The Halo Tech Group Reviews 225

While C-B have been flagging one star reviews to try ot have the removed this appears to have stopped. One may wonder if TP has "had a word" with them about this as 38% of their objections were found to be invalid.

There are strong connections between this company and C-B and the new company the director(s) have set up LUMINATE WHOLESALE LTD (see entries at companies house).

Other reviewers have made reference to C-B paying the debts of Halo Tech and other creditors may wish to investigate this further with the liquidator.

LUMINATE WHOLESALE does not yet have a TP review page.

There are interesting reviews and questions asked on google.

So glad I found this page. CB have already threatened legal action on their Trustpilot page for my negative review.
We were with Halo for 2 years from 2017. Mainly for their skill in dealing with Virgin. They then began to talk about their phone service. My son signed an"Order Form" in 21 which he was told was a mandate to negotiate with Virgin again and that the services listed could be changed at any time. When he tried to change those services he was hit with a £3k termination of "agreement" bill. Discussions ensued by telephone until 5 months later we began paying for a service for hosting of handsets we had now paid for upfront. Roll on through the transfer to CB and in August last year they added a security service and charged us for it. We cancelled and they confirmed that in writing. They have continued to charge us for it. In May 24 we got an invoice for June that was over 8 times our usual bill. When we queried this they stated that we were out of contract. They had lifted all of the services offered in the May 21 Order form and charged us for those. That included hardware that we never received. They had charged us for May again and June for OOC fees. We contested that we were out of contract and that they could not charge us for May twice. They said we had an implied OOC contract because we had paid it. It is a DD so there was no choice they just took the money. To cut a very long story short, which includes an 86 minute long call which they refused to send a copy of, and many emails, They are now saying that our complaint will take at minimum to the end of August to reply to. In the meantime they want over a thousand pounds to get out of their 90 day notice despite us arguing that we are still in contract and they continue to invoice us even though they cut off our service a week after telling them we were cancelling the DD. They seem to be deliberately ignoring everything. They tell you to contact another department and it is the same person responding. They simply ignore half of your email and concentrate on one part. They have to be sent their own emails and even then they want to further delay, Absolute mess. Looking forward to getting to Court with them.

In the strongest possible terms, do not consider taking out a contract with this company. Their business practices and behaviour toward our company have been disgusting.

We are a micro-business with six staff members. When our office phone and broadband contract came up for renewal, we explored various providers. Halo Tech Group (now Connecting Britain) seemed perfect, with promises of improved service, an advanced phone system, faster broadband at a lower price, dedicated account management, and 5-star customer service.

From the moment the contract was signed, Halo became a nightmare to deal with. We only needed six handsets, and that’s what we thought we had ordered. Halo arranged finance via a company called Armada. The finance contract issued was for 12 handsets. When we queried this, we were told there was no charge for the additional phones. This proved to be a lie when we received and queried the invoice; Armada confirmed we were paying for 12 handsets. To date, we have only received six phones, and one of those is now not working.

Halo was supposed to install broadband services within 30 days of the contract (i.e, by 20/1/22). This never happened. On 1/9/22, after months of delays, Halo informed us they had novated our agreement to their new company, Connecting Britain. There was no consultation with us on this matter. We believe they wound Halo up to avoid legal action from customers.
From information on Companies House, it appears that Halo Tech Ltd was originally called Datatel Solutions under Director Jonathan Peter Walker. Jonathan resigned from Halo Tech Ltd in 2022 and was Director of Connecting Britain and resigned again in 2024 to form another company called Luminate. We suspect that the moves to new companies could possibly have been motivated by a need to escape the numerous unhappy customers like us leaving anguished reviews on Trustpilot and possible legal action they may have faced. It’s difficult to know whether all their staff members realize what a potential sham this company is. However, Jonathan Peter Walker, Lee Henderson, Emi Pritchard, and the company director Garry Grant are culpable, among others.

Our formal complaints have never been resolved. Our outstanding invoices for incentives on signing up have never been paid. Their customer service is non-existent: no callbacks, no account manager, minimal responses to our inquiries. After waiting over two years for installation, we suddenly got notice that Broadband would be installed in two days' time on 9/3/23. We were advised if we didn’t give the engineer access, we would incur a penalty charge of £200. We responded to say access would not be granted until our complaints were dealt with. They then invoiced us for ‘breach of contract’ and immediate payment of the contract in full, i.e., 60 monthly charges of £52 plus VAT, total £3120.
We engaged with the CEDR to pressure Connecting Britain to resolve the situation with the missing phones and the demand for payment of the contract we hadn’t cancelled. Connecting Britain engaged with the process until the eve of a ruling, which was clearly going in our favour. They then cynically issued a small court claim against us, knowing CEDR could not proceed to give a judgment on a case with a legal dispute. The claim they filed had zero merit and was contradictory, obviously a tactic to avoid liability with CEDR. We eventually defended the claim successfully in court. Connecting Britain didn’t show up for the hearing despite pursuing us to the door of the court. They then filed an appeal against the judgment, further delaying tactics until the second court date, at which point they withdrew their case on the day.

We strongly suspect it was their intention all along to rip us off on the phones and to wrongly accuse us of breach of contract to extort further payment. £3120 plus VAT is a lot of money for a small business, as is the £4750 we have paid for six phones that we never needed (nor ordered) nor received.

Their practices are predatory, their lack of accountability and disregard for customer satisfaction is appalling. Looking at the negative reviews for Halo and Connecting Britain, it is clear they have taken advantage of many small businesses like ours. We strongly suspect that some of the positive "reviews" on this website may not be legitimate. Their responses to negative reviews show premeditation combined with a defensive, copy-and-paste approach.

One final note: Where are the £4750 worth of phones that we paid for but you have not given to us? Why did you file a claim against us and not show up to court to defend it?

PERSONALLY - WOULD NOT USE THIS COMPANY.
As with previous reviews, we took out an upgrade only to find that Halo had not repaid the previous finance agreement and trying to get hold of anyone to sort this out is impossible. The contract has now been taken over by ConnectBritain and the managing director of this company is the old sales director of Halo.

Avoid at all costs. Take forever to reply to emails. They were supposed to settle the old contract, nothing was done. Apparantly I had to issue an invoice to them, for them to pay me to settle with the old finnace company directly. Contract taken out in August 2022, was still getting charged from the old finance company which I didnt see until November 2022. Started the process to reclaim the money. It's now May 2023 and despite several emails, invoices to Halo Tach and customer service saying they will chase it up with the finance team I have now been told that the claim to repay the finance should have been done within 60 days as per T & C's.
Just to add to this the telephone system has several floors that take forever to sort out.

Customer for several years , our phones now down, Halo website gone , 0333 support number not recognised
Having a major impact on our business , should anyone from Halo be available please contact us automatica uk Ltd

Install was carried out very methodically with good instruction of system. Nice fella

No phones or internet since the 29th December. No answer on the head office number, the number on the website is not in service and nobody is responding to any callback requests or emails to any email address listed. Their complaints email diverts straight through to Connecting Britain LTD.

As others have said, avoid this company at all costs - everything about them is crook.

Ali was very helpful and polite
thanks

While we have been posting as Sue D’Nym the Trustees have decided we should tell this community that we are a small church in suburban London.

While we can not agree with the assertion made on this site that the positive reviews of C-B are written by employees (as we have not seen any evidence of this) it does appear that C-B is Halo Tech Group under a different name. C-B will undoubtedly argue that they are different companies and indeed that is legally true.

What is also true is that Mr Walker, the solo director listed on Companies House for C-B, appears to be the same Mr Walker who was until recently a director of Halo Tech group although his name is spelt differently for the two entries at Companies House. This has been previously pointed out to C-B within a review on this site but as of 07/12/22 15.30hrs had not been corrected.

Also of interest is the fact that a previously listed director of Halo tech group Gary Andrew GRANT appears to be GARRY Andrew GRANT who is shown at Companies house to have a large share-holding in C-B however again note that there is a slightly different spelling of the name so it is possible that they are two different individuals.

One may also speculate why C-B’s website has been updated to remove details of the senior management team and now only lists middle management. Within their website there is a link (icon at bottom of page) to linked-in. Following this takes one eventually to the page of one Lee Henderson who describes himself on his linked-in page as Head of Sales for Halo Tech group September 2017 to September 2022 and from October 2022 as Sales Director of C-B. Companies House does not show he is a director of C-B but does show he was a director of Halo Tech Group from May 2021 to October 2022.

On C-B’s linked-in page it states

(QUOTE) We're Connecting Britain Ltd a telecoms company based in Preston with over 30 years experience within the telecoms industry between our directors. (END QUOTE)

As stated above the sole director of C-B is a Mr Walker with a date of birth of July 1983

On a positive note our phone and internet appear to be working as expected so the technology works but one may wish to ask oneself what reasons a company would have for trying to conceal its previous incarnation and not reveal who is running it?

AVOID AVOID AVOID! SCAM COMPANY.
Everything and I mean EVERYTHING they tell you is utter Bullsh*t whatever you do please dont sign anything! they are run by scam artists employing solicitors to enforce there agenda. The staff are shocking, in particular Sam Dickworth will say anything to get you to sign a financial agreement and then turn nasty when you wish to cancel. Courtcase pending!

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! Do not use their services, the App has been changed 3-4 times and still does not work properly, their handsets always have faults. They are unable to even process a refund! I have been chasing this for nearly 3 years! I have a full email trail!

The date of experience doesn't really reflect how bad this company is, so have a very brief timeline:

November '21 - Order placed with Halo who promise, on email, 30 day turnaround as infrastructure in place

April '22 - Ombudsman case started as they are charging for the service which they still haven't provided, and won't give updates

June'22 - Ombudsman rule in our favour

July '22 - Ombudsman dismiss their appeal as their extra evidence further displayed their mis-selling, and order them to refund fees

November '22 - Fees still not paid, Ombudsman have been told they are likely to fold having moved various things to another company owned by the same person

So in short - a bunch of con men who should be avoided like the plague

Ok a year ago I was convinced by this group to join them after the sales people are very good. The internet for a start goes off at least twice a week. They promised me the total refund of the setting up of the seimens phone of £199 invoices sent for months and still to this day but nothing paid. I left a bad review last year so a polite lady calla one day to say that she is here to sort out problems mm ok, now on to the bribery bit, she said if you take the review down we will pay you the £199 asap lol never did that pament.come that was 4 months ago. No talks to you and pass you from pillar to post. The internet goes off twice a week and I'm loosing business. Shambles and corupt company I have ever delt with. This is why I have put this review back on. When they do not get there own way.they turn your internet off. Seimens and halotech arehe same company. Please do not even consider joining these conning tossers worst nightmare trust me I spend more ye calling them. Can't wait to get out I'm sick of them all. Guy's stay away at all costs read all the reviews, stick with BT or any of the big companies. I'm Phil from hucknall caravans feel free to call.me on our land line if you want to know more.

this is worst company i have dealt with in 20 years of business they will steal your money then use small print to fob you of 'most unhelpful company i have seen

*UPDATE " 7 months on from my last update I have only just this week got my leased line fitted, The Halo Tech Group (they have changed their name to Connecting Britain in an attempt to shake off their negative reviews I can only assume) left me without any broadband for 2 months with no explanation, apology or compensation, and they lied to me for weeks that a line had been fitted in my absence but couldn't prove it and still havent. I have had to run the business from a 4G router at my own cost. We have also been promised a refund of 6 months payments provided I remove this review, which I did, but this is still yet to materialise in our bank 8 months and 100's of chase e-mails and calls later.

*UPDATE* I am still in the same position, no broadband and £240 a month out of pocket and they have now told me to raise a complaint to Ofcom if i dont like what they are telling me, Which is nothing by the way. Just more lies and mismanagement.

*Original*
I was having an awful time with our leased line from BT Business due to a fault at our local exchange, nobody at openreach or BT was able to figure it out for over 4 months and this resulted in us losing our broadband and VOIP system upwards of 3/4 times a day.

Queue Halo's entrance to this scenario....The sales person was professional, confident and persistent. After many calls and revisions to the proposal, I decided that the promised saving of over £300pcm, new hardware, BRAND NEW fibre fitted to our premises and buy out from our current contract was well worth the upheaval.

I WAS VERY VERY WRONG.......we are now paying Halo and BT for the same service with no end in sight other than extra expenditure. they rushed to get the handsets fitted which just divert to and from our BT system which I now see as just a way to get the financial contract in play. My FTTP was due to be fitted by the end of September.....never had any further info on this, after doing some investigation myself our area doesn't even have permission for new fibre to be laid. I approached the original sales person and they just ignored me after one follow up. I have had to do 97% of the work to install the phones and get info from our current provider even though I was told I could sit back and they would do everything for us both onsite and in regards to the port over. I have also been repeatedly spoken to like I work in the telecoms industry when asking for support. Support tickets take over a week to be responded too, even when our phones were down entirely last week I got an e-mail stating a 3 day response under our service level agreement. Even when you ask for a call they e-mail you an answer in industry language that you then need to ask for clarity on and wait another week.

Their customer experience manager talked a good talk once I originally lodged a concern of being mis sold the system and new connection, just like the sales person did, unfortunately, he has failed to manage our experience and I have now lost faith completely. I will spare you my review of their 'Service Manager'......but one thing i will say is, and taking into consideration i am not from a telecoms background, i knew more about the hardware after reading the first page of the included manual than he did and just a little tip, when a customer raises a valid complaint, apologise, don't try and flip it back and fabricate a situation to be the customers fault.

On a final note, Its all good and well moving to a fancy new office but it seems your appearance is far more important than your customers experience. (they blame everything on the new office move by the way)

I welcome a response whenever the team can be bothered seeing as i have so far been waiting 2 weeks for this follow up, much longer than the 3 days promised everytime.

Probably the worst telecoms company I've ever dealt with. Impossible to reach for customer service and support. no responses from email queries, and all lines just ring and ring. Like there is no one working there?
Shame as the technology can work, but the setup and configuration dreadfully managed and not well supported. If you are looking for a reliable service.. you're gonna have to avoid Halo tech. Just not doing a great job.

Hirtik was very helpful and went the extra mile to answer additional questions.

Customer of Halo since 2019. This review contains incidents encountered over the last six months.

Service centre:

1) It is often the case that calls are closed without anyone getting in touch. When you write an email to find out what is going on, you get a reply that the call is now closed. Then you open another call asking them to fix the problem from the previous call; they close it again. Without telling you, they are doing it or even doing any work on the call. It is closed.

2) Information they provide is either unreliable or vague. For example, you ask them a question, and the answer is four weeks the first time and an indefinite future the next time.

3) Their published service standards are a joke. In my experience, nothing is resolved in the timescales quoted there. I suppose they make up the numbers by closing random calls without doing the work.

4) I read some of the responses here to what other people say about their services, and they are disingenuous.
"Customer service is at the forefront" - yeah, right as if.
"We always aim to deliver a great experience" - this is a joke.

Sales:
A) They genuinely do not care what you want or need. They push not needed services on you to make a commission. I find it useless to even speak to them. They do not mention the serious drawbacks of the solutions they offer.

For example, they said my phones needed to be upgraded, so first, they tried to push them on me with a new five years contract extension. I did not go for it. A month later, they called me saying they needed to upgrade my phones, this time for free. New phones are better, and there is more functionality. So I say fine. Sadly new phones are on a new system which is not ready yet, and all incoming calls show your own number calling you NOT the customer. If you have missed calls, you do not know what number to call back because it only shows your own number. After numerous service calls closed, opened and closed again, you find out that you do indeed can find out who called you by logging into the system to which you have no access. After a month of this nightmare, you find out that, hey yeah there is a workaround, and you can get incoming calls shown on your phone after all. Sadly the workaround only works on one of the three numbers I have! So if someone calls any of the other numbers, you still do not know who called you.

Edited 26 September 2022:
Following the response received below, I sent an email to the address provided. I will provide further updates if any change or response comes.
Edited 07 October 2022:
No change. Still waiting for contact or resolution.

Avoid this company. They do not provide the service they offer and charge for and left us without internet or phones for a considerable amount of time resulting in us having to get our IT provider to rectify the problem so that we could run our business.
Having cancelled the internet with Halo because it wasn't working we received an invoice for £1,742.00 because of the cancellation. We disputed the invoice and asked for justification of such a ridiculous figure but have today noticed they have taken the money from our bank account.