Poor customer service from Alice internet

Hi all,

We signed up with Alice over two months ago, having waiting for a month for the DSL box to arrive, and having been given an appointment to wait in all day, we were disappointed to find that the Tcom people did not turn up. We phoned Alice to ask what went wrong, and were told they couldnt find the address for some reason but couldnt be more specific and couldnt provide the number for the Tcom driver. The only thing they could do they said was to rebook the appointment for the following week.

The following week came, and the same thing happened. No show, no explanation, a rebook for the following week.

Today we phoned Tcom directly to ask what the delay was only to find that no appointment had actually been booked with them. Nothing at all. Not a sausage. Alice have basically taken our money for the connection fee and lied to us over the phone on three separate occasions. Charging us a handsome fee for the conversation whilst doing so.

Their customer service is an absolute joke. I would advise all of you who are thinking of signing up with Alice to think again. Their service is totally unacceptable.

Any advice on how to reclaim the money and get compensation for the three wasted days off work?

Welcome to Germany...

I am not surprised. in 2006, this up and coming isp /telecoms company from Hamburg was rated #1 customer service in its industry. They grew too large too fast, partnered with a few different outsourcing companies to handle all their 1st and 2nd level customer service. Now with a company that is growing beyond its own control everyday, directives, regulations, terms of service, etc. are all open to interpretation. Remember, when you call customer service, you arent actually talking with Alice directly. you are talking to a firm in Potsdam, where they offer little to medium training (what they consider cost-effective), poor wages and several internal communication problems.

Plus, it's German. They insist on re-creating the wheel, rather than benchmarking their efforts to ensure they are as good if not better than their competitors. Germans in domestic business just dont get it. They dont get that consumers drive commerce, not business.

What's up with this ridiculous cost per minute customer service hotlines? Why should customers pay additionally for using a hotline, most likely due to some company side problem?

In my opinion, they are in breach of contract, which nulls and voids all previous agreements, to which: you are entitled to full refund and compensation for your additional expenditures. Unfortunately, there is no compensation for time.

Alice are an Italian company.

why do you blame Alice - I had an even worse time trying to get a pure Tcom connection. It is Tcom that is shit beyond belief and every other provider is unfortunately dependent of Tcom/DT's utter unparalleled shitness.

Uh, no...Alice "Hansanet" is a Hamburg based company

Impressum
HanseNet Telekommunikation GmbH
Überseering 33 a
22297 Hamburg

Tel: 0800 - 411 0 411
Fax: 0800 - 412 0 412
info@alice-dsl.de

vertreten durch:
Geschäftsführer Carlos Lambarri Gomez
Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Harald Rösch
Handelsregister B 60180 des Amtsgerichts Hamburg
Umsatzsteueridentifikationsnummer DE 175964328

Webmanagement / Inhalte
© HanseNet Telekommunikation GmbH

Design
Con Structores GmbH
www.con-structores.de

when I booked my tcom I told them on which day they should come, they did and all was fine. It was simple, can't complain. I suddenly feel very lucky after reading the nightmare's people have had with them.

Taken from Wikipedia about Telecom Italia:


Telecom Italia website Check down in the bottom righthand corner for the Alice brand.

Alice Hansanet is a Hamburg, German company, completely free from affiliation from the partnered firm. Alice is also available in Canada and USA, also separate companies. Affiliated partnerships and companies are two separate things.

The reason I know this, as I worked for said partnering firm for 2 years.

Regardless, everything happening in Germany with Alice Hansanet, is managed by Germans.

The OP asked how to get compensation from Alice. Easy - complain in writing and threaten them with taking your custom elsewhere. At the very least you should be able to make them reimburse the cost of calling their helpline.

This works, although don't expect to get an apology from them.

Now thats a really good hanseatic name

sort of like Dr. Kathleen P. Mullinix, CEO of Schering/Bayer- from NJ, USA, is very Bavarian.

Don't even get me started on Alice...they are the definition of a bad "customer service" experience, i would warn anyone to keep well away from them.

Thanks for all your responses. We've cancelled the contract with them and are asking for compensation for the three days off work given that they were sneaky stinking liars. Maybe it'll work, maybe not.
The thing that has surprised me the most with all of this is that the Germans I have spoken to about it all say that its pretty normal, and found my objection to being treated like an idiot by a company I was paying for a service for as a mild eccentricity. The idea of actually complaining about it was almost alien to them.

Its a curious place.

yes, many germans dont think they as consumers have rights. many others do and do the appropriate amount of bitching. Who cares if they call you asshole behind your back. consumers drive commerce, not business.

its not uncommon to see "we are offering a refund compensation out of goodwill and not accepting any statutory responsibility" as a way to cover their asses - but who really cares, as long as you are made happy in the end.

Unlike some other cultures, Germans have a hard time accpeting responsibility for anything, even when it's their fault. they get all butthurt and insecure and take a defensive position. I thought Americans were bad...now I see how much German culture has really influenced the US.

Alice outsources the people who come hook everything up. The uh, man, who hooked ours up was all of 23. He'd never even seen the system we have (it's old) and they had to send out another guy.

At the end of the day, we were without a phone for over a month and when I asked for our money for that month back, they refused. I talked them into it though.

In order to be fair: I ordered Alice DSL two weeks ago, technician showed up on the agreed day and the equipment was delivered on time. So maybe I am the lucky one here, but this was my experience.

also no problems...

2 wks and hooked up, cant complain... yet...

Didn't have any problems apart from:

1) their shitty router which doesn't have any browser-based config;
2) their shitty router uses a second PPPoE connection for the VoIP;
3) they didn't tell me before ordering that my landline was going to be converted to a less secure, less stable VoIP connection;
4) their shitty router wouldn't let me use my existing VoIP accounts;
5) they try to cash-in on features such as WLAN that is freely available on other routers;
6) my connection with Alice was far too slow and after a slightly painful telephone call they twiddled a few settings on their computer system and after 5 minutes was much faster;

I survived 1 month before cancelling and moving to 1und1... also had many many problems with them - slower internet connection than Alice, loss of internet connection from time-to-time, unstable VoIP calls and faxes, hopeless customer service at expensive rate (although you can find the cheaper numbers using Google ;-) They *do* offer one of the best routers on the market though - AVM/Fritz!Box 7270... the 7170 is also great. Bit disappointing for a company that is longer on the market...

Has anyone heard anything about free-net having problems?

A friend of mine has no phone or internet since friday...this is really annoying has she cannot post anything on tt.

I´ve been told 1 to 1 have taken the company over...

She´s been told that all the lines have gone down...Company telling fairy tails i think ...Anyone got any

advice...PLEASE HELP !

No grumble since a week, has Alice lost all it's customers?

People have probably just realised that it is just Alice who has bad service, it's just German service in general, so they've moved over to the other thread.

i basically just switched from arcor to alice, inbetween there was tcom and i have to tell u my tale: i was a loyal customer of arcor. they had a really nice connection and all, but i just felt partly bored and partly underappreciated for being a long time customer (i was running my 4th year with them)...i kinda hoped that i would get new hardware and stuff cause firstly, their hardware sucks and i never really used it cause i found out that they sucked and i could have a way better modem. So then i ordered a switch to tcom (i was already out of my 2 years MVLZ of course) hoping it'd be a quick switch, but guess what apparently even though youve done your time, you still have to wait for the 3 months subscription cancellation period. I could only sigh seeing that letter.

So then i decided to just wait..it wasnt like arcor got a whacked conn, as in most cases with people changing providers, so i was content with the waiting. Arcor was supposed to shut down their connection on the 1st of July and Tcom should be my new provider, but guess what? 2 first days of the month, i was still surfing with arcor and then 3rd day i got no connection, i supposed i should put in my Tcom connection name and pass, but still nada! i instead got this message from my browser that i was using other provider's username! but when i wrote in my old arcor username i got the message that i am already GESPERRT!!! I then called the Tcom CS, and they said it was already turned on, and there can be no problem. THEY SIMPLY DIDNT WANT TO LISTEN! i called 3 times telling the same things hoping someone would realize whats going on but NO! i talked 1st to the CS then to the technician, and all they could tell me was to check whether i wrote the username and pass right. Hopeless, i called Arcor and what a dumb CS she was. i said that i thought i was still connected to arcor, cause other than the message in my browser, when i checked my customer area on arcor, i saw that my final shutting down would be on the 11th of July. I said to her could u accelerate it to like NOW? She kept on saying that i was already shut down on the 1st! and we had this comedy time when i said "am elften". She was confused i think between hearing me and reading her screen cause she kept saying "ja, am ersten. das ist richtig!" we kept going till like 3-4 times. I started to think that i was saying "am ersten" haha. And then she checked the page about the ultimate shutdown, and then she kinda acted funny for a sec but she managed to come up with an answer: "On paper it is the 1st of July, but technically its going to be on the 11th". I was so pissed, mostly at Tcom cause they didnt care and didnt have a clue bout it! I sent in my cancellation letter. I could still cancel it cause the confirmation of order was sent on the 27th of Juny so i still got 2 weeks.

And then i ordered Alice right away. They could only turn my internet on on the 24th of July, so yeah i got 3 weeks of no internet. Now, i'm pretty happy with Alice, theyve done everything right, no big problem whatsoever. I only had some disconnects, but thats because my line is not so good. I called the CS and they were helpful. I think they truly realize that the customers can easily get away from them, so they have to do things right. They have no MVLZ, so that's one hell of a fright. All in all, i kinda regret the switch. I was having no problem at all with Arcor, it's just that i were bored and felt like trying other ISP wondering if there were better ones. I want to go back to Arcor, but now they dont provide 16000Kbit anymore on my address. They used to, and i subscribed to that one and since my modem was good, it managed to sync well even though my line isnt so good. If i get back now, i will only be getting 6000Kbit. Alice provide 16000Kbit but they can only manage to give me 10000. I think Alice's DSLAM is farther than Arcor's. Maybe i should ask Arcor if they could switch me a 16000? If only a switch didnt need a long offline time...it's so annoying to have no internet connection.

one word of warning for business owners... no matter how attractive and cheap BT looks as an Internet provider DO NOT go over to them. They're internal systems and processes are an absolute mess, they're helpdesk, located near Frankfurt, is in chaos, nobody knows what they are doing. You will only lose money... if you decide you want to go over to them be prepared to wait a year for it to happen...

Her indoors My little chickadee says she had awful service from Alice when setting up a couple of months ago. I have to use the net a fair bit here, and it does cut out occasionally. Whether ISP is solely to blame I can't say. Alice does have occasional "downs".

sounds like most ISPs here are a bit of a lottery...i've heard equally bad and good things about T-Com, Alice and Arcor..and mostly bad things about 1und1..it's gonna be an adventure when I get my connection

just take a look at the start i'd say...i mean u got 2 weeks cancellation time right after u got the Auftragsbestätigung. It is usually sent few days before your port is turned on. Once somethings went bad try calling them and see what theyve got to say. If u dont feel the service, hehe go send them Widerrufsbrief right away, and on to a new search. Well, as long as u got no problem with having no internet cause Anschaltungstag is not gonna take place in 1 or 2 days after your subscription order came in. oh well look at the bright side: youre gonna get the best for the long run!

Here is my two cents of feedback...

Been with Alice for the past 3 months. It took then 2 weeks more than promised to initiate the service. The information and software provided to help me get online was worthless. Calling the CS line would not get me anywhere either. After 2 or 3 nights reading through numerous posts in the internet (at my neighbor's place) I managed to get connected. Everything worked fine for about a month, then all hell broke loose.

My internet connection and phone stopped working. It took me more than 30 calls in a 2 week span and 2 wasted vacation days waiting at home for the technician to come to fix the problem. CS gave me all sorts of excuses and a good run around their system. I got all the possible reasons that appear in their Help Desk protocol: electrical disturbance in your area, bad modem, something is wrong with the wiring in your house, your password is incorrect, reset the modem, it is a TCom problem, etc. In all fairness, in the end it turned out to be not their fault, or so they said. It seems that someone (TCom?) had changed something in the server that distributes the signal around my neighborhood and had changed my line to TCom. Because of that, my phone and internet would not work since I was using an Alice password, but it looked to the technicians as if I had DSL connection... go figure! Eventhough I was without service for 16 days, they charged me the full month.

Anyway, I have lived in several countries both 1st and 3rd world, so I can compare experiences. I am sad to report CS service from German telecoms is definitely 3rd world. I stuck with Alice because it seems everyone else is as bad, and at least with Alice you can cancel anytime. I think I once read that choosing a telecom provider in Germany was like choosing which of your ears to cut off; whatever the choice, you won't be happy!

hmm i think, in Germany they have this kind of weird fairness, in which customer is seen equal to the service provider, even though the old saying says "customer is the king" haha maybe they figure out "hey it's no monarchy anymore, so fuck that!". Well on the other side, it's good to protect the business from customers running away. Just take a look at the 24 months contract. THAT IS SO Fed UP! I think, with the german system, the customers are more on the losing side. In my home country, i could yell and cancel things if i wasnt satisfied by their service! And I don't have to wait 3 months befoe bailing out!!! And look at how they slowly improve things, thats because there is no pressure wahtsoever! its a damn gold mine, you know! other than internet, take a look at the mobile service tariff...haha 19cent for 1 sms and 22cents or so for 1 minute of calling...what a stupid price...

...where would that be, pray tell?...

and the reason u should be interested about it? i'm asian, so u can take a look at the asian countries with cheap telecommunication rates and guess...it's gonna be OT though...so open a new thread if u really wanna know haha