ADIEU WANADOO?

[Lautrec]

Living where we are, not far from Ruffec (16), when I left Tiscali, where broadband was not available in our area I switched to Wanadoo, who were the only ISP able to provide this service here, albeit only 512 mb. I must admit it took me nearly a month to get on line with much trauma involved. The monthly fee was Euros 29.95.plus 2 more for the Livebox. But no matter how I tried, I could never use the telephone whilst I was on line.Trying to contact anyone at Wanadoo was almost impossible, even though my French is pretty good. The final nail in the Wanadoo coffin was on my  latest bank statement, I find that they have increased this months' charge to Euros 39.95, without any notification whatsoever.

When I happened to see in this satellite section of the Forum, the advert for Teleconnect. I checked on its website if they were operating in my area and it was positive. So then I telephoned them. I was was ansered by someone who spoke impeccable English,(what a relief!) and they confirmed that they could provide me with their service in my area with 6 mb for 29,95, plus many other telephone advantages!. Now I will pose the question!

Am I right in believing that, as I have been with Wanadoo for 13 months, I am able to cancel my contract with them if I give them two months' notice?  I would really like confirmation!

[Clair]

Some ISPs tie you up for 12 months, some for 24, some don't, but require a 'getting out fee' equivalent to 2 months subscription, but you should check your contract. The section you want is usually called Résiliation.

[Cassis]

You'll usually have to send a letter by recorded delivery (unless Wanadoo are different).  As Clair says, check the terms on their site.

Here's a link to a site with some model letters - one of them is a letter for cancelling a telephone contract, but would apply just as well to an ISP, I would think.  You need to adapt the letter according to your contract terms and reason for cancelling.

Some Legal Letters

Modèle de lettre de demande de résiliation d'un contrat de téléphonie mobile

NOM, Prénom Adresse N° de téléphone N° de client Nom et adresse du service clients de l’opérateur ou de la SCS À (lieu), le (date) Monsieur, Par la présente, je vous demande de bien vouloir mettre fin au contrat correspondant au numéro cité en référence, que j’ai souscrit le (date de souscription). (1) La possibilité de résilier ce contrat m’est offerte puisque j’avais souscrit ce contrat pour une période de (durée de souscription). (2) Ma demande de résiliation anticipée est basée sur la clause (n° de la clause) de notre contrat qui prévoit cette possibilité en cas de (citer la cause de la demande de résiliation c’est à dire par exemple défaut de couverture, déménagement à l’étranger, hospitalisation prolongée, incarcération, chômage..). Vous trouverez ci-joint les documents attestant de ma situation. J’ai bien noté, qu‘en application des dispositions contractuelles qui nous lient, cette résiliation devrait prendre effet (1) à l’issue d’un préavis de (durée) mois. (2) immédiatement ou selon les délais prévus dans le cas d’une résiliation anticipée. (Formule de politesse) Signature Lettre à envoyer à la société en recommandé avec accusé de réception

[Juswundrin]

"The monthly fee was Euros 29.95.... I find that they have increased this months' charge to Euros 39.95, without any notification whatsoever."

We're on Orange 512, the fee is 24.90 a month not 29.95 (and this month's invoice is the same); are you sure you haven't signed up for something extra as well?

Actually, 39.95 doesn't seem to correspond to any of their offers: http://nos-offres.orange.fr/no1166698070/ext/om2a-gamme-omsrhd.html

[Mikew]

I have had no probs with wanadoo, my bill is 24.90 for 1 mega. Check your bill on line to see if you are signed up for something you do not use...

Regarding not using you phone and broadband together, are you perfectly sure that BOTH phone and internet are filtered? Each must come via a filter otherwise probs like yours can occur. (Aplogies if it is grandmothers and eggs)

[Lautrec]

Thanks for your helpful replies. No, Mikew, I have two phone outlets and both have filters. Thinking that the filters were ne marche pas, I went to Leclerc and bought two new ones. Still no dice! The strange thing is, that when I first installed it, I did work properly for a few weeks and then without warning it stopped functioning! I do not understand why I was paying differently to you Mike and I will check out my contract.

Thank you Cassis for this termination letter. I seem to remember this document when I cancelled with Tiscali, but I forgot the wording and where I got it from. I will now save it for future use!

I read on this Forum that you have to return the Livebox to Wanadoo and the correspondant told the sad tale of sending it back and it was never received at the other end  (So they said!) and he was subsequently charged Euros 60 odd as a penalty. The moral of that story is that it should have been sent back  'se recommander!

I will therefore give notice to Wanadoo ASP and then when about 6 weeks time. will make overtures to Teleconnect to set new account with them. So thank you everybody for your help. What would I do without this Forum?

[Lautrec]

Thanks for your helpful replies. No, Mikew, I have two phone outlets and both have filters. Thinking that the filters were ne marche pas, I went to Leclerc and bought two new ones. Still no dice! The strange thing is, that when I first installed it, I did work properly for a few weeks and then without warning it stopped functioning! I do not understand why I was paying differently to you Mike and I will check out my contract.

Thank you Cassis for this termination letter. I seem to remember this document when I cancelled with Tiscali, but I forgot the wording and where I got it from. I will now save it for future use!

I read on this Forum that you have to return the Livebox to Wanadoo and the correspondant told the sad tale of sending it back and it was never received at the other end  (So they said!) and he was subsequently charged Euros 60 odd as a penalty. The moral of that story is that it should have been sent back  'se recommander!

I will therefore give notice to Wanadoo ASP, remembering to go my bank and cancel my SO and then about 6 weeks time. will make overtures to Teleconnect to set new account with them. So thank you everybody for your help. What would I do without this Forum?

[samdebretagne]

Wanadoo was charging 29€ per month just for 512 kb until recently, when they redid their pricing.  They didn't, however, inform any of their customers that the price had changed, nor drop the price for them, so those that signed on at 29€ keep paying 29€ until they notice.  The only reason I figured it out is because I went into FT to help a friend set up a phoneline, and saw they were offering 1 mega for 24.99€, so I asked "Hey, why am I paying 5€ more for half the speed?", and he took a look at my account, clicked once, and changed it to 1 mega for 24.99€.

[Bob T]

I have 1 meg broadband with wandoo (now orange) and used to pay €29.99. Last year sometime they sent me an email and said that it was being reduced to €24.99 and they did it automatically. I would not rent one of their liveboxes or install their sortware and run on a Netgear modem router. Never had a problem with them.

[Unknown]

I am with Wanadoo, now Orange and have been for 18 odd months.  I don't have a live box, just a modem and 512 speed, I pay 19.90 euros pers month. 

When my Dad's village got broadband last year, I said I would help him order his broad band service.  However he could only sign up if he had a live box and 1 meg of speed, he pays 24.95 euros per month.

[Lautrec]

Hi Cassis,

The termination document I mentioned in my previous posting is not the one that I can use, as it is for terminating the contract on an Orange mobile phone. Can you, or anyone with the knowledge, tell me where I can find the letter with the wording that I require, for cancelling an ADSL contract? I have trawled through the web site that Cassis mentioned, and I found every legal letter other than the one I wanted.

Some years ago, when I had the occasion to need it, I did copy it from the Internet and used it satisactorily with my Tiscali cancellation. But I have spent quite some time on French Google without any success.

Please assist me. Thank you!

[BJSLIV]

Here is a link to a farewell letter.

http://www.ariase.com/fr/espace_membres/resiliation.html

It even includes the facility to do the lettre recommande on line!

[Cassis]

[quote user="Lautrec"]Hi Cassis,

The termination document I mentioned in my previous posting is not the one that I can use, as it is for terminating the contract on an Orange mobile phone.

[/quote]

You would need to adapt the letter to fit your contract, but it would do equally well whether you were cancelling a phone or an ISP.  Here's the letter lifted from BJ's example, if you prefer:

Madame, Monsieur,

Je constate que mon forfait ___________ a achevé la période d'engagement. Vos services ne sont plus à même de me convenir par rapport à ce que proposent certains de vos concurrents.

Comme indiqué dans les conditions générales de vente, je vous fais part de mon intention de ne pas poursuivre mon abonnement au forfait ___________ à l'issue de ma période d'engagement en cours. Je résilie mon contrat d'abonnement au forfait ___________.

Je souhaite être informé de la date de mon dernier prélèvement bancaire par écrit.

Veuillez agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments les meilleurs.

A __________, le __/__/____

Don't forget to put your account details at the top of the letter and fill in the gaps! [:)]

[Clair]

[quote user="Lautrec"]Hi Cassis,

The termination document I mentioned in my previous posting is not the one that I can use, as it is for terminating the contract on an Orange mobile phone. Can you, or anyone with the knowledge, tell me where I can find the letter with the wording that I require, for cancelling an ADSL contract? I have trawled through the web site that Cassis mentioned, and I found every legal letter other than the one I wanted.

Some years ago, when I had the occasion to need it, I did copy it from the Internet and used it satisactorily with my Tiscali cancellation. But I have spent quite some time on French Google without any success.

Please assist me. Thank you!

[/quote]

I think you may be referring to this letter on this site: www.conso.net

[Cassis]

On a related matter, if anyone has problems related to their ISP or any other Internet based business such as a shopping site, and you have been unable to resolve it directly with them, there is a mediation service available before legal action.

http://mediateurdunet.fr/

[Lautrec]

Thanks again Cassis & BJSLIV. I have now completed the letter of cancellation as per specimen and am reading to dispatch it. However, in my Terms & Conditions I find this ......

.....de ses obligations la resiliation pourra intervenir de plein droit si une mise en demeure par lettre avec accuse de reception est demeuree sans effet pendent un mois.

I was under the impression that I would have to give Wanaddoo two months notice, but if I am reading this correctly, it would appear that this period could be only one month!

Am I correct?

[Clair]

Nooooooooooo!

I would like to see the whole paragraph beforehand, however I would venture it reads along the lines of:

'if Wanadoo does not respond and respect ist obligations...'

I would venture this relates specifically to you sending them a letter first, if for instance the service provided had not been up to scratch, if they had not improved the service after a month, the contract is cancelled... This links to the problem in this thread

[Cassis]

I've just read this on the Orange website relating to cancellation terms for haut debit/tv/phone package - the haut debit only terms are the same:

Toute résiliation à l’initiative du Client devra être demandée à France Télécom par courrier recommandé avec demande d’avis de réception adressé au Service Client. La résiliation sera effective le dernier jour du mois pendant lequel France Télécom réceptionnera le courrier de résiliation. La date de réception du courrier de résiliation est la date de première présentation à France Télécom dudit courrier par les services postaux.

So cancellation takes effect the end of the month they receive your recorded delivery letter.  You have to return all the equipment and manuals within a month or they'll charge you 200€ - they will provide you with a "Freepost" label or you can return it in person to any France Telecom office (so it says).

[Rjpfrancais]

Lautrec, I hate to be bearer of bad news but I can't see how changing your ISP is going to make your land line work with your ADSL. I am assuming that you not only swapped out your filters but you also changed your Livebox, checked your cabling and it made no difference. If that is the case, it sounds to me like you have a line fault. I would contact FT on their 3900 number, and yes you have to pay for the call (at 34c per min I think) but at least you should be able to get the technician to organise a line check and if necessary get an engineer to visit your local exchange and /or house. If you change to Teleconnect, none of the physical infrastructure is going to change (unless your exchange is degrouped and they are putting in their own equipment which I doubt) so the problem is likely to beset Teleconnect as well. Also Tc may promise you 6mb but whether you will get it will depend on your line quality, you may still only get 512k.

I rang 3900 earlier in the year when our Orange broadband was down after the storms and even with my bad French (and a bit of the guy's reluctant English) I managed to pursuade them they had a line fault. It was a problem in their local exchange and it was fixed PDQ. Still narks me a little though that I had to pay for the privelege of telling them!

 

 

[Danny]

That sounds like good advice regarding a possible fault with the line - you don't have anything to lose by getting the FT techs to check it out. I don't really understand why you can't use the phone at the same time as the adsl...???

Anyway If you do manage to change ISP, there are others who (should) offer a adsl service - Neuf, Club internet, Free, Alice all of whom offer adsl and VOIP telephonie which means free unlimited calls throughout Europe and US and other places. This is included in the monthly charge which doesn't seem to be the case with the teleconnect service. You must also accept their telephone service by preselection so that all your nomal telephone calls are routed through them. If not you must pay 5 euros more pm. There are so many differing little charges between all the ISPs. Beware!! (

At the moment, I have Club-internet and it is pretty good at 34.90 pm but come May, my year is up and I am thinking of going to Free or Alice who offer the same(ish) for 5 euros less a month.

Check the offers on www.degrouptest.com or www.dslvalley.com and enter your number to see what is offered. If there is a fault on the line, that may affect what the ISPs say they can do

good luck

Danny

[Lautrec]

Thanks everyone! I have the letter printed and all of the spaces filled in. Looking through the terms and conditions of Wanadoo, it would appear that I only have to give one month's notice to terminate my contract (After 12 months). I have contracted Teleconnect, and they have confimed that I am in their catchment area. As it takes 2 - 3 weeks to get connection, I will now go ahead and send off my application to them and also my letter to Wanadoo.

What a relief to be able to phone up free to a ISP, and speak to someone in perfect English! I think they will snap up quite a lot of Brits who are looking for ADSL.!

When I am settled in, I will give an assesment to anyone thinking of switching servers!

[Cassis]

If most ISPs provide a mostly reliable service to most people most of the time then I suppose that what mainly distinguishes their service quality is

• what they are like when things go wrong or when you need assistance

and

• how easy it is to escape their clutches.

Good luck with Teleconnect, Lautrec. With any luck you'll never need to find out how good they are. [:)]

[Frederick]

British Telecom has just over 87.000 employees ...9000 of them work from home ....French telecom with 21 million subscribers has 203.000  employees........you would think with all that many they would give a problem free service !