25 May 2006

Mr Mike Read,                                                                                    

Chief Executive                                                                                  
PIPEX Communications UK Ltd                                                                    

Portland Street                                                                                   

Beeston                                                                                              

Nottingham

NG9 2LP                                            

3 Pages by fax only to: 0115 877 0213

Dear Mr Read

Your companies’ reputation is on the line with any goods or services to which your name is attached.  In this connection, the following self-explanatory email correspondence is all dated today: -

FROM ALFRED DONOVAN TO 123.Reg (just after 9am)

Once again the site is down due to lack of bandwidth. I have once again spoken to the contact pay by the minute phone number to complain that no advance email notification of bandwidth excess has been received. There are no such messages in my junk/spam mail. I do receive other mail from 123.reg okay e.g. invoices. It is upsetting that this keeps happening after I have gone to so much trouble to build up traffic to the site. I will obviously have to look elsewhere unless you can supply a more reliable service. Yes you are very cheap but I would rather pay more for a better service. My site has been down since at least 7pm last night and on past performance it will be another four hours before service is restored. That is totally unsatisfactory and unprofessional. Please bring this email to the attention of a supervisor or manager.

SECOND EMAIL FROM ALFRED DONOVAN TO 123.Reg : 13.02.

Cannot get the site at all now whichever domain name I use - www.tellshell.net or www.royaldutchshellplc.com

Your service is so unreliable and hopeless that I will be making arrangements as a matter of urgency to move my websites to another provider.

Your main UK competitor offers similar prices plus 24/7 service with guaranteed resolutions of problems within 2 hours.

I will also be writing to the Chairman of Pipex on this matter.

I will cancel both websites as soon as I have made alternative arrangements.

Email from a thoroughly dissatisfied customer.

EMAIL FROM 123.REG: 15.19

Hi,

I have raised a fault ticket re the above domain.

Please quote this in any communication with us.

We hope have this resolved shortly.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Regards,

EMAIL REPLY FROM ALFRED DONOVAN: 16.09

Hello Christian

The first thing to say is that there is nothing personal about this matter.

My complaint is against your firm 123.Reg (a division of Pipex Communications) not against you or indeed any of your colleagues with whom I have spoken today (at a cost of 50p per minute) in an effort to get the site back online.

I offer a free service on this blog site which is focused on the activities of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. There are no subscription or other charges and no paid advertising. I have invested a considerable amount of time and money in building up site traffic. For example, earlier this month I had leaflets distributed in London at the Shell Centre in London for a number of days and subsequently at the HQ of Royal Dutch Shell Plc in The Hague.

The leaflets worked wonders - so much so that the site exceeded the allocated bandwidth limit a couple of weeks ago. You can see the problem – almost 100,000 page views. The traffic has doubled within a fortnight. I arranged and paid for extra bandwidth. If I recall correctly I did this twice in an effort to ensure that it did not happen again. I can only guess that through word of mouth, news of the website spread around the Shell world because yesterday evening I was confronted with yet another message on the website saying the bandwidth limit had been exceeded. I immediately purchased yet more bandwidth via the 123.Reg website. However, when I checked the site this morning it was still out of service.

Although we live in a 24/7 online world, your support service for 123.Reg is only operational in office hours between 9am and 6pm - hence I could not call until 9am. I have subsequently called at 50p per minute a number of times - I have lost count – trying to get some answers. Why no reply to my earlier emails until this one from you? Why have I never received the claimed advance notice emails advising that bandwidth is running short? The only answer given for the lack of action is that the hosting is contracted out to an unnamed third party. I thought that I was signing up for a Pipex service.

My reputation for being efficient is being damaged by your firm’s dreadfully inadequate service in respect of the hosting which I am paying you for. If the lack of service is because you are not charging enough, please charge more. The current product is third rate and defective. It is harming your reputation just as it is harming mine.

I want to provide a reliable service. I want to generate even more visitors to the website. To achieve this objective I need a reliable blog service provider.

At the time of sending this reply the website is still out of action, almost 24 hours since it went down due to failure once again to send me the claimed automatic email notification of extra bandwidth requirement.

END OF EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE

Mr Read, is this the type of service you wish to have associated with Pipex? I really am thoroughly frustrated at the discrepancy between the services being advertised as opposed to what is being delivered. I would happily pay more for a professional service rather than what comes over in practice as being a rudderless cowboy operation.

Yours sincerely

Alfred Donovan