Verastar Reviews 44

Sent on Tuesday 25th July and still no reply from Clear Business / Kinex !!!

Good Afternoon

I don’t really know where to begin with this complaint and I am absolutely disgusted by the way I have been treated by your company over the past few months .
My business has been severely affected yet again by your ineptitude to complete what should be ( in your words ) “a very simple process “ !
I have yet again wasted hours and hours of my valuable time on the phone today trying to resolve the problems you have caused and now yet again I have another problem that has come to light this afternoon in the fact that my business telephone calls are being diverted to a plumber in Wales !!!!!!…god knows how much business I have lost today as we rely on telephone orders !!
This had been going on for weeks and has remained unresolved as of the 8th June !!
It was your recommendation to switch to fibre broadband services .
As you record all phone calls you will be able to follow the trail of this complaint and I demand a senior manager to contact me urgently !!
I have spoken to Alena today at 3.15 pm and she has been absolutely unhelpful as she could be amongst many other operatives I have spoken to .
My telephone number is #####

Not only is this a situation that you have caused but has also cost us untold amounts of income, personal stress and anxiety an a loss of my billable hours in having to deal with this issue.

I look forward to hearing from you with your answers to this intolerable situation.

Attention : Andrew ( Tech Support )
George ( contracts )
Daniel Power

Regards
Adam Garrett

Any one knows what does it mean RUBBISH! But if any one wants to know equivalent word for that he/she does not need to go further , it is Verastar ltd or as they call themselves UNICORM or Swichingon Or Clear Business all different sides of the same RUBBISH COIN

Avoid like the plague!!
I had an energy account with Kinex, my service was atrocious and I closed the account when my contract was due for renewal. There was a big dispute that went on for months regarding the final bill and the head of customer services finally confirmed the way would clear the account. I had an email confirming this.
Then three years later I start receiving letters from debt recovery companies saying I had a balance owing of over £600. It was the original disputed amount plus three years of interest. I have had the awful displeasure of dealing with flint bishop (their debt recovery agency). We finally agreed on a settlement figure close to the original disputed amount, just to get them to leave me alone as they were threatening me with court proceedings and CCJ’s. I made the final payment on my payment plan to be contacted by flint bishop to say Verastar have invoiced them again to get the outstanding amount off me and they would like the original agreed amount of over £600!! Even though I have emails from the debt recovery agency confirming the settlement fee of £267. An amount I shouldn’t have paid in the first place but couldn’t risk the further costs of going to court or receiving a CCJ from this. They are a disgusting company to deal with. Do not go anywhere near!!

Absolute rubbish..rip off merchants..avoid these clowns

I was going to write a review but everyone else's seem to sum them up perfectly! Complete rubbish! and best avoided at all costs!!!

Where are the regulatory organization's this company should be closed and the Directors struck of and not allowed to hold a directors position in any company .
Do not go near them !!!!

Had a cold call (under their trading name of Clear Business) for a 'risk free 30 day trial', gave it a try as our current broadband is a bit intermittent. The speeds Clear Business actually provided however were terrible, so we phoned on the first day of use to cancel the contract.
Initially we were told no, there was no free trial and we were tied to a contract. When we spoke to the next advisor, having pulled out the contract and quoted this to them, they agreed to cancel.
Then sent us a bill for £70! Next advisor told us this was an error and to ignore.
Today, we've received a bill for £103... Todays advisor tels us that until we return the router, we will continue to be charged. At no point has this return been previously mentioned, nor any details of where to return to been provided.
Absolute con

Received a letter (addressed to 'Mr and Mrs Accounts payable"!) from Unicom (switchingon) - part of VERASTAR group, saying they had provided telecoms broadband service to a previous occupant. This is a blatant lie as I have never had as contract with this company and I have lived at my address for 10 years.
They go on, in the letter to say I am responsible for payment of a 'deemed contract', which I am not. As well as talking about telecoms and broadband, the letter gos on to talk about water and energy services I might also have - again I have neither with this company
I have written to them to inform them that I owe them nothing and will, if pursued, see them in court.
UNICOM (switchingon) are part of VERASTAR and I will add this review to their TrustPilot file of very bad reviews.
DO NOT TOUCH THIS OR ANY ASSOCIATED COMPANY WITH THE PROVERBIAL BARGEPOLE.

This company which trades as Clear Business is appalling to deal with and 1 star is 1 more than they deserve. I am just about to report them to the SPSO who I believe are the correct regulatory body. Despite being aware that I am not their customer and that I am not a business they continue to create bills in my name and are now threatening me with legal action. Companies like this should be held accountable for their behaviour. Totally unacceptable.

UPDATE
Despite the token standard response from Clear Business and request for further information which I provided them with, I have heard nothing more from them. This comes as no surprise to me as they have ignored all other contact. Considering I am not even their customer I now think that the next move should be to ask Martin Lewis to investigate!
I have investigated this company further and it appears that many of their positive reviews are written by their own staff. There is a website setup to deal with the many complaints from both customers and staff alike.
See "unicom-complaints.co.uk"

I was cold called by Kinex in early Sep and persuaded to change telecoms contracts, mainly because they said they would pay off my existing contract. In the run up to changing over I received innumerable text messages telling me that a router had been despatched and the time the engineer would be with me. On 18 Oct the Openreach engineer arrived and was surprised it was just a simple change of routers. He took the Kinex router out of the box, plugged it in and…….no internet. From that day to 26 Oct I spent most of my life talking to the Kinex on boarding and migration teams. Perfectly pleasant individuals but utterly unable to restore the internet I had prior to the switch over. I did spend 3 hours on the phone with a Kinex technician on Fri 22 Oct during which he got me to change various passwords on the router, all to no avail. He promised to escalate this but when I called on 25 Oct there was no record of that escalation. Finally on 26 Oct another Openreach engineer arrived. I should add that before his visit I was told that if the problem was within my premises that I would be liable for the expense of his visit - despite the fact that the only person that had touched the equipment in my house was another Openreach engineer - you couldn’t make it up! He tested the entire system and pronounced that it was the router which must be at fault. (I should add that my old provider had not been contacted by Kinex at any stage and when I asked Kinex about paying off the large termination charges they said that wasn’t something they did). At this stage I contacted Kinex (with the Openreach engineer in the room) and we were kept on the phone or in a queue only to be told the entire tech team were “in a meeting” and that Kinex couldn’t do anything more until they “ received the engineer’s notes”. He was rather incredulous at this! Eventually yesterday I called Kinex and told them I wanted to cancel my account as I had never received one second of broadband from them. I was put on hold ( of course) and after 30 mins rang off. I then rang again and having checked the call was being recorded I dictated a polite but firm message saying that I would be leaving Kinex and would not be paying one penny to them for the trauma they had put me through. I kept a careful log of my many hours of phone calls throughout this protracted experience, which affected my business and my private life. Fortunately I was able to reconnect my old router yesterday and restore my previous service - which did make me wonder whether Kinex had ever actually got me onto theirs at any stage. I will be sharing my experience with OFCOM and TV watchdogs etc. This has been one of the worst experiences of my business life and I curse the day I answered the phone to the Kinex Field Sales Engineer (whose name I have but will withhold on here). This is not a way to treat customers and I strongly recommend that Kinex are stripped of any licence to trade in Telecoms that they hold. I would give less stars if I could and if charged anything by this company we will be meeting in court. I have also now realised that Kinex and Verastar are essentially the same company which is why I have put this review on this site.

Worst company ever. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. They rip you off. Customer service is the worst I have ever had to deal with. I’m stuck with them for another year and can not wait to change.

signed up with Verastar/KINEX 2 years a go at £16 a month with a 3 year contract they over charged me virtually every month by £15 or more , had to contact them for the refund ever month . after 2 years they decided that will no longer honour there original agreed contract price and i had to pay £21for the last year of my contract .and ultra aggressive marketing would give 0 stars if it were possible .so moved to john Lewis witch has a very very good customer service and are not dishonest.
do not trust Verastar/KINEX ?

Wonderful company. They do so much for their communities and their people. Things have been bad before but they are trying to turn things around.

Terrible company and the owners of Clear Business. I was unfortunate enough to sign up to these some years ago and the worst mistake I made in a long time. Their service is incredibly poor, I have not the time to list the long complaints I have against them and had to contact the Ombudsman to relieve myself of them. Having to do so again as they still pester me. Avoid at all costs Verastar or Clear Business

Most Incompetent Ever!! Or do I mean Corrupt!?

Trying to put the fact they were originally UNICOM, and the scandal of telecoms mis-selling behind them, by re-branding.

A company so deeply lacking in morals, truly emblematic of the share-holder is king trope......

So interested are management and policy makers at this excuse for a service re-biller, they are quite willing to make anyone pay for a water supply. Unable to find the correct party to bill, after two years start re-billing a previous occupant. Seemingly not as uncommon as you would think if you were only to read the reviews here, never mind other more salient places.

Not content with re-billing my company two years after vacating a rented premise, they screwed over my VAT tax management. Clear Business did this by sending me a form to claim VAT free status. Any help is greatly appreciated right, at least if it is suitable with the Tax Man.... Completed, returned and accepted by CB, I was awarded VAT-free status by their reckoning. CB commenced invoicing me in my new status by sending invoices with minus VAT figures.... sounds great right? NO.... minus VAT on things you buy increases your Sales VAT due to the TAX Man.

This being bad enough until you reckon Clear Business' Sales invoices to me are now showing minus VAT figures and bringing down their Sales VAT due to the Tax Man. Coupled with their Purchase VAT being reclaimed against their Sales VAT. Well, let's just say it's a SWEET deal for them.

Question is: how many other customers have they done this to? And..... how low must CB's Tax Returns be, eh?

Clear Business, a company you can trust......I DON'T THINK!

Scambegs even you not in contact with them they will force you into agreement and will try to create false agreements to rip you off

UNICOM - VILE SHOCKING COMPANY – AVOID

 

I agreed a contract with Unicom in 2013 after I had a visit from a rep offering me a good deal.  I stupidily signed up not knowing what a vile company they are.

 

I closed my business down in later in 2013 I was told that no termination would apply as I was ceasing to trade.  However, a few days after my baby was born in march I received a demand for £80 per month for termination fees and I agreed to pay this but under great duress.  I did not believe I should be charged termination fees as Unicom’s contract stated that no termination fees apply if you cease to trade.

 

I heard nothing more from Unicom until 2020 when they took court action and got a CCJ against me for historic termination fees which now amounted to £2,500

 

I did not take any legal advice which I now realise to my cost was a huge mistake

 

In March 2020  I signed a Tomlin order then a week later was furloughed and never received any wages for 12 weeks.  I could not pay as I had 2 children to feed.  I had told them this when they rang me but they didn’t care. Then in November 2020 I had a bailiff at my door. I have contacted the bailiff and Unicom several times with my Stepchange action plan and my offer to clear the debt and I also explained how its causing me great stress and anxiety. Its impossible for me to pay £2500 in one go.

 

Unicom and the bailiffs don’t seem to care as long as they can squeeze every last penny from me for a debt I believe should NEVER have been applied in the first place

Kinex is one of the alias companies of Verastar Ltd.
I had terminated (so I thought) all my telecom and electricity contracts but they're still collecting by DD from my business account. Getting hold of someone in their organisation is like looking for the golden fleece of Babylon! Well I'm just cancelling the DD then they will be chasing me! Verastar Ltd and all it's aliases are a utilities company one needs to stay clear from!

Repeated cold calls, annoying upselling emails despite calling them several times to stop this. Also clicked Unsubscribe to their emails many times. All totally ignored. A good company to deal with if you dont' care about how they use your data. Emails to their service desk totally ignored.

still waiting verastar for a response and an outcome your disgusting treatment of customers and those who are being billed for something they have never had is appalling try answering the phone and having the nuts to talk to people who suddenly have the bailiffs turning up with no notice and for something they have never had everyone else STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY AND ALL THE COMPANIES IT RUNS UNICOM KINEX AND MANY MORE