Toucan provided a member of my family with a line that constantly lost synchronisation with the DSLAM at the BT exchange. Being a telecoms engineer, and having installed hundreds of ADSL systems, I know what I am talking about...
Unfortunately Toucan's phone support 'engineers' primary goal is to get you to leave Toucan in frustration.
One 'engineer' tried to tell me that the microwave oven in the kitchen was the problem, and when I pulled him on it, he argued that he had 'seen it before'. I explained to him that the only way the microwave could be the problem was if I put the phoneline in the microwave. He then asked if there was a TV in the room and then proceeded to blame that instead, saying that I had to unplug it from the mains for 30 minutes before they could try anything else and to phone back if it didn't fix it (!!!).
After a few further failed attempts to get them to contact BT to say there is a problem, another 'engineer' noticed the poor reception on my mobile phone in the house, and tried to blame the problem with the wired telephone line on the poor mobile phone reception in the house... while I would actually think this is a creative and out-of-the-box solution coming from a four year old child, I would not expect such dribble coming from someone who I am *supposed* to call in the event of a fault.
In the end, after a million flimsy promises to contact BT to fix the problem, it took fully cancelling from Toucan (no MAC code) and then joining another ISP in order to get the DSLAM replaced.
Don't get me wrong, it is possible to get the same problem with any ISP, but Toucan, and similar gimmicky, cheapo ISP's, will never fix it, where as more respected ISP's will.
In summation; avoid unless you want ADSL as a status symbol, and never want to actually use it.
Toucan Broadband Reviews
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I bought a new pc with Vista on it, Toucan modem DOES NOT I REITERATE DOES NOT WORK,I LOST THE INTERNET AND THE LAND LINE TOO,Toucan was nothing but horrendous that I cancelled my account with them, I they said it was bt who would mend the faulty line, but because I paid to Toucan BT wouldn't help. now I only have my mobile , TOUCAN is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever had, DO NOT SIGN UP TO TOUCAN, you will regret it
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I think they are the most incompetent, arrogant, useless company I have ever encountered. Their hideously expensive helpline staff cannot speak English and did not know what an apple computer was. They sent an unwanted router and billed me for a service in a house that had not been plastered. They ignored the complaints, and began a campaign of harrassment over the phone. Then they put it out for collection 3 times. Just visit Toucan Sucks or put Toucan complaint into google and see what comes up! Then avoid this awful company.
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for just browsing web and the odd email its fantastic.
for serious downloading from the web, gaming etc dont bother.
around 3g per week is the fair usage policy according to toucansucks.org site which is next to useless to me.
traffic shaping does occur because since i use netmeter to track my downloads ive noticed that after downloading 2.2gb in a week the speeds have gone down by around 50%. My router showed a 7.1mb connection and suddenly its showing 3.2mb
Its free for me but will cancel after my term is up.
overall service is 4/10 (no connection probs, just the service is not to my liking) -
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SIGN UP FOR TOUCAN.SLOW IF YOU CAN GET CONNECTED AT ALL. WHEN I COMPLAINED THEY JUST CUT ME OFF FOR TWO WEEKS SAYING THEY WERE GOING TO UPGRADE MY SERVICE. CUSTOMER SERVICE IS DIABOLICAL.
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Absolutley awful! Dire! Took them 2 months to get me a modem then things turned bad...EVERY SINGLE ****** WEEK I have to call India to sort out a problem. Look at the last reply I got from some arrogant g*t - note the kisses he sent me when I said I was going to report them to the relevant authorities.
"Discussion Thread
Response
25/06/2008 07.12 AM
xx
Customer (Stan Watt)
24/06/2008 10.59 AM"
Don't go near this a**e of a company.
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UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES GO ANYWHERE NEAR TOUCAN - I had major problems with my broadband service (40kpbs) duing peak times on a 8Mbps contract, four BT engineers and no solution until I changed provider - now everything is fine! My landline service provided by Toucan suddenly and without warning did not function with call divert, this lasted until I cancelled and they made me pay the remaining line rental of the contract to get out of this - but it was worth it. Now still receiving bill notices and incurring costs for a service I no longer have with them!!! THEY ARE A JOKE AND THEIR STAFF ARE DISRESPECTFUL AND RUDE!! STAY WELL AWAY.........
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YOU WOULD BE BETTER OFF BY CUTTING OUT THE MIDDLEMAN (TOUCAN BROADBAND) AND SIGNING UP DIRECTLY WITH A DEBT COLLECTION AGENCY.
YOU WILL GET NO ANSWERS FROM TOUCAN REGARDING ANY BROADBAND ISSUES, BUT WILL BE DELUGED BY MULTIPLE POSTINGS FROM DEBT COLLECTION AGENCIES.
TOUCAN IS TO BROADBAND WHAT SUNROOFS ARE TO SUBMARINES........
STAY AWAY, MAKE YOUR CHILDREN WEAR GLOVES IF NECESSARY! -
Have fair service during the day (5.2Mb on 6.3 Mb actual circuit on an 8Mb service), but from 16:00-23:00 8 Mb which is really 6Mb actually achieves about 0.2Gb (documented over weeks).
THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE and 30 odd e-mails and 12 phone calls later I am STILL, STILL, STILL battling to get some real action!
If I do not get a meaningful result in the next 2 weeks I shall take legal action for misrepresentation of their services. I am not going to let my blood pressure get much higher!
A joint action may be a useful idea? -
I don't believe it. Twenty minutes after posting the message below it was confirmed to me that no, lying to me about the charges that would be incurred for moving was not the icing on the cake. An email telling me my internet usage is very high and that they are going to arrange for me to share bandwith with other high users as a punishment came along. This must be as bad as it gets!!!!
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Oh no, i found this website far too late and have had about six months of hassle from Toucan! I had phone, broadband AND Mobile, yes i was really that stupid, they didn't cancel my mobile when i asked them to and charged me extra, i had a row with them, they wouldn't send me a corrected bill, they said they didn't have a complaints dept !!!!!!!would not help me at all, i said i wanted to cancel everything and they said i have to pay it all until the end of my contract.
today is the icing on the cake. i am moving house and rang them to find out what to do. they told me it would cost £30.50 plus VAT and that this wasn't their charge it was BTs, i put the phone down and rang BT who were disgusted to hear this and said they could reconnect me for free. They confirmed they wouldn't charge Toucan for it!!!!!
So now i have signed up with BT and am desperate to get out of my Toucan broadband and phone contracts, if anyone has done these please let me know. -
I have been with them for over a year now and I then upgraded to 8meg. I thought they were pretty good especially for the price. Since the upgrade however im now getting diabolical speeds (159kbps at the minute) which is awful for an 8meg connection.
I have been on the phone several times already and im now totally pi**ed off with them. I have been told to "run a speedtest" (like thats gonna fix it)... Terrible and costly customer service ...avoid like the plague! -
I wish I had found this site before we ordered toucan broadband!!! Most of these complaints are the same as the problems we've had! We waited 2 months with no broadband, speaking to their 'technical department' who couldnt speak english and ask the same stupid questions over and over! No phone calls returned and call backs within 24-48 hours which are never actually returned! People fob you off constantly and the managers dont want to know! We cancelled and went with BT who sorted the problem within one day! Toucan are now trying to charge us and we have received a debt collection letter!
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This company has blighted my life for the last three months.
They have taken a small complaint and made it escalate to the point of driving me crackers.
Low speed - bad expensive premium tech support -
harrassment from debt collectors - incompentant customer support.
I am now standing up and fighting back.
If you have had problems with Toucan or want to find out more about who they are :
www.toucansucks.org.uk -
ive worked of toucan.... i left months ago,cos i got sense!!! stay away!!! they cant keep staff!! work it out for yourself!! i
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Positively the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. STAY WELL CLEAR OF THESE IDIOTS!!.
I signed up for their broadband service in July and was told my "Go live" date would be July 2nd and that my broadband pack would arrive within 2 days of this date. To cut a long story short, I still had no broadband pack 6 weeks later, despite many phone calls and promises that another one would be put in the post. I lost patience and demanded a MAC number which surprisingly arrived 3 days later. I then joined BT broadband and was connected with no trouble about a week later. All of a sudden Toucan decided to post my modem to me which I promply returned. They have been trying to extort money for a full year's contract out of me ever since, and just recently I have received threatening letters from their bully boys at Collect Direct. Needless to say I will not be paying them any money.
I am now taking my complaints to Otelo. They should have shut Toucan down long ago.
AVOID -
Been with Toucan for 2 years and had no problems whatsoever. Speed is always within 10% + or - of the promised 2 Meg and never hangs. No problems connecting to any service, peer to peer works well. Currently connected using my own wireless gateway and G4 iMac running Airport, again, no problems. We never hear from them as there are no issues, the bill drops onto our doormat once a month and the correct amount leaves our account once a month.
In summary, cant fault them, reliable connection and within acceptable speed levels. No problems.
You want cowboys, try Wanadoo, thats a whole different story! -
Avoid at all costs. I was kept waiting for months to be connected. It was only after I had asked for my MAC code and threatened reporting them to OFCOM that anyone phoned me back even though I was promised someone would look into my complaint on six seperate occasions. The connection is sporadic at best and you can't connect to Limewire as it is blocked for 90% of the day by their firewall. I will be leaving at the end of the contract, even though there is not much in the way of alternatives in my remote area (cornwall). I have at various times been with telewest,BT,virgin, demon talktalk but these people are in a league of their own in terms of poor customer service.
I agree with many of the other comments here that this company should be closed down. -
DO NOT - I REPEAT DO NOT SIGN UP WITH TOUCAN.
Unfortunately those of you who are still with Toucan have the best part to come........ Leaving them.
I tried to do this in May this year, and am still being billed, eventhough they have not provided me with a broadband connection since the end of June.
They have used numerous delaying tactics including giving me incorrect MAC codes, not realeasing the line, having to give me a senond MAC as the first had expired, claimed that I had not requested my contract to be cancelled, then not releasing the line on the day specified, and waiting until I contacted them, them blaming a system fault.
I have a debt collectors letter for their August bill which I have refused to pay, and they have just billed me for September.
I might as well post my complaint letters to myself and let my dog read them - I'd get more response!
Its OFCOM for me now - just hope they do something.
DO NOT SIGN UP WITH THESE MODERN DAY DICK TURPINS. -
I have been with several ISPs in the past and I thought no service provider could be worse than Talk Talk, but hey I've just found one! Although I have only been with them 6 days it's been phone call after phone call and many emails, all to no avail. One complete headache! I simply wanted to know why I signed for 8Mb and was getting 700kb, they said I need to ring their £18 a minute technical advice line, to which I told them it wasn't a technical question. After many emails and phone calls I was still no further. Then there was all the different passwords and usernames they give you that don't even work and the lengthy, complicated, non-sensical emails they send you in reply to a simple question. I've had enough and I now have my mac code, they can do what they like about it and I'll fight it.
over their many passwords and usernames -
from previous: I eventually contacted Toucan and got a response, they could not provide me with a breakdown of charges, but did agree that the majority of the telephone calls were made to their dial up internet service, something I had no choice about as Toucan couldn't be bothered to provide the Broadband connection. After some arguing, I agreed to pay Toucan, minus some charges such as the 'no direct debit fee' which I felt unreasonable under the circumstances, I paid this on the understanding that I would hear nothing more from collect direct or Toucan.
Toucan decided to debit the whole amount, not the amount agreed and obviously haven't stopped collect direct contacting me.
Oh well, another broken agreement and broken promise, what more could I expect from Toucan.
I am not paying Collect Direct a £20 'administration fee' as you failed to provide a breakdown of charges as agreed & had Toucan provided this themselves in the first place, you would not have had to get involved -
from previous...
Toucan sent me regular "we are going to disconnect you if you don't pay" letters, despite the fact that they were not providing me with a service. I contacted them on a number of occasions asking for a breakdown of payments, but guess what, generally the department I needed to speak to was closed or busy on every occasion and as usual Toucan failed to call me back as promised.
If you went to a restauraunt an ordered a meal, sat there an entire day without it arriving, despite you asking the waiter several times where your meal was, then recieved a bill when you just couldn't wait any longer, Would you pay it?
Collect Direct called me a few weeks ago and agreed to obtain a breakdown of charges from Toucan so that I could see what I was being billed for. Collect Direct have failed to provide this.
more... -
Email to Toucan's debt collectors this evening:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I write with reference to your letter dated 18th July 2007.
Toucan agreed to provide me with a Broadband connection back in Febuary 2007. The broadband service should have, according to their terms and conditions, been connected within 14 days.
Despite over 16 hours of calls to Toucan and SIX failed promises to call me back, six weeks passed and still no broadband or explanation.
Toucan, being a nice caring company with inteligent employees who excersise discression, decided that I would have to pay off the remainder of the contract, 18 months @ about £15 in order to cancel, despite the fact that they had failed to provide me a service.
contd.. -
This ISP is BAD NEWS. Stay away like a plague. They have slick sales and marketing and that's where it ends. I got duped by it and have suffered terribly since. To cut a long story short, 6months later, I am going through Otelo now to get out of my contract, based on their 'unprofessional' level of service. Once they received notice from Otelo of my complaint, they had the audacity to terminate my subscription without notice and charge me for the early cancellation fee. Is that legal? One of their better quotes was from their Service Manager (3rd level up from Customer Support), 'How can you expect a good level of customer service when you pay the price you pay?'
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Toucan should be ashamed.i applied for B/Band in January tokk them until end of March to provide but could not get up and running! after several futile attempts to call India(at 30p per minute) be put on hold ,asked several times to repeat details.all at MY expense then told call will be logged and someone will respond in 48hrs! rubbish! cancelled contract as failure to provide,now being charged a fee. unable to get past Customer services .staff pay lip service to"Im sorry" "is thereanything else i can help you with?"" and have a nice day" when they know im ready to scream!!!
Now in dispute over charge.got names of Managing Director and Company Directors from local Reference Library and have written to M>D.by recorded delivery. i will not be bullied into paying for a service they did not provide!! toucan is a dreadful company iwould NEVER recommend them. -
I unfortunately did not find this site until it was too late. First, it took them three weeks longer to receive my modem than they said it would take. The whole time, I was being charged. When I called to have them take the time I was not able to use the internet off my bill they said it would be "applied for credit" and, of course, no such luck as of yet. Now that I d finally have my internet running, Limewire and uTorrent won't connect to their respective networks... And their 30p/minute tech support is a joke. When I did call, the man took his sweet time about "verifying my information". Once I had told him my problem, he put me on hold for almost five minutes to "verify information with his supervisor". Then he swore they do not block Limewire or P2P apps, however I've never had a problem with any other ISP's. In the states this company would have been shut down a long time ago for false advertising. I'm not just upset with this company, I'm surprised they're even in business.
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Diabolical service with extortionate premium rate fees for calling their technical support desk. Just cancelled my subscription to another provider and they cancelled my e-mail account on the very same day and prevented me from accessing and forwarding my e-mails to my new e-mail address. Like most of the reviews on this site, avoid like the plague - they may be cheap but you get what you pay for with terrible customer support and an extremely poor service. Spend your money elsewhere.
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coyboys and clowns, they dont help they cant help , useless, however you will pleased to know their accounts dept are 100% on the ball, they will even pass your unpaid bill onto 3rd party dept collectors without notice, how kind.
dont sign up because the chances are they will be shut down soon.
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My conection keeps dropping to low speeds like 70kps! I blamed that router at first. Then the same happened to my new one! And one of the bills charged me twice for broadband!
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i was with this toucan for 13 months god what a mistake i made should of stuck to aol any way my list is to long to list about complaints but what finally broke the camels back was that my cable broke to connect to the net i phoned customer services and was told that they did not supply them but the guy turned around and said if you go with use for another 18 months we will send you a new box that was it i cancalled there then so i had no contract got my mac code in 24 hours and gone to bt also i also had 2 mobile phones with toucan as well funny a nuff one of my mobile phones went fualty i phoned toucan same thing we dont reapair phones you will have to send it to the maker i phoned the maker when i gave the phone codes toucan had got them from abroad but the maker still fixed it for free so iam now on bt fusion they work well to all i can say is good bye toucan and if your thinking of changing to toucan then you must be made all i can say is you get what you pay for
