Chess
Reviews and Complaints

With regards to account Num87750 - Client ID: 141954. Over a period of several months from Nov 2018 - June 2019 I was wrongly charged a huge amount consistantly over several months. I bought this to the attenetion of Chess on numurous occasions and still huge amounts of money were wrongly and without my consent taken from my bank account. On 7/8/2019 I terminated my contract and clearly stated my lack of confidence and trust in the company. I have had various correspondance via email and despite my clarity I am being asked to pay a huge termination fee despite not using the service and clearly being thoroughly dissatistfied. I have now seen a court claim, please cease the court proceduings while this is resolved.

My line rental with Chess was terminated on the 1st June 2021. I spoke to your representative Paul Thompson who agreed that since Chess had not been able to provide any service on that line since 1st June 2021 that I should terminate the service from that date. Since I was already out of contract with Chess, i did not anticipate any termination fees. On the 15th June 2021 I received the attached invoice. when I queried it, I was eventually informed that it was a termination charge because I had not submitted the cancellation of my account with Chess in writing. I asked to Paul Thompson why he had not informed me of the necessity of submitting my cancellation in writing and he simply replied that he was not there to argue with me and that those were the terms.

Pel57041
On 9th of September I notified chess that we would be terminating our contract at the end of the contract on 14/10/19.
We had tried to cancel the telephone number [protected] approx April 2018 as it was no longer required, but Chess held us to the contract and we therefore spent the rest of the contract paying rental for an inactive line.
Our new provider was delayed transferring the lines across and when they did transfer the main line over around November Chess failed to close off the inactive line 8983, for which we have still been charged rental for, in spite of us giving notice for it's closure on 14/10/19. This has finally been closed on 13/2/20 . The 0490 is still active as our provider is having difficulties from BT transferring it, and we are liaising with them at them moment.
We have been advised that we are on a 30 rolling contact, which we did not agree to and according to Ofcom is illegal.
We are still being threatened with cancellation costs which is unreasonable seeing as Chess has had notice of our departure since 09/09/19.
We feel we are being treating shoddily in spite of the number of years we have remained with Chess. Clearly there is no reward for the loyalty we have shown over the years, no goodwill, and Chess are happy to exploit our departure for every penny they can, clearly with no interest in trying to entice us back in the future. Clearly we are dealing with an organisation with it's own Commercial interest at heart rather than good customer service. We are extremely aggrieved of the spiraling costs we are still being charged, whilst we are transitioning to our new provider, which smacks of spite! We feel we should be recompensed for the cost of the inactive line which we were continually charged for, the termination costs for the shoddy treatment we are being given, especially after the thousand of pounds worth of business we have given Chess over the years!

The internet is only available 75% of the time and if the telephone rings or someone uses another device the internet cuts off

I have spent 3 years complaining and all that seems to happen is they change my contract and tie me in for another few years,

I was promised a fibre connection last time I changed contract but have been advised that I do not have this.

The monthly bill is always above the agreed amount.

We have had 2 terms of being without internet for 2 days then 20 hrs.

We are trying to run a business here and are finding it impossible.

I have never signed anything so can this be legal?

Following a fire at my workshop I urgently needed to divert all calls to my mobile. As my line supplier I called Chess to organise.
In initially very helpful but they signed me up to a 5 year contract over the phone and although I said i was not happy about this they did not offer any shorter terms and I feel they were taking advantage of a stressful situation
As a result this is costing over £650 per year.
I have requested a copy of the agreement which they have failed to delivery and have only sent an edited form of the verbal contract.

I would avoid at all costs

We are a small company relying entirely on our internet connection. Our internet connection went down at 10 am 24 September 2018. We have been trying to contact Chess all day to find out when the internet will reconnect, all we've been getting is a recorded message saying we are working on it.
Our staff have been at their desks all day wondering when they would be able to carry out their tasks.
Had Chess informed us that the disconnection would take all day it would have saved our employees a lot of stress.
We hold Chess Telecom responsible for the loss of business incurred, for the stress caused you our workers and the disregard of customer care.

We had a new system
Installed via shell communications which was then bought out by chess.
From day one of shell we had problems. So was relieved when chess took over.
We reported our problem of customers not being able to contact us on a regular bases to there customer service and even sent emails. Customers began asking if we were closing down due to the connection problems they were having. We have seen a big decline in business since being with them due to their poor connectivity.
In july 2017 we stated that if not put right this last chance then we would leave.
After several visits from their assessors to account managers in december 2017 they finally sent workmen out. Omg! They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery if they tried!
3 visits later and still not done what they promised!
So I tell them to collect their equipment and cancel my contact. Yes they will cancel but only with charges.
I have only told you the half of what i've had to put up with.
Even their contractors were running them down.
Please avoid this scam of a company.
If you see any posative reviews they are probably written by the people who work there.
I will see them in court before they get a penny out of me!

Chess ICT acquired our account from Tru Telecom which didn't seem a problem at the time. We received a phone call from the sales dept. offering us a calls and fibre braodband package. This seemed ok and we went ahead with the order. Our Fibre connection has still not been done, we are 9 weeks on from date of order and 6 weeks from our connection date! But have been charged for this. We drew this to the attention of the company and some of the amount has been refunded but have continued to wrongly charge us. We will have to sort this out at great cost to ourselves. Everytime we phone to follow up on our complaint we are charged for the calls. so far £19.28 (inc VAT) and have to go through the same long winded process of selecting which dept. we wish to talk to. The whole thing has been a complete mess causing frustration and stress to ourselves. Not easy trying to run a business with ridiculously slow broadband, lucky if we even get 2mbps. Att the moment there still doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. We are in the process of going through the Chess complaints procedure and if not resolved soon we will be taking our complaint to the CISAS (Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme)

Cosycats cattery leicester
chess muscled in on the partial purchase of true telecom business affairs around january of this year im now moving to postoffice telecom as a result, i am not knowingly in contract with them and neither have i had notification of either business selling or purchasing one anothers business
stay well away from chess they persistently state im in contract and persistently email to state this they have no grounding of their association and i have no evidence that this is the case
im more than happy to attend any court hearing its my intention to use a solicitor now dont expect me to be brow beaten in any way shape or form
barry lord

Chess ICT are conmen and need to be stopped!
They are refusing to accept no less than 3 different contracts for the Never beaten on price gaurantee"
i moved premesis and they couldnt supply broadband and phone to the new unit... i asked them to move the line over which they put into BT who sent a contractor out who said he couldnt install the line as he needed a cherry picker to do the job, so i had to wait 2 more weeks when a BT engineer came out and managed to connect the line to my premesis... the phone line was noisey and i couldnt use it, and the broadband speed was unacceptable.. less than 1.3 mb most days so again unuseable, when i complained chess's responce was well you will have to upgrade to fibre - the guy i was dealing with gave me the price of £50+vat a month, bearing in mind i was already paying around £32 inc vat a month... this suddenly jumped up to £48 for the same service!
So i shopped around and found no less than 3 other cheaper quotes and went back to the sales guys who said " you have beaten out never beaten on price gaurantee" so I took out the new contract with Vodafone which is £32 a month for fibre! so what i was paying for chess for a service they couldnt actually supply!

so now they want £295 termination fee for a service they havent actually supplied! AND refusing to acknoledge emails and questions regarding the NBOP making all sorts of excuses trying to say the NBOP doesnt count!

But 3 members of staff, in completely different departments have all told me that i WOULDNT be charged! yet here is the demand for money for a service thay didnt supply!

I have complete my agreement in October 2016.

I have been looking at alternatives to there over priced service and slow wifi services which are unstable.

We finally decided to go with BT again and VOIP phones.

I called them last we to close the account and change over to BT
All was fine and agreed

Yesterday I get a call from them trying to sell me a VOIP service and I told them it's been agreed or contract is complete and we are moving. I am then told I signed a new contract in June 2016. I said certainly not I have been waiting to get out of the contract for two due to very poor service. I said send me the new agreement I allegedly signed in June 2016. It arrive in PDF FORMAT. It's was not my signature and the form to be filled out was not completed. So someone in their company forged my signature and terrible forgery as well.

To be continued

I have been with chess for more than 4 years and they have been fine until i tried to move away to a cheaper contract...
I moved my business and it took them 3 months to actually get my line moved and when they finally got it connected, there was no broadband!
the best they could come up with was to get a fibre package from them for over £50 a month to which i said no!
So i went to Vodafone who beat there price for both the ADSL and the Fibre package, so i rang chess this is what i had found and i wanted to go with it, to which the sales guy told me to go for it as he couldnt beat that price and again told me i wouldnt be charged because of the "never beaten on price"... So i took out the Vodafone fibre pacakge...
So basically They could not match or beat the price AND 3 members of there own sales staff all said i would not be charged as i have found a better deal, BUT they have sent me a bill for over £200 Excuse me? never beaten on price? RUBBISH!
THEY ARE LIARS AND THIEVES AND I AM SEEKING COMPENSATION FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS

I was miss sold a telephone and broad band package which was to be no more then £38 per month. The first month it was £40.50, the second month it was £40.45 and the third month it was £48.54. After that it has steadily increased to £65 per month and now it has gone up to £95.

When I stared the contract I should have had telephone land line and the fiber optic supper fast broadband. The contract started in Jan 2014 and lasted for 1 yr, but in Feb 2014 there was a fault on the line so I had no telephone and no broadband. I had no service for four months and the engineers came out four times. Twice I was charged £125 for not being in but I had phoned and canceled one appointment and the other time the engineer never came out to my property but said he had.

My business is Dependant on the Internet and I can't work without it. Eventually after four months a contractor engineer came out and fixed the fault but sated that the wiring in the street box was in a real mess and wasn't surprised that nothing worked. He also stated that I hadn't got Fiber broad only the basic broadband.

I complained about this and was given the option of no broadband and paying the remainder of the contract or starting a new contract which lasted two years. In order not to go out was business I had not canceled my previous provider and continued to use them, with the intention of staying with chess telecom. But when I complained that they were in breach of contract by not providing a service for four months they insisted that I could not cancel the contract until the two years was up or I would have to pay the remainder of the two years up front to cancel or they would take me to court for the outstanding money.

I have not used the service since but have being paying £65 per month ever since. I want to cancel the contract in April 2016 and want four months payments refunded for the period of no service. As they are in breach of contract I feel they should refund the whole two years payments. I am sure they won't do that so I will settle for the four months refund.

If I had known they were part of BT I would never have used them as a provider because of the way BT treats its customers.

Chess Telecom took over my previous phone provider and after being with them for 4yrs I decided to group all my bills with Sky. A couple of days later I had a threatening aggressive phone call from them saying I had breached my contract as I had previously agreed a 5yr deal. This was never agreed and I would never do such a thing. I then gave them a few days to prove this contract was in place in case I needed to switch back. They never did this so sky took over my line. A few days later I had another threatening call saying they had sent an email to me with this 5yr agreement on which of course they never had done. I then cancelled my direct debit, paid what was due and then received an invoice for £250+ which I will never pay as there was no 5yr agreement in the 1st place. This company is a disgrace and who use bully boy scare tactics and they need investigating!

I received an email on 31 July 2015 from Chess Telecom ([protected]@chesstelecom.com) telling me I owed them £17.50 for services provided in July 2015 and an attachment purporting to be the bill. The attachment was a virus which was blocked by my antivirus software. I don't even have an account with Chess Telecom! I did some digging and found that they appear to be thoroughly despised by a large number of former customers. My complaint is that they appear to be trying to make me pay for a service that I have never received by quoting phony bills, and account numbers. I believe this is fraud and will be reporting them to the police, hopefully they will do something.

This Company presumed to add charges for services that were not agreed. I took this up with them and during protracted discussions they added insult to injury by sticking a late fee of £25.00 on the account every month. And as this was not enough Chess Telecom continued to charge me for their service months after I had cancelled the agreement and the telephone had been disconnected.

When thing go well you might be fine, but heavens help you when they start to go pear shape.

For the second time this year their customer services department has spectacularly failed at doing a proper job or even having the courtesy to return calls with a solution for a recent overcharge. When I said I would cancel my direct debit until it was sorted they strongly advised me not to yet they owe me money and are doing nothing to sort it out, Spoke to three different agents over the last month including a manager and not one person bothers to return calls like they say they will, . I will never use them again

The worst company in the world. I don't even know where to start. They are so awful, when I complained I got abusive emails from their CEO, David Pollock. Their service is unreliable. Their technical support failed to find a fault on my line that caused serious problems for a month. I had to buy a broadband dongle to keep access to the internet. I could not transfer to another provider because their Mac Code did not work so BT cancelled the install. I stopped my direct debit in the hope they would cut me off. They said they would but they didn't. They stopped sending me bills then added late payment charges on bills they hadn't sent. They thought they had cut me off until I reported yet another fault. These people are a complete, total and utter shambles. They don't what they are doing. As others have said, do not touch with a barge pole. You will regret it. I reported them to OFCOM twice for poor service and billing problems.

We have been trying to serve notice since 7th May 2014, we were told to email customer services. After not receiving anything back I rang them again, they apologised and said to send again! Still hadn't heard any thing back so again rang them and was told to email the RedTeam, this goes on and after emailing to two personal email addresses finally let it rip on the 19/05! Someone called Ian again apologised and explained that we were out of contract and on a 30 rolling one and had received notification of us leaving on the 9/05 so the 60 day initially given was fine and the go ahead to move on the 7th July 2014 is Ok and no fees would be issued! Today I received another call, to say that if we leave on Monday we will occur a fee of £500, £300 of it because we didn't serve notice and £200 admin fee and even more unbelievable was he told me I should have emailed a loyalty team, which at no stage did the six different people tell me! He then had the nerve to ask why we were leaving!

when you signup a for a service with CHESS TELECOM obviously they do a credit check on you.

I had some financial problems, now I am clean but its not the case.
so they never told me I have a bad credit score, they never refuse me a service and I become their happy customer.

in next 3 days I received plenty of mail from debt collectors to my new home address, later also phone calls including my mobile.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN ?
If they are not happy with me as a customer they should refuse me a service.
but NO chess telecom give My private data god knows where, who give them right to do that !
YOU JUST DON'T DO THAT TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

I was so angry, of course it was impossible to cancel the contract !
I spend over two weeks to do so ...

ZERO CONFIDENTIALITY
AND £30 FEE FOR LATE PAYMET ?