Primus TalkBroadband sucks
Wanting to get away from high telephone bills, I made the jump to Primus TalkBroadband a few months ago, and what a mistake that was.
I must say it was easy to get signed up. I filled out a web page, and a little while later, I was sent a package containing my VoIP box (ATA) and instructions. I soon got an email with the day my number would be ported, and it was transferred when they said it would be.
However, quality problems made the service unusable. I played with QoS, called Tech support, tweaked this, tweaked that, and eventually gave up. This, I don’t fault them for. I have a few friends who are happy with the service, it just didn’t work for me.
So, I called up Shaw for their Digital Voice package. They gave me a temporary number to use, I set up my TalkBroadband line to forward all calls to that number, and disconnected the ATA.
I then called Primus customer service to switch to the lowest plan possible, $15/month (if I’m not using the service, why pay $30?). Surprisingly, I wasn’t asked why I was leaving. Even after working in “I’m just not happy with the service”, I didn’t get “sorry to hear that”.
An unfortunate mixup with Shaw caused the number porting to take much longer than it should have. (Other than that, I’m very impressed with Shaw’s service. The guys that came to wire my house did an outstanding job) Any calls to my Primus number which were call forwarded to Shaw (never touching VoIP) had awful quality, such that we usually ended up calling people back whenever they called us.
So, I called Primus support. The first guy I talked to seemed rather angry at me and very argumentative. I called back through customer support to complain, who had no record of the previous call. So, I got someone else in tech support, who blamed the problem on Shaw.
Around the same time, when people called us in the evenings, they’d sometimes get an “out of trunks” message. I called Primus about that, too, and the support guy told me that he could only help me if I was getting the message now, and to call back when I was having the problem.
Finally, on Dec 21, my number ported over to Shaw. I was told my account would be cancelled. Late last week, a friend on TalkBroadband tried to call me and got a “not available message”.
So, I called Primus this morning. The lady told me my account hadn’t been cancelled, and since I have to give 30 days notice, they were billing me until Feb 9. Fine. I then asked her what to do about the problem where Primus customers couldn’t call me and she told me that I couldn’t possibly be having this problem, and that the person calling me should call in. After trying to explain my situation to her, I asked to be transferred to tech support.
The guy on the tech side was nice enough, and seemed to have an idea of what might be wrong. Since my account wasn’t cancelled, Primus customers were still going the old way. He called some people internally and told me I should wait a few hours for the account to be cancelled inside their system first.
All told, I’ve spent around $50 on a service I didn’t use (that’s not including the $30 on the month of service that I did use), and have had many problems dealing with Primus’ so called “customer service”. I have never dealt with so many rude people as a customer of a company or felt less valued as a customer.
I have friends who are happy on Primus, though they have never had to call for help. (That said, one of them did have a billing problem, and it took a very long time to resolve because of the pathetic customer service).
On the flip side, Shaw has been nothing but helpful. I pay more for the Shaw service, but it is excellent, and I feel taken care of.
Hey Sean,
Did you consider voip.net? I know a few people who are using it and have nothing but good things to say and from what I can tell, has the cheapest rates out there.
I was thinking of subscribing myself so I’m curious to see why you went shaw.
January 10th, 2006 at 11:43 pmHi.. I had Primus.. I got it on Tuesday, it went back two weeks later. The phone number they gave me never worked first or last (no one could call me). When I called out, people would get any one of three possible phone numbers for me. I thought the quality was worst than my old analog cell phone - the other person always got a hum on their end.
At that time, they also claimed that the unlimited service isn’t really unlimited (read the VERY fine print).. basically they said that some calls (forewarded or transferred) MAY be charged the regular long distance rate, even with the unlimited package. I posted a message on their message baord and called and asked what the deal was with that.. my problem was that basically at the end of my billing month, I MIGHT get a bill for $29.99 plus tax or I MIGHT get a bill for $100 depending on whether they decide to charge my for long distance calls or not. They never gave me an answer first or last. It sounds to me like you’re talking a chance - you MAY get charged or you MAY NOT. (BTW: vonage is simple, it doesn’t matter.. ALL calls are included, period.)
I was with Vonage before and am still with them now. It’s about $10 more a month, but definitely worth it. I tried to save a few bucks by switching, but it wasn’t worth the time or trouble.
Save yourself time and money and hassle - go with Vonage!
March 21st, 2006 at 5:11 pmI have experienced many of the same problems with Primus and I am now trying to switch to Shaw. Also similar to your experience, Shaw is having trouble figuring out how to switch my number because they do not know who Primus uses as a Local Exchange Carrier in Winnipeg. Do you know how Shaw finally managed to have your number switched?
April 12th, 2006 at 2:21 pmI am having the exact same issues with Primus. I have Shaw Extreme, and for a while my phone worked quite well. But about a month ago, my out going call quality went way down. I could hear people just fine, but when I talked…..they say it sounds like that part in Wayne’s World when they are trying to oder fast food, and they miss every second word.
I called Primus tech support, and they said it was Shaw turning off their QoS for third party VOIP products. I guess as soon Shaw Digital phone came out, they turned off the Qos to force people to use their digital phone. I confromted Shaw regarding this, and they the guy actually said…..AND I QUOTE “no comment,” and pointed the finger back at Primus. All this finger pointing and I still have a product that sucks…??
April 19th, 2006 at 10:04 pmPrimus: The Exact Opposite of Customer Service.
April 21st, 2006 at 4:33 pmWell, after calling Shaw customer service, and threatening to leave if they didn’t fix my connection…..we have progress.
I told them I was leaving Shaw, unless tehy sent a tech to my house to test my connection. The tech couldn’t make it for 3 days, but the next morning….my connection was fixed. Hmmmm…. I wonder if they flicked the QOS switch, and fixed my VOIP.
Back up and running….after much frustrating delay.
May 9th, 2006 at 7:37 pmSimilar bad experience
We recently moved house and I decided to change from TELUS to a combination of Shaw cable as the internet provider and a Voice Over IP (VOIP) provider – Primus.
The experience has been less than thrilling.
Shaw cable was fine, and installed the internet connection as expected, and it worked without much messing around.
I called Primus before we moved and filled in an online application form for the new VOIP service. I told them when I was moving house. No problem they said, we’ll have it ready in 10-15 days.
The VOIP modem and a letter confirming that our telephone number would remain the same arrived from Primus, but was sent to the NEW address before we had moved in. I had to pick the parcel up at the post office.
In the meantime, we arranged for our TELUS line to be disconnected on the day of the move. We moved in, and I then connected Shaw cable and the Primus equipment. I got a dial tone, and thought we were all set.
Unfortunately, the old phone number had not been transferred! No one could call us! The message was “the number is not assigned.” I called Primus and they said “But the number is disconnected.”
Of course the number is disconnected. I had to disconnect the phone because new occupants were moving into our old house.
Primus was quite unable to help. They were simply stuck – they had failed to take account of the fact that I was both moving and getting a new phone service.
It would have been nice if Primus has instructions to help customers. The right procedure would have been to transfer the phone number to the new home, and then call Primus to get VOIP service.
So far I’m unimpressed by the customer service at Primus, and by their inability to help.
I reactivated by phone number with TELUS for a $45 charge.
May 24th, 2006 at 12:08 pmRegarding Andrew Cripps experience,
Primus states right on their website that if you need to keep your phone number - do not disconnect your old number!… for god’s sake.. if you need to transfer a number…how do you transfer it if you dont have a number anymore?
July 22nd, 2006 at 8:53 pmI ordered Primus DSL and voip unlimited. DIsaster.
September 16th, 2006 at 6:51 amMy phone would not ring for the first 10 days of so called service and since installation the service has diconnected on my computer more times than it has run. Countless calls to service results in them putting a “ticket” on the line but nothing has been resolved. I can get the signal back to my computer by picking up the pjone and dialing 1 then any other group of numbers. ANything really. SOmehow this kicks the DSL back in. Primus tech is not interested in my discovery though. Primus is a disaster I think.
if you got a brain in your head , you will leave primus . i often call europe , my friends on a cell phone . i never get through . when i go direct long distance with telus operator , i get through no problem . interesting . so problem is not in europe , but with scum at primus . i was shocked when i got a phone bill . november 7th i had 30 outgoing calls and 28 at 0.14$ each . those 28 calls never went through and i got billed for it . the worst service i ever got . do yourself a favour and stay away from primus . also their operators are in india . what a joke . i am canadain a would like to deal with canadians , not some idiots in india that dont’s speak english . it is nice to know primus is sharing my personal info with a 3rd world country . i am leaving primus for good , and going with shaw . i got internet connection with shaw and i love it . death to primus !!!
January 21st, 2007 at 5:16 amI have talkbroadband unit it works fine because I did my homework. Cable has really crappy upload speeds in many areas which affects the quality of the call with TBB. Because it is a VOIP phone it is sharing the internet with the user if the user is exchanging files the service won’t work because the bandwidth is being used. Shaw is an IP phone a different technology. Shaw does have shitty upload speeds and inconsistent speeds and frankly shaw is not dependable for any VOIP service. DSL with 800kps upload and your Primus service would work like a charm. As for the crappy sound when it was forwarded I doubt that’s accurate because the call is routed through a switch that is no different than any other. I wonder if death to Primus is an employee of Shaw. I’ve tried Vonnage, Shaw, and a few others Primus gave me the best service I’m just a client.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:01 pmI have talkbroadband unit it works fine because I did my homework. Cable has really crappy upload speeds in many areas which affects the quality of the call with TBB. Because it is a VOIP phone it is sharing the internet with the user if the user is exchanging files the service won’t work because the bandwidth is being used. Shaw is an IP phone a different technology. Shaw does have shitty upload speeds and inconsistent speeds and frankly shaw is not dependable for any VOIP service. DSL with 800kps upload and your Primus service would work like a charm. As for the crappy sound when it was forwarded I doubt that’s accurate because the call is routed through a switch that is no different than any other. I wonder if death to Primus is an employee of Shaw. I’ve tried Vonnage, Shaw, and a few others Primus gave me the best service I’m just a client.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:01 pmSo I’m not alone??? My VOIP went down 3 days ago and I’ve been trying to get it fixed ever since then. No contact from tech support despite waiting over an hour on hold for them, then trying to get through customer service and them telling me that this is not their problem. I say, well, I understand at the root that it’s a technical problem but when you leave people on hold for over an hour and you put in “tickets” to be called back and are not called back, and you treat your customers like crap, then it becomes a customer service problem. So, I ask the guy today to answer my question whether or not anyone there cares if I leave as a customer and he won’t answer me till about the third time I ask. Then he says - yes we would be sorry to lose you. I ask for a supervisor only to be given the business about why I really don’t need one. I throw a fit and he goes to look. Big surprise, no one available aka no one wants to deal with me. Then I tell him to update the ticket and to put on it that if I don’t hear from someone in tech support by the end of the day, I’ll be cancelling my service. I say I’ll call back to cancel. His answer? Don’t bother, just tell whatever carrier you change to, to cancel the line. After reading this blog, I will call back to cancel and double and triple check to make sure they do so. I have a question. We chose primus because you can port the modem from one place to another. Are there any other VOIP carriers that do the same? We live between 2 places and it has worked out well for that reason.
Sarah
February 8th, 2007 at 1:42 pmPrimus managed to kill all the Dlink gateways with a firmware upgrade that went bad on Feb. 6. We couldn’t get the box to take the upgrade and were sure that Primus was the problem until today when we swapped out a network cable. The firmware took and we are back in business.It would have been very easy to sit back and blame Primus for our own faulty cable. I was just a bout ready to sign up with Vonage. Glad I didn’t, Primus saves us about a $100 a month compared compared to Telus rates.
February 10th, 2007 at 11:30 amI was hit with the D-Link firmware upgrade problem as well (doesn’t someone test these things before putting 10,000 telephones out of order!?!), but the D-Link box has had a number of other problems over the past six months as well, including the failure of line 1 (the tech finally diagnosed this and had me switch to line 2). Calls to Primus Tech Support and resets seem to be a way of life!
February 16th, 2007 at 4:21 pmIt took Primus 8 days and 4 separate techs to get me back up after the firmware fiasco. It worked for 48 hours and is now down again. The $30 credit is a joke. I think I have spent at least $200 of my time helping Primus solve THEIR problem and have missed several very important telephone calls during while I was without service. Now it is broken again.
Their compensation offer is totally inadequate. ASK FOR MORE!
I am letting Primus try a LinkSys box instead of the D-Link. Even their technicians agree (in unguarded moments) that the D-Link is not nearly as good as the LinkSys. If that doesn’t work, I’m gone!!
Primus can keep their credits, I just want a telephone that works with somewhere close to the reliability of twisted pair copper!!
I’ve also had Primus problems, but with traditional phone, not VoIP. i switched from Bell to Primus for home phone, and DIDN’t cancel my Bell number because i wanted it ported to Primus. Well, on the same day I received my primus “Welcome Package” (”ha ha, thanks for signing up, sucker”), my home phone was cut off, and as a result, my sympatico DSL. No responses to my emails, and two calls have been useless. Yesterday I found out that my phone number was taken over by someoneelse! SO much for number porting! Five days, still no dial tone! WTF?
February 27th, 2007 at 8:01 amSean,
I just stumbled upon this a year later.. and thought I’d respond… Thanks for providing your interesting perspective.
It always boggles my mind how the primary issues you posted are blamed on Primus. I’ll be short:
1) Call quality on VoIP has rarely anything to do with the VoIP provider. It is 99% of the time related to HIGH JITTER with your ISP connection. Not QoS on your LAN in your home. But QoS on the ISp network… Everyone, please do yourselves a favour and SEARCH (GOOGLE) the above terms.
2) When porting a landline with a DSL connection, it is Bell’s internal bureaucracy that cancelled your DSL line. It is BELL that owns the line regardless of who provides the service.
When the Bell tech sees your Bell Landline, attached to Sympatico DSL, being deactivated (he does not know it is being transferred), he will simply deactivate the DSL connection as per process - until a new LINE card is in place - this comes when they “port” the number.
I almost had the same problem, but by asking questions to Bell, I understood the issue and followed every step of the port until it was done - with a 24hr downtime and no numbers lost..
March 5th, 2007 at 5:39 pm[…] “Primus TalkBroadband Sucks” […]
March 20th, 2007 at 5:18 amWow! I have been very fortunate! NEVER HAD A PROBLEM with the TalkBroadBand units!
Got 2 TalkBroadBand units: a Linksys which is in Italy and a DLink in Canada. It never went down and is very reliable. Actually I will probably change my home phone to TBB.
I have tried 3 different Voip products and none were reliable and voice quality was crap, the TalkBroadBand is clear and sounds like a regular landline!!!!
April 10th, 2007 at 5:23 pmI just made the switch to Primus phone and internet. I only had a few connection problems within the first week. When I called tech support the people there were awesome, they went through steps with me to fix the errors and assured me they were working on it. A couple of nights ago I got a followup call from a tech support assistent, asking me if my connection and phone was working. I thought that was awesome, since the last company Rogers, was a total jerk around of a system. I love Primus and there service and despise both Bell and Rogers, horrible companies, horrible service. But I guess it depends on what type of people you get on the line.
April 24th, 2007 at 10:31 amI have been trying to cancel Primus for 2 months and they will not cut the service. These people suck.
May 28th, 2007 at 12:26 pmPRIMUS IS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE!!!!!!!!
First of all, let it be known that Talkbroadband is not a phone service at all, it is an internet service and is not bound to any standards of service of quality that a regular land line service would be bound to by the CRTC.
PRIMUS DOES NOT GUARANTEE THE RELIABILITY OF THIS SERVICE WHATSOEVER!!! Up until recently, I was not aware of this. Until the tech support guy told me that it is stated in the terms of use. Most of the thousands that signed up probably are unaware of it as well.
My experience with Primus has been horrible from day 1. To begin with, I was sent an e-mail to telling me line would be ready by a certain date. I received my adapter (which I unwisely purchased) a week before the date my line was supposed to be ready.
Well, when I plugged my adapter in on that date, nothing happened. I had no service. When I called Primus support, they told me that ‘the line had not been provisioned yet’ basically meaning they didn’t do dick all to get my line up. So for an entire week I had no home phone service.
Finally a week later my phone line was up and running…but not completely. I could make outbound calls, but could not receive inbound calls. The call display also did not work and still does not work properly to this day. Every call shows as ‘unavailable’ and only registers a number.
After numerous irate phone calls to Primus, they finally resolved the issue of not getting inboutnd calls, but the call display issue they still have not resolved and basically told me that it was due to make of my phone.
I also have Talkbroadband for business and back sometime in March, both my home and business had no service for the ENTIRE day. This is to my knowledge, the only time service went down since signing up on Feb 1, but there may have been other times. I was given no good explanation as to why. Apparently, the entire network went down. I am sure there have been other minor outages but I haven’t noticed because I have had complaints about people calling me saying they get a “not in service” message.
The call quality is marginal at times, especially when you are downloading large files off of the internet. If you don’t have a good, fast broadband connection, don’t even bother. Primus Talkbroadband sucks up a good 300-400k of bandwidth, but they don’t tell you this.
In fact, they should actually be doing a line test on your connection as they do with business, but they don’t. If you sign up and your connection can’t handle the extra load, tough luck. When I complained to them about call quality, like in earlier posts, they blamed my ISP, Shaw and said I had ‘high latency’ and told me to instruct Shaw to ‘reduce my latency’. Another pile of BS. I have a very fast connection. If I told Shaw to reduce my latency, they would laugh in my face.
As I said before, I unfortunately bought the adapter. Because the service was so unsatisfactory, I requested to get a refund. They told me it was not possible. I even spoke to a manager and they said they don’t have a refund or satisfaction guarantee on their service when the adapter is purchased. What a load of bull. He basically was saying ‘tough beans’ to me.
More recently, in the past few days. The problem with not being able to receive calls has returned. I get the message “the number you have called cannot be completed as dialed” This does not surprise me. It has just been problem after problem. Even though may save, it is simply not worth the hassle. Upgrade you cell phone plan and scrap your phone line altogether like a lot of people are.
May 30th, 2007 at 12:00 pmI just finished my nightmare dealings with Primus Long Distance. Even though I cancelled their services, 2 years later, they start sending me bills saying that I have a contract with them because I’m not allowed to cancel my service with them unless I told them who I was switching to . !!??!! Dealt with the same, horrible, useless, argumentative Indian help desk, and then several emails to Primus. I advised them that unless they could provide some proof of an agreement, that the bills they sent were fraudulent. I also told them that I would charge them a disposal fee for handling these bogus extortion attempts. I also lodged formal complaints with the CRTC ( Cdn version of FCC) and several BBB’s. The crrroks at Primus finally admitted in writing that I had, in fact, cancelled my service agreement years ago, and they were now graciously going to excuse my balance owing. What a joke !!! what a bunch of lying crooks. Avoid Primus like the plague
June 11th, 2007 at 4:48 pmI hate Primus. My locally owned internet service provider recently decided to make lots of money and sell this company to Primus! Fine, I get to keep my same email account, etc., but ohh soo sorry, we don’t offer the same rates!! So the first internet bill arrives by snail mail (used to get invoice online), one month charge is more than 3 months with the old provider AND there is a 50 cent charge for the paper bill!
I am only on dial up, which sounds crazy, I know, but it is a rural area and the Bell phone station (or whatever they call that building) is just two houses away from me so it is not too slow. However, I enquired about DSL from Primus, they said sure it’s available in your area! The modem was sent by mail within two days, only problem the tech service from Primus calls and says, oops not available in your area, or whatever they were trying to say in whatever language that is they speak. So I sent the damb thing back, return to sender! Next bill arrived yesterday, with a $100 charge for modem! Confirmed with post office, which is just one block away from my house and they confirm that someone at Primus has accepted the modem at their end on the return. When I call Primus back to report this, they play so dumb with me, we will investigate or send to their investigation department, what is this CSI for lost property? Just give me my refund!! Needless to say, it’s goodbye to you Primus!
June 20th, 2007 at 12:43 pmboth my friend and i had problems with primus. it’s aweful. my whole started when they wanted to fine me for credit card problem. they clamed that my credit card refufed the payment and blamed me saying it’s because my credit card was about to expire 2 months from that time. well i had charged made before and after that day and many after that day. none had any problem but they insisted on fining me. so i called them to cancel the service. the customer service rep said it’ll be done next month (september). well, i was charged for september’s phone bill and when i found out, i was very upset and called them. they refused to do anything about it and insisted that i pay the fine and the extra month bill because by that time i’ve already called visa and had investigation done. the additional charge they made on my visa was charged back to my account. clear indication of that being primus’s fault not mine. now they took this matter to the rude collecting agency and i’ve been harrassed with phone calls every so often.
never use primus if you’re thinking of switching. never.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:21 amoh and my friend’s story? they moved to a new place and told primus about it. they said “no problem we’ll do the switch for ya” and 3 months later they found out that they’ve been paying their own phone PLUS the usage for whoever living in their old place!!! issue never resolved either.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:50 amPrimus is such a joke. I could barely understand their operators.
I left Telus to try out Primus. They made is sound so easy to switch in the marketing jargon but when it came to integrating with my wireless router and firewall I had to monkey around. Plus, enabling all the jacks in your house is not an easy procedure if you have an old d-mark in the wall and not on a box outside. Quality was poor too.
If that was it I would be happy. I went to switch back to Telus and keep my old number. They said it would take 10 days. 6 weeks later I started making phone calls. Telus said they put in the request to port the number. Primus said they never received anything. Everytime I called I’d get somebody different.
Then the big mistake that I guess I’m responsible for. I decided to speed up the proceed by telling Primus to cancel my account. This cancelled my phone number and so now it can’t be ported (not that it was ever going to be anyways).
In the end I got stuck for a week without phone service and had to accept a new phone number. All to save a few bucks on some lousy phone service from Primus.
Never again!!!!
July 17th, 2007 at 5:22 pmdreadful phone service, they wrongly disconnected me, and tried to put the blame on me.
rude customer service, unwilling to listen, incapable to say sorry for the mistake made
no service in weekend
August 27th, 2007 at 11:05 amI’ve had primus talk broadband service for four years. I’ve never had a serious problem and love the service and extra features (call forwarding, the primus portal), not to mention the price. The odd time I’ve had a minor issue, I’ve connected to customer service right away.
September 4th, 2007 at 2:52 pmHere’s my Long Distance Nightmare with Primus:
Was a subscriber to Primus long distance. Cancelled in Aug/07. We were on the My Country plan, which Primus does not offer anymore. They have a new International Plan with much better rates then the My Country plan. To make a long story short, we had a guest over that made long distance calls and racked up a $400 bill in less than a month which would have only cost $45 on the new plan. We asked why they didn’t switch us to the new plan, Primus responded that is not their policy. It is up to the customer to continously poll their web-site and find out what is the best available plan. I argued that since the My Country plan is no longer available, that we should be charged at the new Lower plan rates. Primus’ position is that they can’t make any changes and we owe them the full amount. As a result we’ve switched to Shaw, who incidently do not charge the $4.95 a month system admin fee, and have low long distance rates. I’m happy not to have to deal with the incredibly long wait times with Primus Customer “care” and the incomptence of their staff. Good riddance!
Please support my complaint here:
http://thesqueakywheel.com/complaints/2007/AUG/complaint17136.cfm
Or launch your own…
September 5th, 2007 at 11:04 pmTalkbroadband worked fine for me after I got the jerks at Telus to stop trying to stealback my number. Basically they reset my number 3 times in the LNP database to punish me for leaving their overpriced crap phone service.
As for the price, well I couldn’t be happier. Voice service is crystal-clear. I’d like some of the features Vonage has for roaming with your VoIP service but
If you’re thinking about switching from one of the Big 3: Bell, Telus, Rogers: Please Do. These are greedy-greedy companies that don’t deserve a dime. Vonage/Primus,whoever, just get away from the theiving telco/cableco.
September 25th, 2007 at 3:47 pmPlease, do yourself a favour if you don’t want to get stuck with lousy service from Primus! It is a nightmare and could be costly due to downtime with the internet connection.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:24 pmPrimus is terrible!!! I went over a $200 limit on my phone bill (VOIP & cell combined) and they cancelled my service til I bring it down to a ‘reasonable’ level. I didn’t even receive my bill when they decided to do this. My bill isn’t even due until October 27!!! Who are they to say how much I can spend on my phone bill??!!
October 18th, 2007 at 5:45 pmI’ve been using primus tallkbroadband for over a year now and have to say the service has improved considerably over that period. I’ve never had call quality issues but I did have a number of billing issues that took far too long to resolve. Twice over the last year I’ve received a “Network busy, please try again” message which went away when I redialed the number
About 3 months after I got the service I moved to Australia for university and brought my talkbroadband portal with me. It works just as well here as it does at home and provides me with a local number back home that my friends and family can call me locally to my apartment in Sydney.
I also have two friends who have talkbroadband phones in Australia as well which makes calling them easy and cheap. Australians pay $0.30/local call from a home phone so my primus account lets me call them for free!
I’m not sure how my experience could be so good and so many above be so terrible but I recommend the service to anyone moving away from their home town who want to keep in touch with friends and family. Its my lifeline back home and makes living 17,000kms from home much easier.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:41 amGet real sooks! People who don’t understand network utilization, TCP/IP, VoIP itself and other basic computer/telephony/network technologies…shouldn’t have VoIP! In fact, they should do a test on sign up…”Do you know what a NAT is?” No…then VoIP for you!
I admit, front line tech-support could be replaced by a bunch of pencil sharpners, but if you request Level II Support, you get a canadian, in Etobicoke no less!
I also admit that yes, in February, they pooched it by upgrading the D-Link gateways, but they fixed it and for what its worth said sorry, here is how you fix it and here is somem money.
Here is the bottom line - anyone who semi-tech savy, should get Primus VoIP. If you know how to Port Forward ranges to MAC Addresses or IP ranges, then you’re golden and can even stealth your gateway behind a front-end router like my Linksys WRT55AG, maybe even play with a little QoS. I front-end my with my wireless router through an ethernet port, use port-forwarding, triggering, MAC DHCP assignments and i can run two wireless laptops, with a VPN connection into work with an Exchange server, donwload files, play XBOX 360 on Live and talk on the phone at the same time!
I have a 15mb Eastlink cable connection and any issues i’ve ever had (february incident aside) have been through my own tweaking…
Don’t pay attention to unable to cancel, and hidden long distance crap. I’ve had Primus for three years, 7 months…i call Russia, South America and the US constantly and i’ve had one bill…29.95…each month…every month.
If you can’t learn the technology, go back to Bell/Shawl/Telus or whoever, but stop blaming everyone else first, do a little research and eat some humble pie.
I can’t believe i wasted 4 minutes of my precious time defending Primus, but i hate seeing blame in the wrong place.
Go Leafs!
October 29th, 2007 at 6:08 pmI’m currently having the same problem as item # 23 and # 26, after 2.5 years of leaving a apartment building to my new residence, Primus decided to debit my account after cancelling it, talk about fraudulent and poor record keeping!!!
November 6th, 2007 at 5:42 pmI just stumbled upon this site while looking for other primus info. At first primus was great then they upset me with the network access charge and lately the 50 cent paper invoice charge. So now I call india every month to tell them to remove the 50 cent paper invoice charge. I am not paying for their cost of doing business. They try and make me feel bad by saying that the 50 cents goes to the evergreen charity. Nice going primus ! You look good to the charity and I am paying for it. I am quite capable of donating to charities on my own thank you.
December 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pmAfter reading all the comments, I don’t think I am going to purchase any other primus services (although the alternatives do not look very good either).
I have been using Primus TalkBroadband for about a year and a half in conjunction with Rogers as my ISP. I didn’t have any problems with connecting or setting up although they did have to send another VOIP box since the first one didn’t work. My biggest complaint is that if the computer is on the phone connection sucks. I was thinking of switching to their Home Phone and adding their internet service but I’m afraid of what the service might be like. Rogers also offers a home phone and their internet service is very good. It’s more expensive but maybe worth it to avoid the hassle I’m having now. Any ideas?
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 amPrimus IS The Worst.
1. Signed up for Primus Business VOIP.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:49 pm2. Voip Box arrived Late
3. Phone number lost for 2 weeks during transfer.
4. Service very jittery for many months. Replaced Terminal 2 times
5. Fax service with distinctive ring, was set to a different patten which changes everytime they tinker with thier system, Still cannot get faxes unless I am there to force the fax machine to answer. It is still broken for almost 3+ years.
6. Broke my Dlink VOIP Box when they did thier last upgrade.
7. 2008, Now somedays I wake up realizing my Box is dead untell I reset it.
8. Next week I am done with primus.
UNBELIEVABLE
UNIMAGINABLE
UNACCEPTABLE
UNAPOLIGETIC
My Primus nightmare invoves their highspeed internet service
I was having so many filures of the Telus internet connection I
switched to Primus ..initially attracted by their rates
To be honest the basic highspeed service is reliable
BUT it all collapses if there’s any need for customer service.
A piece of their equipment failed and I lost my e-mail service
I called tech support and over a month they sent me 3 different
modems claiming that sometimes there are faulty modems
without e-mail or internet for a month and trying to conduct
my business affairs I was suffering significantly finacially
I repeatedly asked to speak to a senior tech person and told
that “they” don’t talk to customers
going into 6 weeks of no service and 45 minute calls every day
I finally got a call that they would send a field technician out
to investigate
after 3 weeks of no word about the filed technician I called to get
as status report …..turns out the technician inspected the local
central switching unit and found that my specific connection was deteriorated
and he had replace the switch 2 weeks prior
I asked why I still had no internet or e-mail the tech guy said
that they didn’t know I still wanted service….odd that they still
sent invoices for the full period that my service was down…….
And this is where it really gets way beyond belief
So……..I have to call tech services and ask to be reconnected
and the tech guy says he can’t but can transfers me to collections
where they tell me that I have an over due account and to play them $150
before they will reinstate my account
I explained that I had no outstanding balance because I had no service and
was expecting some form of compensation due to the mismanagement and failure
on their part
they offered me one week of free e-mail and to pay the $150 prior to the reconnection
I told them that the carefully documented 49 hours of my time (invoiced at my consulting rate of $120 per hour) to correct the problem was going to be rolled into the compensation demand.
I told them I would switch back to telus if I didn’t get a full year of e-mail service
and I settled for 6 months free service which I got
as of January 2008 I’m currently without e-mail service because they didn’t recieve a payment
I’ve been speaking to people in collections and customer service repeatedly and they keep
offering things that the next person I contact says the previous person had no authority to offer
a week ago I spoke to a person from customer service who said that my payment was showing on the computer however if I could prove that I had made a payment she could reactivate my account in one hour………at that time I told her that if it turned out that primus had indeed received my money
and they just couldn’t fid it …….. that I would be asking for 2 years of free service this time around
I faxed to her in New Brunswick the photocopy confirmation of my payment and a week later still have no e-mail……..based on my previous experience I had set up a personal and professional e-mail account at hotmail so……I’m currently using those accounts to conduct business and personal communications ……….
I called 2day to find out why no action from my fax of a week ago and customer service asks me to
provide fax proof again that my financial institution had paid Primus……I got that confirmation in 5 minutes proving that my money was in Primus’ Bank of Nova Scotia account a week prior complete with the transit #………
Friday Jan 25 3pm and just got off the phone with Primus collections confirming the receipt of my fax and payment of my monies to the Primus Bank and the Primus girl says no record of receipt of payment and I still owe them $200 and the account will not be reconnected until they receive the money
I’m still conducting business via hotmail and raking up mistake after mistake….faulse promise after false promise knowing that it’s building a stronger case for more compenstaion
Bottom line…………after I get my compensation time I’m leaving Primus
while the service is good and dependable if there are no technical glitches….but once you’re at the mercy of tech assistance or have to deal with customer service or collections……you’re sunk
they really have no concept of customer relations and from the language used by all of them
there is a very scary Stepford Wives mentality…I know about speaking from script but this
a collective lobotomy in action
my only hope is that this is the most popular Primus complaint blog so that iT reache as many people as possible……I’ve generated this in word and saved it and will just copy/paste it into any other anti Primus site I find…….so when you see this again don’t be suprised…..or feel free to cut and paste this to any other Primusl or communication blog you wish……..spread the word.
if I was really smart and or vicious I’d do a U-tube audio video spoof on Primus using the old Lilly Tomlin as Ernestine the telephone operator Laugh In television skit as a model and instead of a telephone operator it would be a perfectly unhelpful Primus customer service person………..
so hey everyone…….that idea is available to anyone out there who wants to run with it…maybe Sean you can put a contract out on that project……
in the meantime…….based on my experience over the last 3 year ……..
IT’S NOT PRIMUS………..IT’S……PRIM ASSES ! ! !
CHEERS ………Dicked Around
January 26th, 2008 at 2:14 pmI returned their VOIP box to them (had to pull teeth as the CSR dinks had no clue as to the mailing address)
and I still get a $180 bill for it somehow ! Without having used one second of their service !
We need to get Better Business Bureau or anyone on these pricks
January 31st, 2008 at 2:41 amI would just like Warn people on how bad primus is. If you are thinking of using their service I suggest you reconcider. The cost savings will be overtaken by your time wasted endlessly on the phone. One day they decided to delete my DSL account. I called Tech support who said it was customer services issue, I Called customer support who said it was tech support and that went on for awhile. I finally asked to speak with a manager. once I had a manager they passed me onto a special department who figure out there was a problem but had no idea why the problem was there. They said someone would fix it and give me a call. Noone called, but the issue resolved itself for 24 hours and happened again. They refuse to compensate me in anyway as they said “Your account will not be credited as Primus does not guarantee uninterrupted
February 25th, 2008 at 12:34 pmServices operation.”
Dear Traffic Ticket Toronto,
reading your post sent de ja vudoo shivers down my spin
if you really want Primus to compensate you
don’t ask for compensation for your time lost
due to the DSL down…….
ask for compensation in the form of a credit to your monthly bill
to compenaste you for the hours you spent on the phone
trying to clear up their problem
custome service has the power to offer you a few months of free DSL
without going to another level
demand that they send you both an e-mail and
Canada Post letter (they REALLY HATE the hardcopy version saying that they’re not “set-up for letters…Don’t accept that and demand a hard copy) confirming the compensation
be VERY careful that when they offer you 1 or 2 months that
they actually do not invoice you for the time you didn’t have DSL or the time they have compensated you for
they tried both tricks with me
thinking thst I was asleep during the conversation
and when the Primus bill arrived
it just meant that I asked for and got more compensation to clear up their 2nd mistake
mention that you will report them personally to the VP of operations and the continuous bad service to the CRTC…
Best of Luck…….
Give my love to all the Prime ASSes !!!!!
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 pmPrimus sucks bigtime….
I am planning to file a law suite against primus .Let me know if any one has gone that far and what was result.
I started with primus DSL internet servicein mid 07. Primus says you get upto 5 Mbps .Great!!. The speed that I got was 170Kbps max not even close to 5% of what they say.To speak to their rep its a hold time of appx 20-40 mins minimum. After numerous calls and by visits of their technicians Primus gave up and finally cancelled my services after 4 months.During the course they sent me 5-6 different modems and none of them worked.I received a email from them saying that they cannot credit my account back because they were providing me service, they mentioned in the contract that speed of internet is UPTO 5 Megs and minimum can be as low as dead.So, i had to pay the full amount for the service for 4 months which was around $30 a month.They mentioned in email they will send me prepaid bags to return modems which they never sent. I continously followed up with them to send the bags to me.Finally I got 1 prepaid bag to return modem which i immideatly did return. For the other 2 modem they did not sent any bag even after numerous requests. Finally to my surprise I received a charge on my credit card for appx $250 which was accidently charged twice making it a total of $500.After numerous followups with each account rep apart from being extremly rude has no connection with the story of the previous conversations.One says the bags were sent the other says our backend department has closed your ticket and no charges will be refunded since it is too late to return the modems. I paid dearly for the services with modem. I hope you guys will learn a lesson in choosing your internet service providers .Let me know if anyone has any suggestions as to what procedure i should take before taking legal action against company.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:01 pmPrimus is one of the worst ISP there is. I have been pulling my hair out just to have my DSL work above dialup speed. Since subscribing to their 5Mbps HSI, I have only been able to surf at 300-400kbps. WOW! Talk about a ripoff.
God I just need to break my 2 year contract with those asses as they have lied to me regarding the service that they were suppose to have provided. So a word of caution to those contemplating switching from Sympatico, Shaw, Rogers etc., to Primus. BE VERY CAUTIONS. IT’S A TERRIBLE ISP.
Pay the extra $10 if you must to another provider. Trust me, it will save you from having to dye the extra grey hair that Primus will put on your head.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:59 amPrimus sucks …we moved and swithched to shaw, I gave them notice, and they charged me a $32 fee for cancelling. I never signed no contract so thats bull….When I tried calling them I spent 1 hour and 45 minutes on hold before giving up and moving on with life. Dont ever switch to primus. Its a rip off.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:52 pm