You get what you pay for
We chose Pipex for 2 reasons: "You get what you pay for", and a satisfactory answer to "Where are your Tech Support Call Centres?". We're happy to pay the extra money for a good service.
And then Tiscali took over.
We noticed the change immediately, when our normally rock-solid Internet connection was down every morning, and certain stuff started crawling. I won't bore you with the details. Pick any comment in this thread and the many similar ones.
Upon phoning up to obtain our MAC code, we were asked why. We replied that we were moving because we'd been moved to TIscali. We were then asked how we knew about the move. "El Reg" as the answer received the reply "Ah, another one."
Apparantly, and we have this in (computer) writing, BT process 93% of their calls in UK call centres, AND if you do find yourself in the depths of OffShore Hell, you can ask to be tranferred to a UK Call Centre. Whether it will happen like that, I don't know, but it's a start.
So, Big Thanks to El Reg, for alerting Pipex's customer base.
Big Boo's to Pipex / Tiscali for not even bothering to inform their customers that they won't be getting what they paid for.
I'd like to think that in the future this (Tiscali Desertion) will be referred to as the beginning of the end for Outsourced Call Centre's.
I'd also like to remind El Reg's readers to always enquire as to the location of the Call Centre's when signing up for any service.
Paris, because she's shedding a tear for those who will be the first against the wall...