Service suspended due to a virus!

[AbsolutNut]

I am furious that our connection was suspended without warning due to a virus being detected on our computer. Contacted technical support (TS) when our Internet access went down. This was when I was first informed of the suspension. "We have sent you out a letter this morning" the adviser said. Well, I didn't want to be without our Internet so they agreed that I could fax through confirmation that I had cleaned our computer and removed the offending virus. This I duly did and then rang again to confirm that they had received the fax which they had. The adviser said that our access should be restored hopefully within the hour but certainly by "close of play". She would give the fax to the "Abuse Team" straight away. Great I thought so I kept checking our connection all afternoon.

At 4.30pm (4hrs later) I rang as I was starting to get concerned that we wouldn't get it back before "close of play". Spoke to a different adviser this time who said that it could take up to 24hrs maximum from receiving the fax. When I mentioned that I had previously been advised it would be reactivated that day the adviser insisted there was nothing else be could do as it was in the hands of the Abuse Team.

We didn't get our Internet connection back that day. You can imagine how I felt.

Next morning rang TS again and spoke to another adviser. This time, I was informed that it had been reactivated the previous day afterall at 4.45pm. However they hadn't saved something so our Internet was still disabled. He did something and hey presto our Internet connection was back.

Now our speed has dropped drastically. Before all of this we were getting e.g. 800KB/s on Usenet now it is about 40KB/s. Done some speed tests and our speed has dropped to an average of about 2300 kbps. Before it was about 7000 - 8000.

As I mentioned at the beginning I am absolutely furious. We have been a broadband customer since it was first rolled out in Hull and have never had any problems and certainly have never been suspended before. Why couldn't Karoo simply either ring us or send email alerting us to the problem. It seems very heavy handed to suspend us without warning. Also the term "Abuse Team" made me feel like a criminal. It isn't as if we did anything knowlingly wrong. We have anti-virus so I guess this virus must have slipped through. Now for our speed to have dropped by such a huge amount simply adds insult to injury. 

Do you guys think I am over-reacting? I am all set to send a letter of complaint for what good it will do. I may also forward to OfCom. I realise that Karoo however are simply applying their "acceptable use policy" so that is okay then right?

Would love to know if anybody else has experienced anything like this?

Thanks,
Steve

[dylan]

Hi Steve, (welcome to karooforums.net)

Personally I have known of a couple of people that this has happened to and I agree with you. The way that KC deal with this problem can be heavy handed and insensitive.

My mother-in-law had the same issue and I decided to try and do a little bit of analysis into what had happened. I told her to sign the 'sorry guv, I have got rid of my virus and promise to be a good customer' bit of paper, but I didn't actually fix the problem. When KC reactivated the connection, I booted up her PC and checked out what it was doing...

Lo and behold, she had been infected with a trojan of some description which seemed to be using her PC to relay email messages.  Running 'netstat' showed many connections being made to PCs all over the world. KC may see this traffic on their network, or may be responding to an email sent to their abuse@..... email address from people on the receiving end of spam/viruses/trojans. This sets off the alarms and they cut off your connection (but as you say, there are probably more sensitive ways to tell you/sort this out).

It also seems that KC have probably offended you by not being entirely truthful.

Unfortunately this seems endemic at KC, with customer service and tech support folk misguiding customers on a frequent basis. Whether this is as a result of poor training or general disinterest on their part I guess we'll never know, but all the same it's a pain in the backside.

As for the speed error, that is strange. Perhaps you'd like to visit www.speedtest.net and post your results? Line stats from your router would also be useful if possible.

Your next port of call would probably be to send a letter to KC. If I were you I'd centre on the issue of being dealt with insensitively and misguided, rather than actually being cut off. KC will simply tell you that it's their duty as an ISP to protect the service for other users so that they're acting in the greater good. Being dealt with badly is something that they should answer too though.

If you're looking for an operating system less susceptible to viruses and malware (and you want to learn something new) check out www.ubuntu.com

Hope that helped.

Dyls

[AbsolutNut]

Hi Dylan,

Many thanks for your reply.

I am going to wait to see if they also charge the £30 charge for reactivating our connection before I complain.

Further to the speed error here are the stats:

Distance from exchange: approx 1KM (we live in the town centre)

Line Stats:

Downstream

Connection speed 8128 kbps
Line Attenuation 20 db
Noise Margin 17db

Upstream

Connection speed 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 6 db
Noise Margin 29db

Tested 20:40 04.04.08 on speedtest.net

Download 2783 kb/s
Upload 377 kb/s

Tested 20:45 04.04.08 on speedtest.net

Download 2490 kb/s
Upload 376 kb/s

Here is the best bit:

Before our suspension Usenet speed was about 800 KB/s now it is about 30 KB/s.
Begore our suspension Speedtest.net was reporting a download speed of 7000+ kb/s consistently.

There has got to be a problem.

If Karoo also charge us £30 reactivation fee I think I will hit the roof.

Should I call technical support?

Thanks,
Steve

[willcocks]

also living in the city center i have never had such good speeds. i get 800k/ off usenet between 2am and about 3pm.

i get 20-30k/sec between 4pm + 2am

im on kanceroo min option 2

[AbsolutNut]

Hi,

We seemed to be getting really good speeds regardless of the time of day. We are on Option 4 by the way which is why I am particularly annoyed.

I have just upgraded Giganews to include SSL to see if this makes a difference. From what I have read elsewhere I think it should but I will report back.

This is really pi**ing me off. I am not paying £30 a month for this.

Cheers,
Steve

[AbsolutNut]

Hi,

SSL doesn't make a jot of difference on Giganews anyway. Guess I will have to d/load in the small hours.

Unhappy,
Steve

[commandergc]

it does on EasyNews, port 80 SSL FTW at least 100-200KB/s most evenings. and when it's bad sub 512Kbps speeds using their web based service helps get past the shaping.

[AbsolutNut]

Hi,

I have just done some test this morning at 08:05 and the speed is fine.

7016 kb/s down
379 kb/s on speedtest

Usenet - about 850 KB/s.

I cannot believe how much Karoo is throttling at peak times from 850 KB/s down to 30 KB/s. Also even though I am on option 4 the conention ratio still seems pretty crap at peak times based on last night's performance anyway.

If and when anybody does decided to switch to the new Karoo packages I would be very much interested to hear comparative performances. I am not too fussed about the 75GB limit per month during the day. I would rather have unshaped traffic or at the very least more modest throttling which makes Usenet & Torrents unusable except during the small hours.

Sorry about my ranting but Karoo have really annoyed me over this past week and I felt the need to get it off my chest.

Thanks guys,
Steve