Post Office home phone

lee12_2

A simple question is the post office home phone any good we are at our wits end with talk talk and want to change and this has no fixed contract , but would love to know what any one else thinks
Thanks

NonGeographicalMan

lee12 wrote: »

A simple question is the post office home phone any good we are at our wits end with talk talk and want to change and this has no fixed contract , but would love to know what any one else thinks

They are better than TalkTalk as they do not bill you for calls you never dialled (something TalkTalk did with me on my both landline and pay as you go mobile phone) and their call centre staff are professional more often than not (the call centre in the north of England is a lot better than the one in Derry in Northern Irelannd though) but their daytime call rate (4.5p per minute +8p connection) is now truly extortionate and they do not offer an Anytime Calls plan. Evening and weekend calls of up to 60 minutes including 0845 and 0870 are free of charge as are calls to mobiles at the weekend of up to one hour.

If you need to make weekday daytime calls they are only worth considering if you can use them with an indirect access provider like https://www.18185.co.uk or https://www.call1301.co.uk at 5p per call however long the call, which you can still do with PostOffice HomePhone at the current time.

If you want to avoid a 12 month minimum contract term you should also look at https://www.thephone.coop who have a 3 month contract terms on their basic phone only packages and are a true CoOp venture with very helpful and knowledgeable staff (they even give out their last name unlike most call centre workers) when I called them. You can even invest your own money in the PhoneCoop later on in your time as a customer with them if you are sufficiently impressed but it is not a requirement. However again some call rates (especially mobiles) are expensive so you should only consider using them in conjunction with access to https://www.18185.co.uk and/or https://www.call1301.co.uk, especially if you need to make any volume of weekday daytime calls.

DVardysShadow

I find them good. It is BT who let them down with inaccurate databases which meant a 3 week delay to get service. Yes, they might cost more, but I don't think it is worth paying less and dealing with BT's script monkeys in India. The problem is not the Indians themselves, but the poor training, poor briefing, inadequate access to information and inadequate access to decision makers provided by BT which gives an overall shoddy customer experience.

NonGeographicalMan

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I find them good. It is BT who let them down with inaccurate databases which meant a 3 week delay to get service. Yes, they might cost more, but I don't think it is worth paying less and dealing with BT's script monkeys in India.

But the PostOffice HomePhone's senior management are utterly mad to not also offer an any Anytime calls package option as this is a significant part of any telco's potential customer base and no retired person or mother at home with children is going to consider PostOfffice HomePhone with their current weekday daytime call rates that only those of us prepared to jump through elaborate hoops with Indirect Access services know how to avoid.

DVardysShadow

I value my sanity. I won't deal with BT and their incompetent call centres. I ahve seen enough people caught with Talk Talk and their bendy contracts and inability to get anything done about faults.

I don't claim Post Office are perfect. I think the whole situation on Phones, Mobiles, Gas and Electricity is a symptom of a broken country which cannot organise itself or deal with people's needs fairly and consistently.

1carminestocky

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

But the PostOffice HomePhone's senior management are utterly mad to not also offer an any Anytime calls package option as this is a significant part of any telco's potential customer base and no retired person or mother at home with children is going to consider PostOfffice HomePhone with their current weekday daytime call rates that only those of us prepared to jump through elaborate hoops with Indirect Access services know how to avoid.

It's clearly a business decision - I'm sure the exhorbitant daytime rates pay for the inclusive weekend mobile calls.

NonGeographicalMan

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I value my sanity. I won't deal with BT and their incompetent call centres. I ahve seen enough people caught with Talk Talk and their bendy contracts and inability to get anything done about faults.

I also am desperate not to go back to BT, not least because of their quite outrageous monopolistic nerve in demanding a 12 month auto renewing minimum contract, but the other choices are now very limited in terms of avoiding a 12 month contract.

The choices that offer less than a 12 month minimum term if you switch line rental to them are only as follows:-

1. Post Office HomePhone (www.postoffice.co.uk) - No Minimum Term

2. The Phone CoOp (www.thephone.coop) - 3 Month Minimum Term For Phone Only Products but after that its only 1 month notice and you can give one month's notice after you have been with them for two months.

3. Primus Home Phone Saver (www.primussaver.co.uk/homephone.html)- 6 Month Auto Renewing Contract of the BT kind. That is it auto renews for another 6 months every 6 months unless you remember to cancel as the 6 months are coming to an end.

lee12_2

Thank you all for your replys, we are going to take the plunge , we have had enough of Talk Talk to say the least so it was nice to read positive comments, we don't really make calls during the day except to my mum who has had enough of Talk Talk too and is also going to go to the post office so our calls will be free to each other.
Once again thank you all,,

Northern_Rock

who can help with a post office referral? £10 each is that right? need to leave talktalk asap! what details do i need for referral plz? hoping to sign up today

ps the post office call centre in Derry( part of stream) is closing end of october i believe--330 jobs gone, not sure where support will be now.

Heinz

Northern_Rock wrote: »

who can help with a post office referral? £10 each is that right? need to leave talktalk asap! what details do i need for referral plz? hoping to sign up today

£9.25 cashback if you go via Quidco.

http://www.quidco.com/post-office/

NonGeographicalMan

Northern_Rock wrote: »

who can help with a post office referral? £10 each is that right? need to leave talktalk asap! what details do i need for referral plz? hoping to sign up today

Either https://www.topcashback.co.uk/retailerdetailPost_Office.htm or https://www.quidco.com/post-office/ They both pay £9.25 but TopCashBack has no membership fee, whereas Quidco charges £5 per year.

ps the post office call centre in Derry( part of stream) is closing end of october i believe--330 jobs gone, not sure where support will be now.

When I was originally with P O Homephone for a year until 18 months ago the call centre in north of England somewhere was excellent and open 24 hours per day. They also had an 0800 number for customer services. Then they changed the contract for customer services as they got bigger and did the deal with the call centre in Derry and brought in an 0845 number for customer services (now free again 24 hours per day from your Post Office Homephone but not free back then) and the Derry call centre was pretty bad. Staff very low skilled (therefore I suspect low waged) and not helpful.

If they have realised the Derry call centre is rubbish and are moving support entirely back to England that is a good thing. On the other hand it could well be a sign that due to the recession etc and fall off in customer growth that an overseas call centre is about to start taking some of the calls. I don't mind call centres in Eastern Europe, Far East, South Africa or the Caribbean but call centres on the Indian subcontinent I find to be a nightmare. But most UK supporting overseas call centres tend to be on the Indian subcontinent...............