Talk Talk rage

LeeSummers

I have a problem and really hope somebody can help as nobody at TT seems the slightest bit interested

The story so far....

I had TT for almost a year and was relatively happy with it, not great but did the job. As of Feb 09 i moved into a new flat and thought i'd transfer it over thinking it would be easiest. Boy was i wrong.

After a month i realised something was up so i began the ordeal of customer services, trying to ascertain the cause of the problem only to be confronted with a multitude of excuses, dead ends and general fluff.
A BT engineer was sent out to check for faults and found no active line.
At the beginning of May i managed to find out that my account had been connected to a different address, apparently my fault!?
Supposedly i told them the wrong address yet they wont give me a copy of the recorded call.
Brilliant.. Nice one Zulfiq in Home Moves, Extremely rude and un-helpful.
I was told i had to cancel my account and sign up again but will incur the £70 cancellation fee. I thought okay, lets do that and try to claim it back.
Onto the phone again, then told i didn't need to do that, it can simply be transferred over.

After another month of trying to get it sorted, still nothing despite all my efforts. So i told them i was completely unsatisfied with the 'service' and requested the account be cancelled.

A few letters of complaint later and still no reply

£113.57 is taken from my account without notification. I get back on the phone again "sorry, our system doesn't seem to have the information to able to help at this time, please call back tomorrow"

Then a few days later i receive a bill for £182.68!!!

More phone calls to various countries
The bill includes not one, but two cancellation fees, a connection charge (even though it was meant to be free at the time) and call charges on a phone line i did not have..

Another bill, £94.12
I seem to have received £88.56 of credited adjustments, what for, I have no idea, simply states 'credit-homeowner'.

21/05 Final Demand pops through the door..
26/05 Sandeev in finance tells me that it will all be sorted. Finally, someone helping!
I didn't hear anything then for about a month..

29/06 Letter from CSL debt collectors £94.12 plus an admin charge
Here we go again!
03/07 Get through to nice fellow named Joshua in Home moves Dept who is appalled at the state of my account. "I will get this corrected for you sir, clearly our fault, i'm so sorry for the inconvenience. Your account will be credited and there will be nothing to pay. It may take up to 10 days to process"
Daily phone calls from CSL demanding money. I explain the situation and they decide to liase with TT directly over the matter, fine..

09/07 Call from CSL. "We spoke to TT and they said your claim was rejected so you have to pay still"

11/07 Letter from a second debts agency. 'We will be coming to your residents to collect'

!!!!!!!!!

So this is where i am now. 5 months on, still no internet, a huge bill for services i never received, debt collectors after me and i can't even register for the TT forum because i don't have an active account.
I don't feel that i should be liable for these charges as none of it was my fault and i don't really know where to go from here?

I really hope someone can help

Lee

collingbone614

I used to work in the home mover department and dealt with problems like this every day. The situation is that if you made the call to the home mover department from a landline then they would not have a recording of the call because their systems aren't able to record calls from mobiles. If you made it from a landline it should be possible for them to find the call if you know the number you rang from. I'm not trying to defend them here but my experience of the department was that they did make a lot of mess-ups BUT were quick to pay out in full if it was genuinely their mistake.

The first thing I note from your post is that you were charged a connection fee. I recalls this to be approx £30. You should not have been charged a connection fee for your new address - it's waved if you're already a customer simply moving home.

The second idea I have is that if they cannot provide you with a copy of the call, this may mean that they do not have a copy of it all (as described above). In which case it may be worth seriously digging your heels in and insisting that you are right because they have no evidence that it wasn't human error on their part.

The third is that now you've managed to get the name of someone who's helping ('Joshua') then whenever you ring ask to speak with this person. If the operator says this isn't possible, tell them to look at Joshua's notes on your account. Every operator who accesses your account logs details of the conversation onto the 'care notes' on your account. This always occurs because, frequently, people who didn't do so were sacked.

Another idea: go on the TalkTalk website and look for the email form for the home movers. Don't go for anything that's just standard customer services. It needs to be for the home movers department. Use their online form and it goes through to an office in the UK and these people are obliged to deal with your email realtively quickly. Detail everything as coherently as possible and include your name, address, account numbers (if possible), existing telephone numbers, previous telephone numbers, date of birth, so there are no delays in handling your request.

Ultimately you might want to try pulling out a last ditch attempt and asking for your complaint to be escalated to the 'high level complaints department,' which is a little known part of the business that deals with things when their staff seriously, seriously make a balls up.

MrsTinks

All ISPs have a "high level complaints department" - it's not advertised but it's basically their specilist team trying to avoid you going to the consumer watchdog as every complaint that goes to them has to be investigated and it's logged against the company
My personal advise is to always send your complaints in writing or record your calls (if you do make sure you inform them at the start of the call that you are recording it or you'll be breaking the law!)

Good Luck!

(I got out of my TT contract few years ago for breach of contract on their part - they tried to charge me for leaving before 18 months were up but I pointed out that they had failed to provide me with the service I was paying them for despite being given the chance on numerous occassions to rectify the fault. As this is a point in their contract (I forget which clause) I had terminated the contract on those grounds and any attempt to recover the alledged debt from me would be treated as harrassment and would result in a complaint to the watchdog and ombudman as well as a court case for harrassment and a counter claim for the fee's paid over the months where the fault occurred - 3 years on and I haven't heard from them since )

collingbone614

MrsTine wrote: »

All ISPs have a "high level complaints department" - it's not advertised but it's basically their specilist team trying to avoid you going to the consumer watchdog as every complaint that goes to them has to be investigated and it's logged against the company
My personal advise is to always send your complaints in writing or record your calls (if you do make sure you inform them at the start of the call that you are recording it or you'll be breaking the law!)

Good Luck!

(I got out of my TT contract few years ago for breach of contract on their part - they tried to charge me for leaving before 18 months were up but I pointed out that they had failed to provide me with the service I was paying them for despite being given the chance on numerous occassions to rectify the fault. As this is a point in their contract (I forget which clause) I had terminated the contract on those grounds and any attempt to recover the alledged debt from me would be treated as harrassment and would result in a complaint to the watchdog and ombudman as well as a court case for harrassment and a counter claim for the fee's paid over the months where the fault occurred - 3 years on and I haven't heard from them since )

This is correct - I remember reading this in the contract also.. if you've had a rubbish service with lots of technical problems/faults then you can also cite this as a reason for leaving. It's worth trawling through the contract if anyone else is looking for a way out..

LeeSummers

Appreciate your advise. I have sent them yet another letter of complaint detailing the course of action i will be following should this matter not be resolved.
I also called and asked for my complaint to be escalated only to be fobbed off with a number that doesn't connect to anything.
They're such !!!!!!!s, i swear they get trained to be obnoxious and unhelpful.

I still have the debt collectors after me but at this time i don't think there is much i can do other than pay up and try to reclaim at a later date from TT?

TalkTalk

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the PMs and sorry for the delay in replying. I've sent you a link to the TalkTalk Members forums. If you could register I'll be able to take a look into your accounts for you and help you to get this sorted out.

Cheers
EmmaL x

LeeSummers

LeeSummers wrote: »

i can't even register for the TT forum because i don't have an active account.

I would have already if i could

TalkTalk

Hi Lee,

Sorry - my bad. I've sent you my teams e-mail address. If you could drop us a message then I'll make sure it gets picked up.

Cheers
EmmaL x