The monthly sums were piddling enough for me not to notice that they were never debited (in any case, I had subscriptions to three ISPs at the time, so my statements were showing plenty of ISP-related standing order activity), so it was only when I was cut off that I realised what had been going on.

It got worse – although I paid the outstanding balance immediately, they took six weeks and umpteen phone calls to reconnect me. As a result, I refused to pay for the six-week period of inactivity (not least because it was their own incompetence that had led to the disconnection in the first place), which led to an epic stalemate that was only resolved six months later with a suitably grovelling apology from them. I accepted it, on the understanding that if they screwed up again, I’d close the account immediately… and was forced to carry out my threat about three or four months later.

By contrast, my other two ISPs have been immaculately behaved. Mind you, so was this one until they got taken over, so there’s no way of knowing in advance! (Just to answer your last question, for ADSL purposes I use Demon – but largely because they’re Mac-friendly, not because they have a particularly outstanding reputation, though in all fairness I should say I’ve never had any problems with them).