“Agree with the most recent anonymous review on cancelling our Chess contract with a similar final payment experience .
After many years of an extremely expensive system that was in the end, post pandemic, totally inappropriate for our needs,I opted to cancel our monthly direct debit payments in the hope that someone live would actually talk to me.They did finally as they chased for their payment then told me that no one would talk to me regarding our contract until I had paid the outstanding invoice.
Dreadful company.”
“I have been a Chess customer for many years, but have now closed my business so I do not need their services anymore.
I couldn't work out how to pay the final £113 balance as their systems seem to need invoice numbers etc in order to pay.
I sent my telephone number TWICE to a named employee in order for him to call me to take payment.
He never called - but did find time to send a what I regard as threatening message saying that they would feed me to their debt collection agency who would be 'very vigorous' in their approach to me.
You don't talk to long term customers on this way .. especially if you haven't bothered to read emails offering to pay.
Nasty, nasty people.”
“Bunch of chancers and useless wasters. I ended up with them after they took over my provider
Their customer charter states on the website, 24 hours response. Ha ha what a joke, lies, lies and more lies.
Do not touch this company absolute disgrace
Multiple bad reviews don't lie, their customer service promises however are lies”
“Unable to give no stars but would have done. Absolutely shocking service. Left us without telephone and broadband service for nearly two months when we moved office and are now trying to collect charges for periods after we terminated our service with them offering, 25% 'discount' if we settle within 7 days. Avoid !”
“AVOID, AVOID,AVOID
This company overcharges for a substandard service and offers no customer service unless to charge you more
We were tied into a 5 year contract with threats of being charged extortionate fees to leave
The 60 months ended in May and now they are hounding us for more money for cancelling our direct debit before they could plunder our account for another month.
They have passed this 'debt' onto a so called debt collector who is now also hounding us so be warned what you are getting yourself into here. They should be avoided at all cost or regret it like we have”
“I was happy with my service with chess, then chess told me that by upgrading they could reduce my monthly bill. Ever since upgrading I have been paying between £100 to £200 per month more even though the usage has decreased during the Covid pandemic. Once my contract ended I tried to switch to a new provider. They have told me that I am still in contract and I will need to pay a few thousand pounds to come out. My bill is now over double the amount that I paid originally. Do not trust this company.”
“Whatever you do DO NOT go with this company ..I inherited Chess when I took over my Business…
All they want is your money and if anything goes wrong with your System they want you to pay to have it fixed!
It was a nightmare getting out of the Contract and cost us dearly to do so..
STAY AWAY at all costs”
“Stay well away from this company….I was originally with a different company that got taken over by chess, my bills kept going up and up so I told them I wanted to end my contract. They told me to end my contract early would cost me over £3000! So I had no choice but to stay with them and they did review my account and reduced my bills by half with a promise that they wouldn’t rise. Two years later I’m paying nearly double what they promised I would be paying. I received a letter in late December 2022 to tell me my contract was ending at the end of January 2023. But here we are 2nd February and I still can’t get rid of them because me telling them I will not be renewing my contract is not good enough they need to know if I want port my services or cease them, surely the I will not be renewing my contract but is a big clue!
Anyway as most people have said stay well away from chess!”
“The worst company I have ever dealt with.
I somewhat think they are unaccountable and above the law.
They add random charges at free will and then threaten disconnection of your buisness line.
I am past the point of trying with them and am going to put a case together.”
“This is by far the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. I have been trying to speak to someone on the phone regarding our bill and I have not yet been successful. We had to change our direct debit and instead of ringing us to discuss as we requested numerous times, they charged us £50 for a non payment admin fee and the bill keeps going up monthly even though we no longer use the service! We have rang them several times but no one is available to speak to us! Ridiculous for a communications company. We were with them for years and never missed a payment. A simple change that we needed to discuss has resulted in service being disconnected and a very rude email from them; a simple phone call would have rectified everything.
AVOID THIS COMPANY!!!
Also, it appears that many customers may need to contact OFCOM - we have!”
“Absolutely shocking company, almost impossible to contact if you want to leave, rigid rules is rules policy even in a world pandemic. Many others out there, I've found one they've lost thousands of pounds of my business, jokes on chess!!!”
“I concur with other reviews on here. For a business to operate this way in 2024 is disappointing and quite frankly astounding.
I have an open ticket with them that is being battled by their customer services team who have told me categorically that the “dark web monitoring service” that was added to our contract is lawful because they said that they sent an email offering a free trial that would then be chargeable if we didn’t cancel - which we didn’t as we didn’t receive this “marketing email” or any subsequent email about it becoming a monthly charge.
We have been told Chess can add services to our contract and change our direct debit as it’s in their terms and conditions so in effect they can add what they want and charge what they want. I have received no monthly reports to support this monitoring - until the month I found they had added it to our account and then I received the report.
I have requested a refund and we are still arguing the case as we are being told they are justified in adding services to our account clearly hoping we don’t spot it - which we didn’t for several months until our renewal came through - without any mention of this additional service and missing the additional costs (which was obviously different to the amount taken on direct debit). When asking why the two differed and even the renewal didn’t mention the added service or cost) I was told they didn’t have to put this on the contract !!!”
“Almost 5 years ago I started using Chess for my business phone and broadband. At the time, the cost seemed reasonable, and I thought I would be paying £41 plus VAT monthly for the next 60 months. However, over time and despite the figures agreed in my contract, my bill from Chess has gone up and up so that I now pay them £99 monthly!! Of course, having checked around recently, I discover that I can easily find a similar or better service from many other companies for less than a third of this cost ... so, naturally, I have now arranged to switch to another provider at £27 + VAT monthly.
Now the big contractual catch ... I discover that at the point of switching, I will still be, just, within a 5 year contractual period with Chess, so Chess are going to charge me a cool £329.45 termination fee as I switch to the other provider!
I've pointed this out to Chess, that I have been a good profitable customer for almost 5 years, despite their ever increasing charges, and I would be happy to part on good terms, if they simply waive their entirely unreasonable £329.45 termination fee ... and this, of course, is when I discover Chess are not reasonable decent types, but are sharks.
Only now, have I checked up on their online reviews to discover that all too many customers are having a similar experience ... shame on you Chess!
So, Chess are apparently allowed to charge me almost exactly double my contracted cost, over several years ... so I feel I have already been thoroughly fleeced by them ... and they can now charge me an additional £329.45 to get away from them.
We all do that thing of not reading all the small print within contracts ... life is just too short ... but we generally think companies will be fair and reasonable in their actual dealings with us, especially when we have actually been good profitable customers for a long time.
I would happily just cancel my direct debit arrangement with Chess ... but you know with these types, that you will just end up with threats of legal action and the danger of having a bad debt listed. So, I will pay them their highly unreasonable £329.45 to be rid of them ... and I will also write them some honest reviews.
So, please don't sign a contract with Chess Telecom.”
“Sudden increase in my broadband from 50 to 80 pounds a month. Complained and told it was as expected. Whatever that means. Not going to stay with them.”
“Avoid at all costs. Poor service and still want to charge you thousands to leave even tho the phone line quality is disruptive to your business and embarrassing of such a poor customer support”
“I had been with chess for many years but their prices kept going up so I had to change supplier, that's where the trouble started, they became very unhelpful and kept charging me while they were holding up my change, the only response they could offer was int not down to us, but it was down to them to keep adding on to the bill while they dragged out the proses. there are many other telecom companies out there so stay away from these.”
