Help! Talk Talk Cancellation Fee

[petethesteam]

I have been with Talk Talk for less than 18 months but do have an 18 month contract (apparently). I am in the process of changing to Sky, with a talk, broadband and sky tv package. Talk Talk are talking about a £70fee for cancelling the contract. I only have TT for the home phone, by broadband is currently with BT and we only have a freeview box at the mo! Is there any way of getting out of this cancellation fee, it sounds quite high? And I don't suppose that Sky will absorb this fee?

[mcjordi]

they cant stop the transfer anyway as bt own the line (bt's own words)

[macman]

The early termination fee will be the equivalent of what you would have paid had the contract run it's full minimum term. i.e. £x for x months. You agreed an 18m contract, so that is what they will hold you to.

[Ypaymore]

Surely you cant have BT Broadband without a BT line. Is it just your calls that you moved to Talk Talk,or do you pay Talk Talk for your line rental.

[petethesteam]

Originally Posted by Ypaymore

Surely you cant have BT Broadband without a BT line. Is it just your calls that you moved to Talk Talk,or do you pay Talk Talk for your line rental.

i have a bt line, TT currently handle the phone only. i am switching to everything with Sky

[Ypaymore]

Originally Posted by petethesteam

i have a bt line, TT currently handle the phone only. i am switching to everything with Sky

So are you saying your line rental is paid to BT,and you pay Talk Talk for the calls.

I ask because i was not aware that talk talk calls only deals carried an 18 month contract term.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/products/p...no-line-rental

[petethesteam]

Originally Posted by Ypaymore

So are you saying your line rental is paid to BT,and you pay Talk Talk for the calls.

I ask because i was not aware that talk talk calls only deals carried an 18 month contract term.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/products/p...no-line-rental

All I know is that I still have a BT line as I still receive BT broadband, so it must be calls only, and we were told when they called to try retain our custon that as we had cancelled the contract whcih she stated was 18 months, can they charge £70. I know that TT can be difficult by putting blocks on lines, which this time Sky have had removed.

[Heinz]

Originally Posted by Ypaymore

I ask because i was not aware that talk talk calls only deals carried an 18 month contract term.

But that possibility is yet another reason why they won't ever be getting my business!

[Mr.Bowes]

Hello,
I have just contacted TalkTalk to cancel my subscription. I am in the process of moving house and rang up last month to ask to move my phone and broadband to my new address. Apparently there is limited capacity at this address and this would mean me commencing another 18 month contract and paying £15 extra a month for the privilege. I informed them that I wished to cancel and they passed me on to the retentions team. They informed me that the line would probably be improved by December and if I wished to proceed then they would credit my account with £45 until the improvements were made in December. If this was not complete by then, they would look at offering me something else. They also informed me that should I wish to decline this offer then I had the right to cancel with no cancellation fee (bearing in mind that I was 12 months into an 18 month contract). I have just got off the phone with a 'snotty to say the least' operator who "could not understand why I was cancelling". After 10 minutes of trying to explain that I did not wish to start another contract she informed me that I would be liable for the cancellation fee and that her colleague shouldnt go around saying that it would be waivered!

I now await my bill trough the post. I intend to pay my outstanding bill but will not be paying this cancellation fee. I may have considered re-joining TalkTalk in the future had they not been so rude. I have the email that was sent to me informing me that I didnt have to pay the cancellation fee but Im not sure whether this is worth the electronic paper it is written on.

[Heinz]

Originally Posted by Mr.Bowes

I now await my bill trough the post. I intend to pay my outstanding bill but will not be paying this cancellation fee. I may have considered re-joining TalkTalk in the future had they not been so rude. I have the email that was sent to me informing me that I didnt have to pay the cancellation fee but Im not sure whether this is worth the electronic paper it is written on.

I think a County Court judge would be impressed by it if Talk Talk are stupid enough to take it that far.

No, they are. Make then when .....

[TalkTalk Company Representative]

HI All,

If a customer has written confirmation that a contract breakage fee will not be paid then this should not be applied to the account. In the event this is applied in error this should be cleared from the account with a credit.

Regards

Mark

[ipswich448]

If a customer has written confirmation that a contract breakage fee will to be paid then this should not be applied to the account.

Can we have that in English Mark?

TT featured in tonight’s Watchdog on BBC1,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2010/09/talk_talk.html

Mr Bowes, you might like to try the e-mail hotline to head office that will be posted on BBC Watchdog site.

[Gazdok]

We have been with TalkTalk for more than 3 years.
We came to them lead by probably overambitious promises of free BB.

Initially they sent a BB modem - cost us £30 - which apparently was compatible with my OS at the time... Of course it was not compatible. I could not return the modem but did not get BB either.

This summer I told TT I would leave unless I got BB free as promised 3 years ago and for the first time a very helpful guy said he would arrange everything.
This was followed by the correct paperwork and then by a phonecall saying "No we cannot offer you free BB ... useless Exchange.." ....
So everything was reversed or so I thought.

Last month we decided to go to SKY.

Today I received an email alerting me to our last TT bill.
It showed a "Contract Breakage Fee" of £96.53.

Unfortunately I was unable to contact anyone tonight. I have a feeling there is some more trouble coming TT's way unless this is waived immediately.

Any suggestions from the forum???

[Heinz]

Gazdok, put everyting in writing (keep copies). You will probably need evidence when they set the debt collectors on you and you have to start fighting.

Do not contact them by telephone, verbal "your account is clear" and similar assurances are useless.

[DVardysShadow]

Originally Posted by Heinz

Gazdok, put everyting in writing (keep copies). You will probably need evidence when they set the debt collectors on you and you have to start fighting.

Do not contact them by telephone, verbal "your account is clear" and similar assurances are useless.

Fully agree. But your chances of getting anything in writing from a useless outfit are nil. So when you get some kind of verbal promise, you need to put it in writing yourself and tell them that you are holding them to it unless they retract in writing within 14 days.

[vito113]

Originally Posted by TalkTalk Company Representative

HI All,

If a customer has written confirmation that a contract breakage fee will to be paid then this should not be applied to the account. In the event this is applied in error this should be cleared from the account with a credit.

Regards

Merk

Ha!!!! You;re reps are always promising people the moon on a stick when you ring them, try getting ANYTHING in writing though! I rang 3 TIMES asking for the T&C's for a new contract, and guess what? When the cooling off period had expired, still no T&C's… and 'No Sir, you're stuck with us for 18 months now so suck it up or pay a huge termination fee!' Nothing but a bloody racket!

[madassmax]

I cancelled November last year because i had an ongoing problem with the broadband being either slow or just not connecting at all. After numerous calls over a period of 6 months, waiting in for an engineer all day who didn't turn up and trying different hardware i had had enough and signed up to Virgin.
Talk Talk have since sent me a bill for canceling during contract for £56. I've called them and told them i will not be paying this as they were not providing me with the service i was paying for therefore in my eyes i have good reason for going elsewhere.
Interestingly i was in the same position with them 5 or 6 years ago and they waivered the fee at that time. This time they appear to be sticking to their guns and the last customer service advisor i spoke to seemed to think i had not given them sufficient time to rectify the problem (6 months?), i asked for a manager there wasn't one available so i asked for one to call me back. That was the 24th Decemeber 2010 and i'm still waiting.
Has anyone else canceled due to technical faults on the line and had to pay a cancelation fee?

[macman]

This would rather depend on whether the fault was on your wiring/equipment or on the line itself. TT are not responsible for the former.

[Heinz]

Originally Posted by madassmax

This time they appear to be sticking to their guns and the last customer service advisor i spoke to seemed to think i had not given them sufficient time to rectify the problem (6 months?), i asked for a manager there wasn't one available so i asked for one to call me back. That was the 24th Decemeber 2010 and i'm still waiting.

And, without doubt, you will continue to do so.

[madassmax]

Originally Posted by macman

This would rather depend on whether the fault was on your wiring/equipment or on the line itself. TT are not responsible for the former.

Hmm...this was never established, as i said i had a TT engineeer booked which was going to cost me £30, stayed in all day and he never showed up, when i called TT later that day they said that it hadn't been booked at there end promissed to ring back within an hour to re-arrange and never did. It was at this point i lost my temper and booked Virgin to come out.

The TT line was connected directley into the test socket on the wall (took the face plate off on TT's advice), there were no extensions being used on the cable from the socket to the router and both router, microfilter and all cables were replaced with new items 3 times and the fault still existed. When virgin fitted their router the computer worked fine so there was no fault with that, so unless i had 3 lots of faulty microfilters, routers, etc, it would suggest the fault laid outside the building. The service had been fine for around 12 months prior to this so there was a definite fault somewhere.

I have friends that live locally who also have problems with connections dropping, i think it's a simple case of too many people trying to connect to the same line at one time and it boots people off.

I am assuming that this will be passed onto a debt collection agency at some point, can i still make the same argument then given that it was'nt the debt collection agency who supplied the service in the first place?

I will go to court with this if i have to, surely if you are not recieving the service you are paying for you are within your rights to change that service providor without a penalty?