4com and the most expensive mistake our business ever made
If I could give zero stars, I would. 4Com sold our company a phone system that was presented as modern, secure and great value. (In what universe is their product and service a good value???!! And compared to what???? Yachts?? Land Rovers???) In reality it has been the single worst commercial experience we have had in twenty years of trading. We now know there are thousands out there in the same boat!!!
The sales pitch, by “the 4Com salesperson (4Com made us remove his name from here. His name is shown on our paperwork) who handled our account” , promised “free” or rebated phones and a seamless hosted system. (Yes we know that they wouldn’t be free but we didn’t expect over £100k worth of debt for a handful of phones!!!!) We were told we were dealing with experts. What we actually received was equipment worth a fraction of what we are paying for it, wrapped up in layers of long-term leases and hidden extras that no sensible business would knowingly accept. BNP the finance company that agreed to this has 90% 1 start reviews on here, 90%... We had to switch to Microsoft Teams calling in the end.
The HiHi handsets supplied run on outdated Android software that can’t even pass the UK Cyber Essentials test. 4Com still charge for things called SafeWeb and Anti-Fraud, even though the core phones themselves can’t be kept secure. Every month the bills grow with new “services” that we never asked for and can’t remove without penalty. Apparently, we did accept these services when we signed our contract. (We have found this by talking to many others in the same boat.) They are “optional”, but you will be charged regardless until you catch them and then ask for them to be removed. 1. They are all fluff and 2. We were not made aware. Of course, they will say that we were told and we signed. Classic, and just like many scandals that have gone before. To think these sales guys, get paid 1000s in commission for EVERY SALE!! Look on Glassdoor for a great tally of complaints of folks that have worked for them. Don’t take our word for it.
Support is another story. Endless tickets, apologies and resets that solve nothing. Phones greyed out, customers unable to get through, engineers blaming “the network.” The promised “business-class support” feels more like a scripted apology service. We have the “receipts”!
When you try to leave, you find yourself locked into multi-year finance deals at eye-watering totals. Ours add up to more than £100k over the life of our contracts for kit worth maybe five tops. How do we know what phones are worth you might ask? This experience has had us crawl through every brand of phone we could possibly find. The most expensive on the planet… about £600 in the desk phone market. Not thousands a piece, EVEN WITH services!!
The most galling part is that these practices are not isolated. Search the news and you will find report after report of small firms trapped in the same kind of telecom leasing mess. Just type in 4com BBC and have a look. The BBC does not put out false claims it can’t back up. Why didn’t 4com sue them?? We were naïve enough to believe that such behaviour had been cleaned up years ago. It hasn’t.
My advice to any business thinking about signing with 4Com is simple: do your homework, get independent advice, and check the real market price of the equipment. (you won’t find any except used and by the look of it those never sell. Probably because they can’t work with any other network.) Once you are in, it is almost impossible to get out.
We have raised a formal complaint and will pursue every route available to the end, not just for ourselves but for the many other firms caught in this web of mis-selling. This company talks about innovation and partnership, but the only thing they have truly perfected is turning small businesses into captive customers.
If your company has gone through the same thing, we would love to hear from you. Just look up Washstation Limited and reach out! Let’s compare notes on how much we’ve all been charged and discuss ways to join forces!