Talk Talk landline Fault Fiasco

ropa

Hello!
I have a Talk Talk contract and my landline & broadband connection with them has been down for nearly 3 weeks now and still counting.
This is despite repeated calls to their call centre in India (which takes ages to get through to), customer services, texts, e mails etc.
They keep asking me to test my phone equipment, say that an engineer is going to be called, I am a priority etc etc but STILL I have no appointment with an engineer who will actually come round and fix the problem.
Also as a last straw they keep threatening me with a charge of £140 + if it turns out it is a fault within my property. (Although how should I know exactly what is causing the problem???...I am not an engineer!)
I am absolutely exasperated and cannot believe that telecommunications in this country has come to this (what if I was elderly, vulnerable, or disabled?)

I have now in an act of final desperation applied to transfer back to BT. This is despite the fact I am still within my contract window and may have to pay Talk Talk a penalty to leave (Although as I feel they have broken their contract with me, I do not believe I should be liable to pay them a penny)

Has anyone else had this sort of trouble with Talk Talk???
I cannot believe that any telephone sevice provider can allow their customers to be left without a service for so long???

Regards,
Robert Parker

utilitybroker

You might get some help on http://www.talktalkmembers.com/

theoriginalsparky

Also try here first to make sure you wont be charged
http://www.telephonewiringservices.co.uk
try the help page and broadband page

Incisor

theoriginalsparky wrote: »

Also try here first to make sure you wont be charged
http://www.telephonewiringservices.co.uk
try the help page and broadband page

Spam thanked in error.

Ebe_Scrooge

Yes, I've experienced exactly the same thing with TalkTalk. I have never had the misfortune to deal with a company that has got quite such an appalling customer service department. How they manage to retain any customers is beyond me !

Anyhow, enough ranting. To cut a very, very long story short, I had a similar scenario as yourself, where first the landline then the broadband were down for days at a time, they seemed to alternate each week. Basically after literally dozens of phone calls to no avail, I told them to stuff their contract and swapped to another supplier. I cancelled the direct debit, then sure enough received a letter saying I had to pay the remainder of my contract or else they'd pass my case on to a debt collection agency. I rang up, told them to check the numerous notes on my account regarding the problems, which they had failed to correct. I said they were in fact in breach of their contract, and I would not be paying them another penny, and if they wanted to take me to court I'd be more than happy. I never heard anything else from them. Oh, apart from a letter a few weeks later along the lines of "We're sorry you left us, please come back and we'll offer you a fantastic deal". I nearly split my sides laughing.

Don't get me wrong, when everything's working OK their prices are probably the best out there. But if you get any problems and need the help of customer services, they are worse than useless. I'm happy paying a bit more now, knowing I can actually get to talk to someone who will sort the problem out.

cassandra365

Hi all, have read the posts, i wrote to talktalk 18 days ago. a very strong letter detailing numerous complaints, (no service, being cut off twice,etc.) I gave them 10 days and have had no response yet. Will take this further as so unhappy with lack of service from them. Was thinking of ringing and asking for a name to complain to, also told them i will be contacting ofcom. Will this do any good, and what do i do for the best? I also told them (as i am in a contract) that i felt they hadn't honoured their side of the contract to provide the service stated. thanks in anticipation.

cassandra365

Rob, you must be so frustrated! I've been cut off twice through no fault of my own, but only for 2 or 3 days. they also managed to f*** up my broadband connections, i spent almost an hour on the phone to a guy in India who kept giving me instructions, codes and numbers for my router that i couldn't understand because of his accent, (not his fault, but extremely frustrating). The worst was the first time they cut me off, after reconnection they'd somehow messed up the 1571 message service. This meant that i didn't receive an important message from my vet. I could have saved my poorly cat 3 days of suffering if I'd received this message. I know this will mean nothing to them but it's personal now. Will be interested to know how you get on, will tell you what response, if any, i get from them.

cassandra365

Rob just thought I'd let you know, received an answerphone message yesterday and a letter this morning. Apparently talktalk have tried to contact me at home a couple of times, (during the day when I'm at work usually!) Because they couldn't speak to me they are closing the complaint! They've given me the customer services number, email and postal address should i wish to discuss the issue further, UNBELIEVABLE! The guy who wrote is Justin Card from the CEO's office if you need to write to them.
He will be getting another very strong letter from me in the next few days!!
Hope you have better luck, will let you know.:mad:

ropa

Well reading through this it all seems very familar. When I have phoned Talk Talk, I have been told they have tried to contact me on various occasions when I know they have not.
Basically when I contact their customer services I feel like I am talking to a brick wall....whatever they say, they do not do.
I am seriously beginning to wonder if they have any engineers, or if perhaps they are deliberatly trying to loose customers?!
I have dealt with bad customer service call centres before, but Talk Talk take things to a new level. They are UNBELIEVABLE!
Anyway to cut a long story short, I am still (after nearly a month!) without a phone service. So I have cancled my direct debit to them and am in the process of switching back to BT.
Right now I do not care about broadband.....I will worry about that later...I just want to be able to use my telephone!
I actually find it quite frightening that we now live in a country now where people can be left without a phone service for so long. What if I was old, disabled or vulnerable??
Anyway I am going to write to my MP about this, because clearly there is something not working with this countries telecommunications policy. I never thought I'd say it but things were much better when BT had a monopoly.

Paula_Webster

I have been reading the postings regarding the problems people are having with TalkTalk and wanted to add our saga to the list. We signed up in August 2008 with a "go-live" date of 10 September. After 3 weeks with no telephone line and having spoken to India more than 6 times using our mobile phones (and not getting through on numerous occasions), we gave up and cancelled our contract. However, 3 months on and we are STILL receiving invoices for advanced services and a £70 contract breakage charge! We have spent hours contacting their customer service line trying to sort this out and have been told on numerous occasions the matter was sorted. However, last week we received a letter from their Debt Collectors. We are ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS and we have never dealt with such an incompetent company EVER. It has caused us endless stress and frustration and now we have the added worry of the debt collector. As a last desperate act, we contacted Consumer Direct who have advised us to write to their complaints department stating that they have breached their contract with us and we should not have to pay anything. Signing up with TalkTalk was one of the worst things we have ever done and we would advise anyone to avoid them at all costs.

glowplug

We had the exact same issue. The problem was that everytime to spoke to BT they said, your line is with us but your broadband isnt, so you need to speak to talk talk. Talk talk on the other hand said we cant find a fault it must be a fault on your line. In the end we got so sick of all the calls and messing about that we called an independent (http://www.landlineman.com ) who found the fault and fixed it same day. After this we decided to go back to BT as its easier when there is a fault to get it fixed and the £5 a month we were saving by being with talk talk wasnt worth the rubbish customer service or loss of service!