven't seen my previous article on this subject I will attempt to give you a very quick summary. This is massively abridged and perhaps takes liberties a little - please do read the original article for the full story.

UK ISP Pipex Internet moved me onto a new contract following a casual enquiry during which I decided not to proceed. The contract involved a twelve month lock in period with a cancellation fee equivalent to the full 12 months fee should I leave their services. I cancelled my account and only then was I told about the 'new contract' and cancellation fee. Staff agreed a mistake had been made and no cancellation fee was due. To my horror (but not surprise) they promptly took the cancellation fee directly from my bank account anyway - along with three other spurious payments in the month of January.  I have been given the run-around ever since. My bank 'Abbey' and card processor 'Visa' have decided not to help - my complaint is a 'quality of service' issue and not fraud - apparently because I have previously authorised Pipex to take 23.44 from my account.

Follow this link to read the previous article on this subject entitled 'Are Pipex Fraudulent Criminals'

I will try and demonstrate through recordings of calls with Pipex staff and through analysis of correspondence recently received from Pipex Internet that they employ deliberate tactics to frustrate complainants, that they refuse to re-act when mistakes are pointed out and that their management knowingly employ an automated system which takes money from people even when staff know that no money is due.  I then assert that there is no reasonable explanation for this behaviour that could be down to accident or even incompetence - it is quite simply systematic and deliberate. 

Before I begin what will be another long rant let me start by saying that I was a happy Pipex customer since 18 March 2003 and that in that time on my personal recommendation I know I have sent more than thirty, possibly as many as fifty, customers to Pipex. If you are one of them - I hope you enjoyed the last few years and I sincerely hope you do not hold me responsible for any issues you have with the company in its present operations.

For three and a half years I was very happy with Pipex. When I heard of people with other providers losing connections for hours or sometimes days at a time I would boast to people that service was so good that they used to send emails two weeks ahead of any planned outage to inform me about a potential loss of service for 30 seconds at two or three o'clock in the morning.

The last eighteen months however are something else.

Here at DeanMarshall.co.uk we are planning to expand our operations during 2008. With this in mind we are investigating the possibility of moving to new offices and taking on staff here in the Lancaster and Morecambe area.

This is a local position for local people (extra points for telling us the source of this bastardised quote).

About Us

We provide a range of services to users of the Mambo and Joomla Content Management Systems throughout the UK and around the world. Our clients range from small sites for local tradesmen right through to the UK arms of major multi-national electronics manufacturers (yes household names). We have clients around the world and Dean Marshall our principal is well known throughout Mambo and Joomla circles. Additionally, we are developing a range of software products for these markets as well as extending our range of client services.

We currently do the bulk of our work ourselves, but where necessary we call upon the services of a network of trusted contacts throughout the world. Whilst we will continue to call upon the services of these professionals, we would also like to develop a team locally with the necessary skills to progress this business in what is an exciting and rewarding field.

We are looking for capable people to join the team over the coming year. Nothing is fixed yet but if you'd like to get in touch now we would like to talk to you.

Over in the Joomla Developer's Blog it has been publicly announced that two people have resigned from JoomlaShack in recent weeks.  Whilst this fact is not entirely wrong - it is portrayed in a manner that implies my  dissatisfaction with the current stance of one of the JoomlaShack founders on the GPL debate.

I have made this post as I feel I must clear a couple of points up.
 

I have just been contacted by someone trying to sell domain names to me and encouraging speedy response. If I had expressed any sort of interest in buying domains from this person or company I wouldn't mind so much - but a direct approach, out of the blue, using my online contact form, in my opinion sums up everything that has gone wrong with e-mail in the last 10 years.

Okay, so you are looking for web hosting and you may have seen a little outfit called 1and1 or OneAndOne - they are one of the world's largest web hosts. I signed up for a 'professional' account: described by their marketing blurb in the following terms: '1&1 Professional is the ultimate Linux shared hosting solution, containing all you need to create a Blue Chip web presence.'

For six months or more the web hosting has been solid and reliable over multiple domains - so recently I moved a large domain that I operate over to this professional package. Again for a month or two all was well. Out of the blue I was unable to upload a single file up to my webspace, so I contacted technical support - there my adventure begins...