Tag: Pipex

Of course, it’s never that simple. The Pipex business model, like that of most letting agents, revolves around *surprising* you out of a few quid at the tail end of your contract.

Here’s how it works. When you sign the Pipex contract, you agree to give 30 days notice. Those 30 days begin on the day when you **receive** the MAC code. So when I received my MAC code on the 26th November, they scheduled my account to close on the 26th December.

So even though they ceased to provide me with a service on the 13th December (when the changeover took place) they were going to keep charging me for the next two weeks. Okay, I’m not entirely happy about it, but it’s what’s in the contract, so other than appealing to their good nature, there’s not much I can do.

But Pipex have one last trick up their sleeve. When my billing date came around (19th December) they weren’t going to just take payment for the remaining week of my contract. Oh no. They were going to take a month’s payment, and I was then permitted to request a pro-rata refund for the unused period (ie 26th December to 19th January). Unsurprisingly, this refund has not yet materialised, despite my best efforts.

So the one piece of advice that I would offer to anyone planning to leave Pipex is to request your MAC code 5 working days ((Pipex are obliged, by law, to give you the MAC code within 5 working days)) before your billing date (rather than a week after) and then, if you wish to minimise “overlap”, set the changeover date to be as late as possible. In my case, I should have requested the MAC code around the 12th of the month so that my contract came to an end just before my billing date, rather than a week after.

Pipex are ruthless bastards, and will use all the tricks at their disposal to wring every last penny out of you. Don’t expect any mercy from them.

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*Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.*

Your changeover date will arrive. You can monitor the progress of your order using your new ISP’s “Order Status” page, and they will probably also email you when the migration is complete. Oh, and your Pipex connection will stop working.

At this point, enter your new connection details into your router’s setup page, and watch in wonder as Internet connectivity returns! Joy!

Now cancel your Pipex Direct Debit. Barring any mishaps, our work here is done.

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*Part 1, Part 2.*

If you are lucky, an email from customerservices@pipex.net arrives with the subject line “Migration Away Confirmation”. It contains a few paragraphs saying words to the effect of “We’re sorry you’re leaving, are you sure we can’t persuade you to change your mind?” It also contains a delicious MAC code, of the format ABCD0123456/EF78G. The email also contains a reminder that if you are still in the first 12 months of your contract then there will be a cancellation charge to pay. It would be extortion, if it weren’t for the fact that you agreed to it in the contract.

Sign up with your new ISP

This, hopefully, is the last contact that you will ever have with Pipex. All you need to do now is hop over to the website for your new supplier, enter in your details on their signup page, including this MAC code, and then choose a switchover date. It needs to be within the next 30 days, as MAC codes have an expiry date. Don’t worry about downtime – there shouldn’t be more than half an hour between the Pipex service terminating and the new service commencing.

Go to your new supplier’s web page and note down any changes to the settings that you will need for your router. You will also get an email from your new supplier with the new username and password. These will need to be entered into your router when the relevant time comes. You may find that there is an overlap, during which you can use both your old and new ISP, but it’s safest to assume that you won’t, so make sure that you have paper copies of everything that you might need.

Your new ISP should have an “Order Status” page, which you should follow on the changeover date, but the ultimate test will be to enter your new username and password into your router and try to connect.

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*Part 1 is here.*

14 months ago, I moved house. Pipex don’t offer a “Move House” service, as such – you have to cancel your own account and start a new one. Pipex are one of the few ISPs who still enforce a 12 month minimum contract, and as a result, I found myself once again chained in. I wish that I had been thinking a bit more clearly that day.

My Pipex contract is “unlimited”. This means that I can download as much data as I want. Oh, but then there’s a Fair Use Policy, which means that if I’m downloading “too much”, where “too much” is calculated by some magic secret formula, they can put me on the slow pipe. Oh, and they cap peer-to-peer traffic to about 10KB/s in the evenings, which is exactly when I want to be using it. Nice.

Basically, they’re unable, or unwilling, to supply what they originally sold me. So I’ve found someone competent, and today I began the process of migrating.

Phone Pipex

Phone Pipex on 0845 072 2865. Press the relevant buttons to get through to the right department. Ask for your MAC code. They’ll ask you why you’re leaving, and you tell them why. Be as polite as possible – remember that the person that you are on the phone to has feelings too, and they are not personally responsible for the atrocity that is Pipex. They will tell you that they are sending your MAC code in an email, and it will take up to five working days. You ask them why it takes five days, and why they can’t just tell you the code over the phone. They reply “Ofcom allows us five days to send you a MAC code.” You may have noticed that this does not actually answer the question, but hey ho, so it goes.

For the next five days, watch your inbox, and Spam folder, like a hawk.

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