Talk Talk Complaints

hanxiansheng

I don't feel comfortable with Talk Talk very much, either

davemack_2

I'm thoroughly fed up with Tiscali/TalkTalk. I was persuaded (as a long-standing Tiscali customer) to take on the TV service last year. The written documentation did not match the verbal contract I'd undertaken, and since then -- despite trying within the 30-day 'cooling off' period to get them to correct the error -- I've been trying to get them to honour the contract. Each month seems to attract a different DD charge. I've had some reimbursement, but with no explanation or documentation, but at no time has the DD amount ever matched the original agreement. I've tried repeatedly to get customer support to deal with this, and despite repeated promises nothing has ever satisfactorily been resolved. Knowing that I'm coming up to the end of my contract (unless the ****ards try to dispute that and claim it was an 18-monther), I've written to the customer complaints team and requested a MAC. So far not a peep from them. It feels like the Hotel California: you can check in, but you can never leave. Oh, and by the way, in the last month the TV service has deteriorated (I'm guessing this is not unrelated to work they recently told me they'd carried out at the local exchange), and my download speeds have decreased.

helsbels2002

Hi,

I'm completely new to this so even sure I'm writing on the right bit!!

I used to have a broadband account with Tiscali from June 2006 and moved property in March 2007, transferring this account (I have the letter of proof). I continued to use Tiscali for a further year until I gave the 30 days required notice to leave, to ironically to move to Talk Talk.

I went six months over my contract, never missed a direct debit but am now being hounded by SRJ Debt Recoveries for money owed on the first property. I have called this hopeless company, sent them letters and proof but am now being threatened by court action.

I will be seeking legal advice, but feel I may just let them waste money on taking me to court as I am finding it all very frustrating!

Any ideas on how to resolve this???

Helen

NeverEnough

Who is claiming you owe money? The ex-Tiscali part of TalkTalk ?
Send an email to the email address given on the Watchdog website, and also post a letter via recorded delivery to the Tiscali complaints team - keep a copy of everything and a note of the date, after 8 weeks escalate your complaint to OTELO. Don't bother to phone Tiscali/Talktalk, they are complete rubbish and no-one will do anything to help, it will just be a very frustrating and timewasting experience.

If you DO get Court papers, be sure to act on them and respond in good time to the Court, denying that you owe TiscaliTalkTalk anything. If you contest the claim, they will have to attend Court to prove it ultimately, which invariably, they won't do. You could even file a counter-claim for the waste of expense they have caused you (phone calls to premium rate numbers, letters etc)
Get copies of all your payments, letters confirming your move etc, into order so you can hit them with it when the time comes.

If you send the letter / email as above to TalkTalk /Tiscali, then it is likely that the court action will be discontinued. Keep an eye on your credit report as well, though, as some rubbish agency may file a default and damage you and you need to contest this. Good Luck. They are a bunch of cavalier idiots.

ipswich448

Helsbels – I have written this on this thread before, but I don’t blame anyone for not reading the whole thread! As you say in your posting, you don’t owe TiTTs any money, so why waste your time with them?

TiTTs sell their ‘debts’ to SRJ, also known as Fredrickson International, also known as low life scum. These companies threaten to take you to court, affect your credit rating, take your children and sell them into slavery etc etc. In reality they are just bully boys, and like all bullies if you ignore them, they will go away (your mum was right!).

DO NOT CONTACT THEM! Don’t phone, don’t write, this only encourages them to harass you even more. They will not take you to court, this costs money, and they know that in most cases they will lose, clearly in your case they will. They are more than happy to take money from the 90% of people they frighten into paying up.

I used to get the letters/calls etc just as you did, they have now crawled back under the stone whence they came, because I ignored them. I have lost count of the number of letters telling me that this was my final warning, and that they would take me to court if I didn’t pay....I’m still waiting!

dini_2

Following on from my complaint, I got this letter from Sean Kelly.
(Who is taking the time to reply to me, and has tried to call me a few times, so however rubbish the service has been prior to this, he is certainly trying to help me.)

Dear xxxx

I have looked at your account and can see that there were a number of credits applied to your account totalling £204.72

From what I can see this is correct please can you let me know if you agree with this or not.

There is an amount that is still showing as outstanding of £9.56

Yours sincerely

Sean Kelly

I replied with this:

I agree that there have been credits to my account.
What I disagree with is that it is the correct amount.

I will try to explain (again).

I changed to Broadband with Tiscali in June 2007.
I also changed banks and set us a new direct debit. I did it online, and Tiscali sent the details to my bank so all was set up ok.
However Tiscali requested the DD from the old account, didn’t get paid, (as it was closed) and cancelled my broadband for 24hours for non payment.
I phoned up and eventually got it sorted out, and was upgraded to broadband with free line rental, to stop me leaving.

Unfortunately the free line rental was never added to my account, (I do not know why, but apparently this was not possible to do) After many many phone calls and emails, I finally received this email:
06/12/2007 12.27 PM

Dear Ms Niland,
Thank you for contacting Tiscali Customer Support.
I am writing to confirm that you cannot receive our Free Line Rental package, however , we will be crediting your account every month to prevent you from being billed for any Line Rental fees.
Kind regards,
xxxxx xxxxxxxxx
(See what that is: An agreement from Tiscali to credit my account every month -with no time limit on it—a written contract)

In any case this never happened and in March 2008 or so after numerous emails and phone calls I finally got a cheque to cover a year’s period of line rental and an written apology from xxxxx xxxxxxx in Tiscali High Level Complaints.
So I plodded on until earlier this year, and I realised that I was well over due a credit for my line rental. I attempted to sort it out then, but was given the brush off by a customer service agent called xxxx xxxxxx.
Remembering how long I had to fight for the previous refund, and frankly being weary of being given the run around, I decided to leave. (I presume this is part of the Talk Talk customer service practice, just tie the customer up in knots, and eventually they will give up)

On July 26th, my broadband was seamlessly transferred to SKY. I continued to receive bills from TalkTalk (Why am I telling you this again?)

On the 29th of September after many emails to Talktalk (of which you have copies) one of your Customer service agents xxxxx xxxxx emailed me:

Thank you for forwarding the copy of your invoice from Sky, I have escalated a request to our Finance team for the outstanding balance of £10.99 to be cleared from your account, this is for September invoice, and also a refund of £28.98 to be issued for payment received for Augusts invoice excluding calls, as they were made in July.
Please allow 72 hours for our Finance team to investigate and if approved your refund will be processed within 5 working days.
I can confirm the full cancellation of your account is currently still being worked on. To confirm again your reference number is UKHD00003812118.

So Finance apparently investigated and deemed me worthy of a refund. I received this on the 11th October. Followed by another bill.
I don’t know why I seem to have an outstanding amount of £9.56 –as my account was to be cleared –and apparently the finance team approved my refund as I had overpaid.

(I appear to have a fee on the last bill for a returned payment. Not my fault .....TalkTalk insisted that my account was closed on a few separate occasions.)

So August 2007 to July 2008 = 47 months of service.
48 x line rental of £10.99 = £516.53
527.52-£204.72 (already credited) = £311.81

There was so much messing around with my account, I can’t tell where the credits came from except for the approx 12 months line rental issued by cheque from xxxxx xxxxx.

So I am owed £311.81 from Tiscali for line rental + my time and money spent trying to sort all this out.

That’s where we are now.

I look forward to your earliest reply


Regards

Then last week I received this, (with a couple of "I am still looking into this for you" emails first)

Dear xxxx,

I have requested for a refund of £219.80 for you.

As soon as this is done I will contact you again

Yours sincerely

So thats a result.

Not the amount I was asking for, but its a start, and the collections department phone calls have stopped.
I have requested a breakdown as to how he came to this figure.
He's going to get back to me on that one!

I have also had a reply from OFCOM, they are adding my complaints to their list, and I have also had a reply from OTELO wanting to clarify if I have come to the end of the road with Tiscali. When I furnish them with a deadlock letter they will take it up.
I will wait to see what happens.

PhylPho

Superb post, dini: it's rare to find an easy-to-understand documented history on MSE. What emerges from that history, yet again, is the utter dysfunctionality of TalkTalk as an organisation, where customers seem to have to strike it lucky to get sense from that organisation's representatives. Luck should have nothing to do with good business or good customer service.

hobbes748

Hi folks.

I have been with Tiscali for years now, without ANY problems. But now Tiscali/Talk Talk have disconnected me and cancelled my account as they mis-read a query I emailed them regarding being charged twice for the same month. This is quite a lengthy tale of woe, so please bear with me…

I called the Talk Talk team at the end of September (after having their door to door salesman come round and give me 'the patter') to switch from Tiscali, and was given my ‘go live’ date.

On 30th September they sent me a letter confirming my Direct Debit instructions. These were completely wrong. I have no idea who P Ryan is, but I had no doubt that would have objected strongly to paying for my broadband and telephone, so I had to call Customer Services correct the error.

On the 1st October they sent me 2 letters. One letter stated that I would be on a 12 month contract - Talk UK Anytime - £17.53 p/m. The other letter stated that I was now on an 18 month contract – Essentials – International Boost - £12.04 for the first 6 months, then £19.03 thereafter (+£2 for international boost).

On the 25th October Talk Talk sent me another letter saying they were having difficulties getting my service up and running. So I called customer services to confirm that the telephone number that I had given them was correct and also that I was not with a cable company. I was told that there was maybe more to it than that and somebody would need to call me back about it. I heard nothing more for a couple of weeks, so I called them back once again. This time (after being passed from department to department a few times), I was told that the problem lay with my telephone number being with Tiacali. I was told that my number could only migrate to either BT or Virgin. I didn’t really understand why, but informed customer services that it was essential that I kept my telephone number so I was transferred to the Tiscali retention team who re-signed me up for another 18 month contract, with a caller ID add-on for an extra 49p a month.

A few days later (as advised by Tiscali) caller ID appeared on my phone, so I assumed that everything was fine.

On 29th November my telephone and broadband service was disconnected, without any notice. The only contact I have had with Talk Talk since I re-signed with Tiscali was due to me believing I was both charged by both Talk Talk and Tiscali for the same month, for which I requested a refund. Customer services apologised for the error but told me there was nothing they would be willing to do now except to start a NEW account with Talk Talk (with a NEW telephone number). But as a good-will gesture towards me they would waive the £29.99 connection fee (oh, how gallant of them!) I did not want a new telephone number – so much so that I resigned with Tiscali on a higher priced call package just so I could retain the number. As a final insult, they emailed me several hours AFTER they had disconnected to inform me that they intended to disconnect me sometime within the next 10 days.

I’ve demanded my account be re-instated and have now been all the way up the complaints line and written to the Customer Management Team, who seem hell-bent on ignoring my complaint. I’ve emailed them 2 reminders and the only acknowledgement I have had is a half-self-generated email saying they were a bit busy with something at the moment but if I was still having these problems in a few days time then I would be allowed to sent them my reminder AGAIN.

So I’ve been without telephone and broadband for well over a fortnight now while Talk Talk/Tiscali seem to be keeping themselves busy with other things instead.

Where do I go from here? This has caused me some quite considerable difficulties what with Christmas, weather and people not being able to get in contact with me as my mobile has hit-or-miss reception where I live. If they continue to ignore me, do I need to wait the full 8 weeks before I can get the ombudsman involved?

Thanks

PhylPho

I don't know who Sean Kelly is but it might be that he's going to make a Christmas present to himself of a new job / new career far away from the Carphone Warehouse group of companies. Before he does so though, you'd probably be wise to take advantage of his expertise and experience in the same way that dini has done. . .

NeverEnough

Forget phoning and emailing the clotz who work there. Send a letter detailing your situation to Customer Services and ensure it goes by Recorded Mail. Make a note of the date. Then 8 weeks later, escalate the complaint to Otelo, the ombudsman and ensure you put in a claim. Also copy correspondence to Watchdog (there is an email address on their website.)
You will never get anywhere with these idiots - their remit is to frustrate you and tie you up in confusion so you just give up and pay them whatever loony figure they demand in the end. Don't do it. Put it in writing, recorded delivery, to them and escalate it if they don't bother. Oh, and move to a proper ISP.......