I'm currently undergoing a battle with Ask4, providers of broadband at West One. We have got the 8mb connection, known as 4plus. On the website, it is advertised as £50 a month... Yet on the yellow posters in West One, its advertised at a rental offer price of £30 a month.

I was just wondering what everyone else was paying in West One? Or if anyone had any similar experiences...

I'm cheesed off as they are trying to make out that you only get a 1mb connection for £30.... But the figures on the advert for 8mb clearly match those for the 8mb connection on the website....

AAAARRRRGHHH!

After numerous phone calls, they say that they'll "Look into it" but I don't quite get what they're meant to be looking into! Are they hoping I'll forget about this and just sign the direct debit? Yeah right! Grrrr!

Also, does anyone know if they operate from just a call centre? as their office is meant to be in S3 and I do think I'd be better off marching in there and SHOWING them.... GRRR!

Hi Caprice

I live in West One Space, and have Ask4 broadband. Ask4 did exactly the same thing to me that they are doing to you though - quoting one tariff on their website and on the posters in West.One and then sending me a direct debit mandate for a higher amount. I rang them and eventually they did send me a new contract though :) Good luck!

Tracie

PS.Their office is along the main road that runs aside the tram line from the university - I don't know Sheffield well enough to be able to tell you an adjacent street name or anything though.... its on the way to Hillsborough, on the right hand side.

Aaah thanks Tracie... I thought they'd be trying to scam people... Hmm well they won't get me! Thanks!

How much does it say 1mb is on their flyer, I am paying £30 for 1mb a second. If it says it's cheaper on the flyer i'll have a moan to them and try and get it cheaper.

If you can afford to live in West One I hardly think you should be cheapskating about price of broadband :loopy:

Originally posted by Rich
If you can afford to live in West One I hardly think you should be cheapskating about price of broadband :loopy:

OoooooOOOo I object : Regardless of what I pay in rent, to advertise at one price and then sell at another is false advertising, and the suppliers should not be allowed to get away with it. I don't see how where I choose to live affects my rights in that sense?

I wasn't aware that the more you the pay to rent somewhere, the less you are allowed to complain about being scammed.

Originally posted by TracieJC
OoooooOOOo I object : Regardless of what I pay in rent, to advertise at one price and then sell at another is false advertising, and the suppliers should not be allowed to get away with it. I don't see how where I choose to live affects my rights in that sense?

I see your point.

Originally posted by adlinds
How much does it say 1mb is on their flyer, I am paying £30 for 1mb a second. If it says it's cheaper on the flyer i'll have a moan to them and try and get it cheaper.

The yellow flyers (On the notice boards near the mail boxes) advertise the 1Mb/s at £25. The website says its £30 a month. It's only a fiver, but thats £60 a year that they're swindling out of you. - You might have a job on looking for the flyer in the WestOne cube building... It's erm, been nicked :hihi:

f you can afford to live in West One I hardly think you should be cheapskating about price of broadband

And as for you (tut tut) can you not count? £30 x 12 months = £360, where as £50 x 12 month = £600... Thats nearly twice the price!
Just because I live in an expensive place does not mean that I suffer from an inability to count! Shame on you!

Originally posted by Rich
I see your point.

:) Thanks. I wasn't spitting the dummy really, it just reads that way (well, I was about to :P) The real irony is, of course, that I can't actually afford to live in West One :P :D Hehe :D

Time to look for a house share methinks :clap: :P

To return to the original topic - Ask4 are being rather naughty - clearly Caprice's case is not a one off :suspect:

Hello all,

My name is Jonathan Burrows and I am one of the directors of Ask4. I am writing because I feel that the situation as represented by Caprice is not correct and because it seems to have generated a lot of negative feeling.

As we have explained to Caprice, and as she has now accepted, the flyer that she is referring to has simply been superseded. We are perfectly within our rights to upgrade our '4Plus' package from 1.5Mb/s (we have never had a 1Mb/s 4Plus package) to 8Mb/s and we are certainly not trying to 'scam' anyone, in fact we take pride in the fact that we do treat our customers like people and don't just use call-centre drones.

The prices shown on the website are the full retail prices without any discounts applied. If you rent an apartment in Phase 3 of the development you are entitled, and will receive, a rental discount because the developers subsidise the service - hence the difference between the £25.00 shown on the flyers and posters in Phase 3 and the £30.00 shown on the main body of the website. In any event, when you sign up from your apartment the system shows you quite clearly what you are committing to.

- Caprice, you do only get a 1Mb/s connection for £30.00. (In fact you get it for £25.00, because you live in phase 3!) I understand that your various outstanding issues have been resolved. Please advise if this is not the case.

- TracieJC, I have checked your account and all appears in order. Please contact me if any action is required or if you have some issue with the service you have received or are receiving. I would be most grateful if you could explain how we are being 'naughty'. We have given the service as advertised. We have given Caprice a refund for the months were there was confusion about what package she had subscribed to, irrespective of our strict legal position in this matter.

- Adlinds, because you do not live in Phase 3 of West One you are unfortunately not entitled to the rental discount.

If anyone feels hard done by here, then I am more than willing to talk with you and to work to resolve the issue amicably. As I have said, we take pride in treating you like human beings and I hope you will agree that it is unusual for the director of a company to take such a direct interest in matters.

If any one would like to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact me.

My email address is jon@ask4.com and my direct line is (0114) 2230 780.

Kind regards

Jonathan Burrows

Ah-ha, I was wondering when this would be hunted down!


I hope you will agree that it is unusual for the director of a company to take such a direct interest in matters.

Whilst this is very admirable and has resulted in my issues being sorted within the matter of two emails, it does call into question why you had to step in in the first place. Perhaps it was due to the fact that your accounts manager wouldn't return my calls? We could have easily have sorted this out MONTHS ago, without your involvement, if he had kept to his side of the bargain and returned my calls/responded by email (It's not as though we don't have internet access!!)

Whilst this has all being sorted, finally, you have got to ask yourself why so many people were getting confused by what was on offer. Tracie and myself both fell victim to the misleading ad - how many others?! Whilst you have made your legal position very clear upon your altering services and prices, I stand by my view that I was mislead by your advertisement, which is easily done.

On a final note, I'd like to add that shortly after my letter and the issues were resolved with Mr Burrows, a brand spanking new ACCURATE and NON-MISLEADING flyer appeared on the noticeboard. West.One residents - you shall no longer be misled :clap: Victory for all! :clap:

Originally posted by Jon_Ask4

- TracieJC, I have checked your account and all appears in order. Please contact me if any action is required or if you have some issue with the service you have received or are receiving. I would be most grateful if you could explain how we are being 'naughty'. We have given the service as advertised. We have given Caprice a refund for the months were there was confusion about what package she had subscribed to, irrespective of our strict legal position in this matter.


From my earlier post :

Originally posted by TracieJC
I rang them and eventually they did send me a new contract though

Hence why my account is in order - I rang Ask4, and you amended the amount I pay for broadband accordingly, before the first payment was taken out of my account. Thank you for that. However, my original comment stands - it shouldn't have been neccessary for me to have to chase Ask4 up regarding the amount on the first direct debit mandate, which was higher than that advertised in the West One complex.

In all fairness to Ask4 though, this was back in December when I first registered with the company - since then the correct amount of money has come out of my account every month and I've had no other problems with my connection.


Originally posted by Caprice

On a final note, I'd like to add that shortly after my letter and the issues were resolved with Mr Burrows, a brand spanking new ACCURATE and NON-MISLEADING flyer appeared on the noticeboard.

I noticed the appearance of these new posters too.

Hello All,

Many thanks for your comments and feedback. We certainly don't want to mislead our customers, however unintentionally - hence the revised flyers.

Kind thanks for your feedback - it does help us improve the service for everyone.

Kind regards

Jonathan Burrows

So you pay a different price depending on what "phase" you live in, sounds fair.

Originally posted by nick2
So you pay a different price depending on what "phase" you live in, sounds fair.

It is nobody but the developers fault though as they only subsidise one phase. Take it up with them not the broadband company.

Originally posted by march
It is nobody but the developers fault though as they only subsidise one phase. Take it up with them not the broadband company.

I don't care, I'm with Telewest.

Well don't comment on the fairness then ;)

Originally posted by The Boy Wond
So am I right in saying that if you live in West One you can only use this one provider ASK4.

and you are paying £30 minimum a month for 1meg connection.

I am on 2.3meg for £15.99.

Sounds like your being robbed not only by the landlord but the communications company.

Their prices don't seem that cheap on first glance, but check out the package details (http://www.ask4.co.uk/comparison.asp)... I doubt you have 1 mbit upstream? Not that most people would need that, or want to pay for it of course :) Also take contention ratios into account, etc etc. Shame there isn't a cheaper "bare bones" option though, which I would have thought a lot of people would want...

(no, I'm not associated in any way apart from being a bit bored before going to work late today ;))

Hi

I've just moved to 1-eleven on ecclesall road, another site ask4 look after. I've signed up to the 8mb package which is v. good for 50 quid... and no signup fee or minimum contract.

The thing is you don't pay any line rental or connection charges or have to buy a modem or anything and can cancel with seven days notice. Given I'm only here until september that's loads cheaper than paying BT or Telewest or someone £12 a month for the line and paying for a service for 12 months.... it's not like most people actually use a land line these days, is it? Also, you can't get 8mb or 10mb anywhere else so I'm not goingto moan too much!

Like rich said, look at the package details... there are no usage bands so you don't get screwed with a bill you weren't expecting if you use it a lot.. and with 8mb and working from home I use it a *lot*!

I just quite like the idea of only paying for service for as long as I need it. They also sent someone round on a saturday within of 30 minutes notice to connect me, which is pretty good.. I used to be with telewest and it took them that long to answer the phones!

Interesting to see some people don't seem to have had good experience - I rate these guys really high. Also they seem to have fixed things for people even when not there fault... telewest wouldnt do that.

Anyway, just my 2 cent - at work and bored to!

(p.s, excuse my english - not my first language!)

Why would anyone need 100 e-mail addresses ?

when somebody's [eboo] first post is one that just sings the praises of "another" person, i get all :suspect:

Originally posted by Melanie
when somebody's [eboo] first post is one that just sings the praises of "another" person, i get all :suspect:

Lol, I thought it was just me that was cynical lol :thumbsup: Well spotted!

Originally posted by Melanie
when somebody's [eboo] first post is one that just sings the praises of "another" person, i get all :suspect:

I'm as cynical as the next man (well, usually more so :)), but I'm sure lots of people's first post is simply on a subject that they feel strongly about one way or another. Maybe he really likes this company, and maybe it's even for an innocent reason ;)

Originally posted by nick2
I don't care, I'm with Telewest.

Does this mean if you are at westone you can have a different service provider to ask4?

Originally posted by question101
Does this mean if you are at westone you can have a different service provider to ask4?


The Broadband service provided by ASK4 at WestOne is via Ethernet network points in the apartments - this is an exclusive ISP to WestOne, OneEleven and a few other developments...

it is possible to have a different ISP via the BT Phone socket in the apartments.. but this obviously means BT line rental etc before you even find an ISP...

and if you are the first in an apartment to want a BT line then it costs over £70 to get the line set up - as there has never been an active line there before....

Originally posted by question101
Does this mean if you are at westone you can have a different service provider to ask4?

No, Nick doesn't live in the town centre.

Welcome to the forum BTW! :wave:

sorry have I done something bad in posting here? Is this a private forum or am I meant to introduce myself somewhere or somethings? sorry for any offence melanie.

Ive been reading sheffield forums for a while because I do not know much about the place and saw this about ask4 and thought i should say something because they were good to me. Everyone gets their opinion. sorry if i have done something bad.

thank you

Originally posted by eboo
sorry have I done something bad in posting here? Is this a private forum or am I meant to introduce myself somewhere or somethings? sorry for any offence melanie.

Ive been reading sheffield forums for a while because I do not know much about the place and saw this about ask4 and thought i should say something because they were good to me. Everyone gets their opinion. sorry if i have done something bad.

thank you

No no, you can post here, its not private or anything... Intro's are nice, but I never introduced myself all those years back when I joined.. I just posted about something which interested me, which is what you're claiming to be doing.
Whilst you may be perfectly innocent, you're posting in this particular topic (That had been raked up by the opposing party) made it seem as though the opposing party had created an account to praise the company that have taken an ear-bashing.
Fair enough, you may be innocent and have no idea about how this looked to us, but it just looked a bit suspect to myself and another member, thats all.

Its nothing to worry about, just be aware of how your post may be "taken" in particular debates. You're welcome to your opinion as are we to ours.

hello caprice, thanks for explaining - makes sense now!

But if i'm not me who am? (I'm sure i was me when I got up this morning, but that seems long time ago!). - yes just posting because i have an opinion on this and thought should be fair. I only read most of the time because a lot seems quite silly (am I aloud to say that?! and people get so cross) Fine by me if people think i'm a spy or something - hope I don;t upset to many people.

thanks again

Este

Yep, you can say whatever you wish, so long as you respect the fact that this is a family forum so your language must be appropriate. You have an opinion - you express it, I'm not bothered if it opposed what I think, the world would be a boring place if everyone just thought the same.

If you take the time to read other posts on this forum (There are a lot!) then you will find that some threads are started by members who just need to "vent" their frustrations, which is the intended purpose of my thread. I was also seeking advice, as I'd been onto trading standards/citizens advice and I just wanted to know if there was any other available information sources to help me. Some people are qualified in areas that I'm not, so their knowledge and advice is very helpful. (Not completed my Law degree yet, so I am hoping others can help me out until I get those vital letters behind my name lol)

Our "venting" may seem silly to you and thats fair enough, just leave them alone if it troubles you that much!
Anyways, thats me done for tonight - try searching our forum for things you are interested in and get posting!! A belated welcome to the forum, hope to see your views elsewhere in our community too!

BTW, if you are a spy, you've missed the boat - shows over, nothing to see folks! :thumbsup:

thanks again Caprice - friednly advice is kindly received and most appreciated. not so much the venting that seems silly, just people seem to take things very personally and forget others have different views. Just back from mexico, so bodyclock confused as hell - but good time to read more of these topics! good night.

Este

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