Another tale of woe about Primus Canada with several reoccurring themes from other reports.
I had talk broadband service for about 4 years with reasonable service for the most part and good rates. There was an incident early on where they updated firmware on their equipment and they twice posted wrong instructions to repair THEIR equipment and upload the proper firmware. That involved service being out for over a week but they compensated for the hassle.
More recently my internet (Shaw) and broadband phone went down end of June. At first I thought it was a Shaw issue but they got their service back up in about 10 days before a scheduled tech got here. Still no talk broadband so I contacted Primus.
After a couple hours of voice mail and a couple of service reps I got a guy who said he could help and would actually phone me back on my cell. My modem and VOIP gateway were in the basement so I had to run down there numerous times to attempt various fixes. I also had to take my computer down to upload files I had been sent. After an hour of this and no results the tech told me he would have a 'level 2 tech' call me.
I repeatedly suggested it would be easier to just send me out a new gateway and I was quite tired of traipsing my computer up and down the stairs while talking on my cell phone. I also asked what my compensation would be for providing tech support on their equipment.
After several days no call came so I sent an email to the support rep again. He said he had been on days off and 'level 2' had left him some notes on what to do and he would call the next evening (a Saturday). I stayed home that evening and no call came, nor the next day.
I sent an email to the rep and said simply that I wanted confirmation a new gateway unit was being sent out to me or to consider the account cancelled. I was done with providing tech support and a computer to facilitate a service they should be providing. I never heard from the tech or any tech again and no further efforts were made to fix their faulty equipment or re-establish my service.
From there I proceeded to look for a new service and attempted to keep my same number. Similar to other reports I was unable to keep my number as a result of some goofiness with the Primus set up. Eventually I accepted I would need a new number and signed up for a new service.
Meanwhile Primus continued to bill me for a service they had ceased providing. I contacted Visa and had them reverse 3 months of payments and stop putting any more payments through on my card. I contacted Primus and told them I had cancelled the account and they should not be attempting to bill me for a service they were unable or unwilling to provide. They said I had a contract and did not contact the right department so they would take my call as 30 days notice of cancellation. They also said I would have to mail the equipment back to them but they would provide a prepaid mailing label AFTER they deemed my contract cancelled (30 days).
At this point I actually got a call from one person with some ability to apply logic. She said if all I wanted was a new gateway that was no problem and very easy to send a new one out. She noted that she knew it might be too little too late but hoped not. I assured her it wasn't too little and would easily have solved the problem BUT it was too late as I had new service already up and running.
I have sent the equipment back and they are still sending me bills. They actually had the gall to add $10 to a bill as a 'hardware processing fee'. I recently got a call from their credit department and explained ONCE AGAIN that a contract is a two sided affair which they voided when they stopped providing the service and stopped all efforts at reinstating the service.
The whole concept of collecting money in RETURN for providing a service seems bothersome for them. They somehow just expect people to keep giving them money despite not providing the CONTRACTED service.
Jim
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