TalkTalk Phone and Broadband

smk77

I got a call the other day from TalkTalk offering me phone and internet for £18.49. I currently get my landline from TalkTalk (average about £16 a month bill inc calls) and excellent broadband deal with f2s for £13.99 with unlimited download. The gave me the usual sales pitch "we're offering this deal to you as a valued customer. Connection is normally £30 but we'll offer it to you for £15".

It sounded like a good deal so I agreed to it. I then got passed to another person who went through the T&Cs and mentioned that it was a 24month contract. I explained that I wasn't told about that and wasn't happy that this wasn't explained to me but eventually agreed knowing that I have a cooling off period.

I then checked the web and see that this is a deal for all customers so decided to have a look to see what other options are out there that may be similar in price. I remember a while back on hotukdeals a post about o2 landline so had a look into that. It seems that this will be available at the end of April for £17 inc landline and unlimited broadband (talktalk is 40Gb).

My concern is that I may be stuck in a talktalk 24 month contract with a 40Gb limit at a time when we are all starting to use more bandwidth because of the likes of iPlayer and Spotify. I occasionally use my PS3 to download 8Gb HD movies but I may start to do this more. Therefore O2 would be a better deal both for downloads and a little cheaper.

The problem is that I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the o2 service. I assume that the talktalk deal is so good because talktalk have LLU presence as my exchange. Currently, there is no sign of o2 there.

So, question is, will o2 need to be enabled at my exchange to get their deal at the end of the month? If so, any way of checking when this may happen?

mrtom21

I would advise you stay with what you have at the moment, you already said you are more than happy with your broadband service. If Talk Talk give you everything they move your line into their part of the exchange making it rather difficult to take internet through anyone else in the future. Basically as long as you have a Talk Talk LLU provided line... You can only get broadband through Talk Talk! A brief search on the net for Talk Talk will demonstrate just how bad their customer service is. It is cheap for a reason... They invest no money into their customer service. Also if you sit tight you can then at a later date take up the O2 line rental deal if it interests you.

mrtom21

And yes... O2 will need to be LLU for you to get that deal.

cabbage

If you have doubts you need to act within your cooling off period and get out of the agreement before it becomes a 24 month contract. You can then resort to your previous contract with talktalk and move to another provider by giving notice.

mrtom21

My advice would be to act before your cooling off period starts (ie before activation)... If you let it go active then change your mind in the cooling off period you will still be on an LLU line with Talk Talk at this stage and they will not revert you back to what you had previously instead you would have to migrate to another provider for your line and broadband starting new contracts. Cancelling the order before it goes live would avoid this.

smk77

thanks to all. I'll definately cancel now.

macman

Never ever sign up on the basis of a marketing call. £15 only connection fee?-it's free if you sign up online!

smk77

macman wrote: »

Never ever sign up on the basis of a marketing call. £15 only connection fee?-it's free if you sign up online!

I never do...usually! In fact, I told them this on the phone and also stated that I would be checking a few things out within the cooling off period. I got them to drop the connection fee completely so am getting the same deal as an online sign up.

Sooler

it's an 18 month contract if you sign up online

smk77

mrtom21 wrote: »

My advice would be to act before your cooling off period starts (ie before activation)... If you let it go active then change your mind in the cooling off period you will still be on an LLU line with Talk Talk at this stage and they will not revert you back to what you had previously instead you would have to migrate to another provider for your line and broadband starting new contracts. Cancelling the order before it goes live would avoid this.

The cooling off period is 14 days from when they rang on 10th April. Activation is a few weeks after that...so, they won't be moving the line until after the cooling off period. They do offer a 30 day trial but from what you say I can see that reverting back may not be too easy!

macman

All you've been sold is the standard LLU TT Essentials package: £11.49 line rental and £6.99 broadband and calls. It's not any kind of special deal, that's the standard online price. Except they've conned you into a 24 month contract rather than the standard 18m one.
And you have missed out on Quidco's £50 cashback for Essentials.
I hope you will find it as easy to cancel with TT as it was to sign up...