failure-successTwo moans about Pipex in as many days.  They really are going for it in a big way of late.

When I raised a support request the other day, I used my Pipex account email address, i.e the one that has been associated with my account since day one of me being a customer with them. (usually of the form ***@dsl.pipex.com) 
I noticed that I didn’t receive an auto-reply which was unusual, so out of interest, I sent a test message from another email account.
Funnily enough, it bounced. But not just any old bounce, but because of:

5.1.0 – Unknown address error 550-‘Mailbox is inactive’

Since Pipex have transferred over the home customer control panels to some part of Tiscali, there isn’t actually an easy method of retrieving your customer account settings any more.  No problem I thought, I’ll raise a ticket.

I raised a ticket with Pipex Support and couldn’t believe their response.

I understand from your email that you are uanble send emails on your email account ******@dsl.pipex.com as the senders are getting error 5.1.0 – Unknown address error 550-‘Mailbox is inactive’
With reference to your below mail, please be informed that unfortunately we are unable to help you from this helpdesk on this concern.
I would request you to please contact our Customer Support as they would be in a better position to assist you in this regard.
You can contact our Customer Support at 0871 663 3300. Calls are charged at 5p/min from a Pipex line or at 10p/min from a BT line. Calls from mobiles and other providers may vary. Lines are open from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm, Mondays-Fridays, 8:00 am-5:00 pm on Saturdays, and 9:00 am-6:00 pm on Sundays.

So support aren’t actually able to provide any support?
That was Pipex Customer Support I had emailed!

It turns out, all that emailing customer support will do is result in a reply back asking me to call their customer support line.  
What they want me to do is call a PAID FOR support line, not a free one, but a PAID FOR support line.
Now trust me, despite 5p/min sounding like a cheap rate from my Pipex line, and 10p/min from a BT line, if only it were that simple.  My last call to Pipex customer support required waiting on hold for over 2 hours, and a further 20mins waiting for the support representative to fix the issue. The same issue reared it’s head the following week which required another 90mins of call time.
That worked out at around £11.50 just to fix that one issue which was yet another screw up at their end.

Well Pipex can go whistle this time. I emailed them back and have given them my home number so they can call me.
And if they cannot resolve it via email, I’ve also given them a deadline of 8pm tomorrow night.
If they have not resolved it by 8pm tomorrow night, WITHOUT the need for me to waste my time and money calling them, I will be requesting my MAC and moving my account to another ISP.

The only reason I haven’t moved away from Pipex is as I stated in previous post in that they Pipex owe me funds which are incredibly difficult to have returned once you leave them. But sod it! I’ve totally had enough of Pipex and the complete bunch of eejots that seem the be running the damn company.  I’ll pursue them via the courts and boy will it cost them a damn site more than it would have done if they had just returned the monies that were owed to me in the first place.

Pipex were once a great ISP, before that was, Tiscali came in and totally screwed the company over and up.

Trust me when I say, avoid Tiscali, TalkTalk and Pipex like the plague. Go with O2 (as my first option), and then Plus Net (as my 2nd option despite them really being BT now). But, be warned with Plus Net.  I’ve seen quite a few mumblings around various online forums that Plus Net support has gone down the pan since BT took them over. (Something else I’m not surprised about).  Never ever go with BT direct either, but that’s a whole new story I’ll save for a rainy day.

Finally, Pipex, you win the idiot of the week award for this week. You must now be ranking as one of the worst ISP’s in the UK

I’m not the only one who has suffered at the hands of Pipex.  Check out http://www.pipexproblems.co.uk/