Is this incompetence widespread or have I simply just had extremely bad luck.

I am a specialist gynaecologist, and a fairly competent IT guy, running all my own servers at work as well as my own FreePBX setup at work. After almost 20 years being with Telecom, I decided to change my home and bach internet to Slingshot so that I could easily get Netflix without having to use Hola. I am also using Callplus in my office and have had no issues with them. I first moved from Telecom to Slingshot on 3 September 2014 (8 weeks ago). I still have not had my problems sorted out. I have had things work properly for just 3 days in this entire time. And Slingshot refuse to take any responsibility for their incompetence. I have spent hours on the phone trying to sort this out and usually get a different person each time so have to explain the issues from scratch.

I signed up for naked broadband for both addresses (bach and home) with slingshot.

First Issue 

I was not told that they would have to transfer the phone line as well and therefore I would lose the numbers that I had had for over 20 years at both homes. Slingshot had not just transferred my internet but my phone line as well. I therefore had to call telecom to stop them disconnecting the lines. Unfortunately the home line had already been disconnected. I had to pay a reconnection fee to Telecom. I then had to get the number moved to Slingshot. It took days for me to get this reconnected and finally once it was reconnected we had it moved to Slingshot.
Slingshot answer:  This is your fault, you should have known you had to transfer both your phone and home number when you transferred to us.

Issue 2

The number was transferred to Slingshot. We could not get this line working. I was told to try isolation tests and we still couldn’t figure out where the problem was. The alarm system which had worked for the last 15 years with Telecom, wouldn’t work. The phones which had all worked with Telecom now wouldn’t work. I was told to get another phone that wasn't wireless (all the phones in the house are wireless) and then redo the isolation test. In the interim I had connected and had a functional WXC open VFX line and got this working with Free PBX. After failing to get this fixed, I finally decided that I would move the phone line to the openVFX line, and I did this. Everything functioned well. I installed an ATA for the alarm system and for 3 days I everything was perfect except that the modem needed resetting every morning (seemed to do something strange every night, and all NAT configuration changed, had to be restored from backup.conf file and worked fine again)

Slingshot answer: You couldn’t sort things out with the isolation test so this was your fault.

Issue 3

I received a text from Slingshot stating that I was close to my limit of $300. Although I wasn’t sure how I had got to this level, I phoned in to pay this amount. I was told by the agent, that I did not have any internet with Slingshot, just toll calls. I told him to check and he noticed that the modem was in fact connected. He told me he wold call me back.He didn’t call me back, he disconnected my internet instead of changing it back to naked broadband. By this stage I was becoming extremely exasperated. I was starting to think that I had no option but to move my services back to telecom or to another provider.  We seemed to be moving from one incompetent disaster to another.

Slingshot answer: You moved the phone number to WXC so we had to cancel your home and network line. We couldn’t just change it back to naked broadband although we had changed it from naked broadband to a home and phone package earlier, so we disconnected your internet and charged you for disconnecting this.

Issue 4

After being told that I would still have to pay a disconnection fee and a fee for early disconnection as well, I decided to just stay with Slingshot for the 1 year that I had signed up for. I asked the customer services person to reconnect my naked broadband. She then proceeded to fill in all the things that were necessary. I gave her my account details. I had become a bit wary of Slingshot by this stage, so just before I hung up, I confirmed that she had done this for my home. She confirmed that she had. I asked her the address that she had used, and she gave me my bach address. She had done all the paperwork, for my bach and was about to change the bach from a home and telephone package to naked broadband. We then went through and cancelled everything.  She finally got everything right.

PHEW another disaster averted.

Issue 5

When I first signed up with Slingshot, it took 2 days to provision this line. This time despite repeated contact, it took almost 14 days to provision the network. I have still been charged a disconnection fee despite emails from a customer service representative saying that this would be not be charged. I was also told by another customer service representative that I would be issued a credit for all the issues I have been through, this has not occurred. Naked broadband has now been connected for 3 days, and I still have the issue that I have to reset the modem every morning. I have asked technical support to contact me but won’t hold my breath that this will be fixed anytime soon. A simple replacement modem will fix the problem. (The modem at the bach is exactly the same and I don’t have this problem with that modem).

Slingshot answer: it takes up to 10 days to provision an account. And technical support will contact you about the modem. I complained about the modem shortly after we got the WXC account working. That was now 4 to 5 weeks ago.