Little Cayman residents livid over terrible Flow service
(CNS): Over 60% of the people who live on Little Cayman have filed a formal complaint to OfReg about what they say is the appallingly bad telecommunications service from Flow they have received for as far back as 15 years. The regulator said 95 residents and business owners had contacted the office, and within days OfReg opened an investigation and met with a large number of the residents at a public meeting on the island to hear their concerns.
The Little Cayman residents listed a catalogue of concerns about their mobile, home and business internet service, which they described as poor and sometimes non-existent, even impacting their ability to make emergency calls, all of which have persisted for the last 10 to 15 years.
The complaints ranged from the lack of responsive customer care and complaint management service to store clerks having to stand outside the shops where they work to pick up a signal so their card payment machines will work.
Despite the terrible service, customers are still required to pay in full for, in some cases, no service provision at all, including landlines that are not attached to phones, and no compensation has ever been offered. Residents said that unsightly and unsafe fallen or extremely low-hanging Flow cables have been left all over the Island. While routine maintenance calls are made once a week, those workers don’t take complaints and nothing has improved.
OfReg said it met with Flow personnel, who said delays in upgrading technology and equipment were contributing to some of the quality of service issues. Following the meeting, as the investigation continues, OfReg has said it wants Flow to identify and implement a temporary fix before a permanent and scalable solution is then rolled out to prevent re-occurrence. It also said the company should provide a plan for compensating consumers.
Executive Director for telecommunications at OfReg, Sonji Myles, said the regulator will intervene when consumers are subjected to poor service, especially for a prolonged period. “Consumers must be provided with the level of service that they have contracted for, regardless of whether they are in Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac or Little Cayman,” he said.
Meanwhile, the new OfReg Consumer Council, which has been briefed on the Little Cayman complaints, is also considering how the situation can be improved and will be making recommendations.
“It’s very sad and unfortunate that the good people of Little Cayman have had to endure such sub-standard service from one of OfReg’s regulated service providers,” said Consumer Council Chairperson George Ebanks. He said the council takes a dim view of this type of behaviour and poor service and was actively organising itself to adequately deal with complaints.
One possible solutions under consideration is to require service providers to have a dedicated email to receive complaints and automatically forward them to the council for quick monitoring and cross-communication.
“The main objective being to increase pressure on the islands’ service providers to resolve customers complaints as quickly as possible,” Ebanks told CNS. “The Little Cayman complaint, which was submitted by 95 Island residents, out of a total resident population of 150 (or 63%) is also indicative of the current weak and lacking regulatory presence available to consumers in the Cayman Islands. This will be strengthened,” he promised.
OfReg CEO Peter Gough said there was no reason that Little Cayman residents should be subjected to poor service. “OfReg is committed to providing relief to the residents of Little Cayman as quickly as possible and we thank them for coming to us with their concerns as it is through this mechanism that we can better address the issues being experienced by consumers,” he added
Any determination or directive to Flow will be issued following the investigation, officials from the regulator noted in a press release.
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Sadly the Little Cayman residents can only join the club. As these comments note, FLOW has the worst service, regularly overbills, and isn’t held accountable to or by anyone. My complaints to OfReg have resulted in only crickets.
You judge a man or woman how she or he keeps his or her house look at these companies cellular sites and that should tell you how much both companies run their companies or service to customers.
Flow and Dutty cell don’t give a rat’s @$$ about Cayman or its Citizens only here for the premium prices we pay which basically supports the rest of their infrastructure in the rest of Caribbean We small but we pay what ever scam they charge us for. They cannot get away with this anywhere else. Flow has a leg up here because of its legacy here and its employee and ex employee network which is well entrench and loyal in our private and Government sectors. Which has always been their strategy even their competitors are sprinkle with them their monopoly in the Caribbean is very strong and they depend on that . Their shareholders in the motherland ain’t too shabby or shy either when it come to their financial returns and influence in this post colonial era.The others are just Pirates trying to plunder the same financial Hubs Flow still controls. The Achilles heal is their infrastructure is crumbling because of technology and they will not repair it and thereby becoming obsolete but still fleecing us until the very end ..
last november flow did the same thing in midland acres, take all the cable lunes and lay on the ground,and today still there.I do hope government put them out of business and give flow awatd for the worst service.
It’s terrible down here too. They are in competition with Logic to see which one is worse.
Can someone explain why after all these years OfReg has never fined or suspended any of these entities for poor service or complaints that prove true?
I’ll vote for that! Has anyone working for Flow ever been tested for having a brain?
H-m-m-m-m. Two questions: When do the people of the Cayman Islands wake up and see that OfReg isn’t what they say they are. It seems the only thing they ever take care of is enriching themselves!
I dont have any issues with flow taking money from my a count, bang on every month, never fails its unbelievable. As for the consistent wifi they are legally obliged to supply to me? Well it sucks a lot but no one will do anything as standard laws are not applied here it seems
Flow or whatever they’re called this year are such a rip off. My flow sim costs $80 a month for 3GB and 100 minutes my Vodafone UK Sim gets unlimited minutes and 5GB for $15. WTF are offreg doing? Seriously between these clown and digicel there is blatant price gouging.
I am 100% certain that C&W / Flow / LILA are deliberately holding back service as part of a wider corporate strategy to keep investors with positive growth.
It would take BT OpenReach about a month to wire all 3 islands up with wholesale Fibre to the premise (or end of the road at least) to resell to Digicel, Logic, Flow etc.
Flow choose not to provide quality services to all 3 islands in an adequate time frame not for financial reasons, but because they will then have to compete on service and price alone – and they know they can’t.
The moment the playing field is even Flow are done for, C&W and LILA will be breathing down the necks of the leadership in Cayman wondering where the growth will come from – the joys of being bought by a faceless, parasite of a company like LILA – so the leadership at Flow choose NOT to conquer, but to keep their cards close to avoid getting put out of a job on an individual level.
CIG should take ownership of the Fibre network and then resell it to ISPs on Island to ensure vital, critical infrastructure for the future and to provide fair competition for the consumers and businesses that keep them in their stupid suits and fancy houses.
FLOW is the worst company that I have ever encountered. Their customer service is nonexistent. I would switch to another provider, but I’m told the competition is equally useless.
OfReg please do your damn job and sort them out!
Sign up for Starlink, available in the Cayman Islands soon.
Until Chuckle’s goons put a stop to it. Depending on who you is and for you’ll still be able to sneak it in under the table for a little favour though😉
Given that Russia can’t stop Ukraine using Starlink it’s hard to see how the worse than useless Offreg will!
Starlink is incredibly expensive as we found out in Canadian rural areas.
Great for financial services firms though. They have the money.
Get a satellite phone.
For the same price as my local sim I could get a UK, unlimited global sim. How is that even remotely possible? Unfortunately then all I have is a UK number. Flow, digicel, logic are a disgrace. Why the government doesn’t own the infrastructure and lease it to local companies is just insane. Right now we’re paying for 2-3 lots of infrastructure, how dumb can we be?
How long until Starlink is available on Little Cayman/The Brac? What is the delay?
Starlink would inject much needed competition into the marketplace.
Starlink website says service will be available in Cayman in the 2nd quarter of this year.
Without notice, Digicel canceled and reassigned two of our postpaid numbers on a fully paid up household account of four lines. Only too happy to sell us all new lesser plans though!
There are no licensed communication providers that can deliver true contemporary 5G speeds or even functional voicemail. Some of them still operating 2 and 3G frequencies re-labeled at tower as “LTE”. All their consumers are treated like delinquent accounts 0:00:01 past payment date, even when provider fails to deliver a bill. Still no consumer agency looking out for the rights of consumers. Screwed every which way. Port number to where?!?
My switch to logic is the best move I have ever made!
Arrived back to Cayman on a Saturday afternoon to an internet issue, and somebody IN CAYMAN answer the call at the Logic call center and rectified my issue in minutes!
Another rip off!
FLOW= Following LIME Old Ways. Was so much better when it was just simply C&W.
I find the Flow internet service on Grand to be good, but their customer service is absolutely horrible.
Without fail if you call their customer service number someone is going to transfer you to someone else. I actually had an instance where one of their agents said they had to transfer me to one of their colleagues in another department and she was the one who picked up again lol.
FLOW’s customer service has been bad ever since it moved to Jamaica. Another thing Caynanians get blamed for when actually it’s not us at all.
It is time to bring another internet company like Starlink. Flow sucks…I am with logic.
Starlink coming very soon !
What about grand cayman. Service is horrible here as well. We are certainly not getting value for money to say the least.
not just horrible service but 600-700% more expensive than comparable onshore cell and fiber plans.
Same appalling situation in The Brac.
That is awful for the residents of Little Cayman. But I hope that OfReg looks into the complaints on all three islands as well. Flow has the worst customer service. To me it is non-existent. My internet is with Logic and when we cancelled our Flow service they made it so difficult. My husband literally said I want to speak to a manager and she kept saying there is no manager. How could they not have a proper escalation. We had to go into the building to show our ID. When I cancelled Logic at the particular service address I just had to call and cancel, no big dramas. I only have my phone with them and the only reason I don’t have a complaint about the phone is that I leave my phone on airplane mode the whole time I am ever away, because I have heard horror stories about people have $1000 bills for roaming services.
Please OfReg look into the whole business.
Flow is just as bad in the Brac. Shame as the staff are wonderful people but can do nothing with horrible leadership above
Starlink is a solution. Already in Jam.
Little Cayman?? FLOW is SHITE in Grand Cayman and Brac!
FLOW surely has the worst customer service of any entity operating in Cayman, followed by Scotia and then CIG!
Hope OfReg does something positive and noticeable!
Same is true — although to a lesser extent — on the Brac.
But wait! There is hope! When the fibre optic upgrade is complete, we can look forward to higher prices for less service!
Winnnning!
Livid both providers are crap and major issues at their sites it’s disgrace what they are getting away with and charging us premium prices . All they do is blame others for their issues .One provider owes so many people including contractors money and simply won’t pay their outstanding bills. Ofreg does absolutely nothing because of the old boy Network alive and well .
And what has their local political rep, JuJu, done to help them over all these years?
NADA.
But they still re-elect her every election.
11:01am, Mr Moses K is the M P Rep. for Brac West and Little. What has he ever done ?
So why doesn’t he get off his ass and do something for his constituents?
He gets paid a big salary and does nothing.
It is too bad that the Board Chairman, Mr Rudy Ebanks, became ill. He was going to make a real difference and we should all pray for his recovery.
I’m excited to see all the comments on this.
FLOW has to have THE WORST customer service that has ever existed. I’m surprised that they still manage to keep any customers and that any new arrivals would contemplate signing up with them given ALL the negative comments that are on social media. FLOW really should be ashamed and embarrassed and anyone that works for them should also be embarrassed. I made the switch to Logic as a test and now am ready to fully commit to them with the remainder of the telecommunications that I need for my family.
No man, all you hav fi do is call flow dem… if the phone is answered it will be a school leaver in Jamaica who will read from their script. “ sorry we don’t meet your Hexpektations.”
Then it will be passed on to someone who promises to deal with the problem, then….nothing will happen.
Logic is good for internet service although they keep increasing their prices every year. With phone service there is no hope because Digicel and FLOW are both horrendous but when it comes to horrible customer service FLOW takes that award. They simply do not care and will have you chasing them up to do their work. Ridiculous what they get away with and I just wish the company went bankrupt or something.
In the process of doing the same for my family and multiple businesses. Flow can go fluk themselves…
Once the new sub-sea cable is here we’ll have some more competition that will hopefully squeeze Flow out of the market or force them to overhaul their entire offering. This is what happens when you have a monopoly.
Flow is terrible, Lime was bad and it remains C&W behind the scenes and is rotten to the core.
They still haven’t adequately addressed the false roaming data charges some people randomly get on their bills.
Because a lot of people don’t read their bill closely and they get away with it. OfReg should be fining them every time this happens. Cable & Wireless have taken the money out of our pockets but hardly give anything in return.
Not to mention the incorrect bills I receive on the regular.
The Little Cayman situation sounds abysmal but the situation with OfDreg & the newly appointed council sounds even worse, – one to hold the notepad, the other to tell him/her they’re holding it 🤦🏽♀️