Talk Talk - what are my rights?

sarah1980

Here's the thing: In October 2008 my home phone suddenly stopped working, but Broadband was fine (both are with Talk Talk). Called them to try to fix remotely, they kept telling me it was fixed but it was not!

Eventually around 6 weeks later they sent someone to the house. When I booked the appointment they said work would not be chargeable unless the Openreach Engineer had to come into the house.

On the day in question, I received a knock at the door from the engineer to say they had found the problem and could he just check it was working now. So he came into the house, plugged somethng into the socket and said yes, it was fixed.

Next thing I receive a bill for £165 from Talk Talk! When I rang to dispute it, they told me that our equipment had been faulty which caused the fault, and the charge was for the Engineer.

My question is, where do I stand as it is essentially my word against theirs as to whether any work was done insid ethe house. I didn't sign anything at the time, in fact I actually asked the engineer if I would be charged and he said "no". I have since found out that it wasn't at his discretion to say this, but either way, I believe I shouldn't have been charged.

I have escalated this to head office and a very polite man looked into it for me (which took over 2 months) before assuring me that the charges still stand.

What next? I am at the end of my tether, I have lost it with them so many times and haven't paid a bill since March (so charges a racking up - interestingly though, they haven't cut me off - yet!).

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Buzby

The 'official' benchmark is if the BT engineer finda a fault in YOUR wiring AFTER the Master socket. Since the engineer has to visit and enter your property to check this, BT won't raise a charge if the fault is within the network (upstream of your Master soclet).

Now with Talk Talk, they can make up their own rules of what constitutes a 'home visit', and whilst BT many not charge them, if they say an engineer entering your home is chargeable as part of your T&C's, then it stinks - but they can then charge you.

A better argument would be not to use them in future if the maintain this position.

sarah1980

Believe me, I intend on cancelling but I have £164 (plus call charges since March, which I am obviously willing to pay) outstanding. That could buy 3 week's worth of shopping!

sarah1980

Update on this: I have now received many threatening letters from Graham White & Co Solicitors and Roxburghe Debt Collectors. Each time I have telephoned them to explain the above, and I actually gave them my card details to pay off some of the amount owing (I had a very rough idea of what was legit and what I was disputing).

I have tried ringing TalkTalk, I get passed from Bangladesh to South Africa, each time having to explain the story from scratch. I am trying to find out a) the exact amount of the engineer's charge (so I can deduct this from the amount owing) and b) how I can escalate this further.

People keep promising to call me back but it never happens. Is there an ombudsman route to go down now? I really don't believe they are within their rights to charge me for an engineer testing the line, certainly not over £150!

In addition to this, I understand that Graham White & Co are a shady outfit and I would love to know how to get them off my back as the incessant calls and letters are driving me insane. I have a small baby at home, she needs to sleep, I need to sleep, what I don't need is these scaremongers harrassing me constantly.

P.S. I am no longer a TalkTalk customer.

TalkTalk

Hi Sarah1980,

I'm sorry to hear you were charged for an engineer call out.

When you say this was investigated by head office was it the CEO team you were dealing with? If so the fees will have been legitimate and the fee is not only for a line test but for work completed in restoring your service. Engineer call out fees are only applied if the fault is with your equipment or internal wiring, or if the fault was caused by damage to the line rather than wear or tear.

The ombudsman it Otelo and you can visit their website for more information. Ofcom will also offer you advise on how to progress the issue.

Cheers
Emma x

sarah1980

Emma, I am not sure who it was, it was someone in the UK though and his first name was David (sorry, I cannot remember his last name, as I said, I had just had a baby at the time).

I don't see how it can be said that

When you say this was investigated by head office was it the CEO team you were dealing with? If so the fees will have been legitimate

Because how could any work have been done on my equipment without me witnessing it? What difference would the CEO's intervention have had?

I really really don't have time for this, I am being harrassed (and I do not use the term lightly) by these people and they refuse to enter into discussion with me, they just say all they can do is take the payment. And they then follow this up with letters saying that I have not made an effort to contact them (which I have done, many times).

When I speak to TalkTalk they tell me they cannot discuss it either as it has been passed to Roxburgh! :mad:

MrsTinks

Out of interest - when you had no phone line could you make 999 calls? do you know?
If you can't make 999 calls then there are some pretty serious problems with them not attending site to resolve it for 6 weeks... ( you don't even want to know the size of the fines a voice carrier can get if a network outage means 999 is down! )
What exactly did the engineers report say that the fault was and what action resolved it?

MrsTinks

The debt -

Company Name
Road
Town
City / County
Postcode



FORMAL COMPLAINT - HARASSMENT BY TELEPHONE.


Account Number: XXXXXXX

Dear Sirs,

This letter is not an admission of liability of any alledged debt to your company or client! This debt is in dispute!
I am writing in relation to the quantity and frequency of telephone calls that I have received from your company, which I deem to be personally harassing.

I have verbally requested that these stop, but I am still receiving calls. (Delete if necessary)

I now require all further correspondence from your company to be made in writing only.

I am of the view that your continued harassment of me by telephone puts you in breach of The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

If you continue to harass me by telephone, you will also be in breach of the Communications Act (2003) s.127 and I will report you to OFCOM, Trading Standards and The Office of Fair Trading, meaning that you will be liable to a substantial fine.

Please treat this also as a formal complaint under the procedures set out by the Financial Ombudsman (FOS). As such, you are required to send me a copy of your company complaints procedure.

Furthermore, please note that the FOS consider it 'unfair'for you to continue with phone calls when requested not to do so.

FAO: Data Controller of (creditor/DCA) - Section 10 notice under the Data Protection Act 1998

I withdraw my consent (under s.10 of the DPA) for you to process my personal data with respect to my personal or work telephone numbers registered with you or stored on your systems/records.

The processing and use of these numbers is causing significant distress.

Advice from The Consumer Credit Counselling Service and the Information Commissioner indicates that your retention of contact details in the form of a correspondence address is sufficient to fulfil contractual obligations.

This request supersedes any contactual provision that you may claim exists, and any attempt to claim otherwise will not be accepted or tolerated.

Under the DPA you have 21 days to respond to this request, and 28 days to cease processing and/or remove the data from your systems. Future use of my telephone number will be recorded and will indicate a breach of my request under the DPA, this will result in a complaint being raised with the Information Commissioner.

You will be deemed to have been served notice of my request and I will deem it served by (FULL DATE), I am advising you that any calls received after this date will be recorded with the intention of them being used as evidence.



Yours faithfully,

Ms A.N. Other


This will stop the calls within 28 days - if not then be prepared to report them.

Have you sent them a letter officially disputing the debt? You need to make sure you send all letters to them by recorded mail.

TalkTalk

Hi Sarah1980,

If your complaint was investigated by the CEO team you will have been given a sole point of contact and you would have received a letter once the complaint was closed summarising any actions taken on your account. If this did not happen then I would recommend that you write to the Customer Liaison Manager at the TalkTalk head office address. This is detailed in the consumer code of practice which can be found on the TalkTalk website.

Cheers
Emma x

sarah1980

Thanks for the advice Mrs T. I swear that Rixburgh/Graham White deliberately write their letters in such a way as to wind you up further, i.e. saying "you have chosen to ignore our letters"!

As for 999 calls, thankfully I never had the need to make one of these so I am not sure as to whether they were possible or not.

I have not written an official letter disputing the charges, I am all over the place at the moment but I will do this today. Will also write to Roxburgh as outlined above - thank you so much for this.

DVardysShadow

TalkTalk_Company_Representative wrote: »

Hi Sarah1980,

I'm sorry to hear you were charged for an engineer call out.

When you say this was investigated by head office was it the CEO team you were dealing with? If so the fees will have been legitimate and the fee is not only for a line test but for work completed in restoring your service. Engineer call out fees are only applied if the fault is with your equipment or internal wiring, or if the fault was caused by damage to the line rather than wear or tear.

The ombudsman it Otelo and you can visit their website for more information. Ofcom will also offer you advise on how to progress the issue.

Cheers
Emma x

You really must have been day dreaming, Emma, when you wrote that. Or you must be absolutely and totally clueless. This really says a lot about TalkTalk - because AFAICS, the CS reps who get put onto forum work would normally be the best.

The charges would be legitimate if work was done to rectify a fault on Sarah's premises. And not if it wasn't. I don't see that the charges would be legitimate or not just because the CEO's team investigated it. It is not as if their job is to wave a magic stick is it? And even if they spend all day waving magic sticks, there is no way they could change the base fact which decides this - whether work was done on Sarah's own wiring.

sarah1980 wrote: »

I don't see how it can be said that

Quote:
When you say this was investigated by head office was it the CEO team you were dealing with? If so the fees will have been legitimate
Because how could any work have been done on my equipment without me witnessing it? What difference would the CEO's intervention have had?

Exactly