TalkTalk Prices Increase Again

Paul_Varjak

Pricing Notifications

Changes to services and pricing
We are making some changes to our prices and products. These changes are summarised below:

4 Jan 2011 changes
The following will apply to all our services, including Mobile:-

The monthly fee that applies if you don't pay your bill by Direct Debit will increase from £3.50 to £4.50. The charge to receive paper billing will increase inline with VAT, to £1.48 per month.

The following will apply to our Phone services:-

The rates for calling overseas mobiles on International Boost, Global Saver, Talk Global Anytime and Talk Global Evening & Weekend will be standardised: to 10p or 15p per minute above the country's landline rate. Further detail

The cost of calling BT's 118500 and 118404 services will be 99p per call and £1.49 per min. The cost of calling TalkTalk's 118111 Directory Enquiries service from a TalkTalk landline will be 49p per call and 75p per minute, offering a 50% saving on a one minute call. Prices quoted include 20% VAT.

The cost of calling some 'non-geographic' numbers (e.g. starting 09xx/0843/0872) will increase. Further detail

1 Dec 2010 change
The price for calling 118212 will change to 39p per minute plus 94p per call.

Oct and Nov 2010 changes - directory enquiries services
From 1st Nov, calls to 118505 will cost £2.25 per call plus £2.65 per minute, and 118707 will be charged at 69p per call. From 22nd Oct, calls to 118012 will cost £1.65 per call, plus 82.5p per minute. From 20th Oct, calls to 118247, 118248 and 118020 will cost £1.49 per call, plus 50p per minute.

1st Oct 2010 changes
The following changes are exactly as detailed in the letter accompanying our August bills.

Our standard international rates will be increasing - you can view the new rates here. Please note that if you have calls to selected international countries included in your package, they will not be affected.

If you pay for TalkTalk line rental it will change from £11.49 to £12.04 per month.

If your monthly payment to TalkTalk fails, the one-off charge that's applied to your account will be £10.00, in line with BT.

If you move house the one-off fee you pay for us to move your service will be £49.99.

If you subscribe to our Mobile Extra service your monthly fee will change from £0.45 to £1.46, in line with BT's equivalent service. [Please note that Mobile Extra is not relevant to TalkTalk Essentials or TalkTalk Plus].

The cost of an 01, 02, 03, 0870 and 0845 daytime call is changing to 6.4p per minute. Please remember, this change doesn't affect any inclusive calls (e.g. to 01, 02, 03 numbers, of 60 minutes or less) that are included in your package.

Chargeable calls that currently incur a 9.9p call connection charge will instead incur a charge of 10.9p. This change doesn't affect any inclusive calls (e.g. to 01, 02, 03 numbers, of 60 minutes or less) that are included in your package.

Heinz

I've not bothered with the 09 prices (if you phone them you deserve to pay) but the differences between TT's new charges and what BT charges for calling 084 and 087 numbers is substantial.

50% or 100% appear to be TT's typical mark ups but, in the case of g22 rate calls, there is an astonishing 20-fold difference!

zzzzzzzzzzTTzzzzzzzzBT

g8z Rate z2pzzzz zzz1p
g9z Rate z3pzzzzzz z2p
g10 Rate z5pzzzzzz z3p
g11 Rate z6pzzzzzz z4p
g12 Rate z8pzzzzzz z6p
g13 Rate z9pzzzzzz z7p
g22 Rate 10pzzzz z zz½p
g27 Rate z3pzzzzzz t1½p

I suspect TT intended their g22 rate to be 1p/minute (double BT's) but financial ineptitude resulted in 0.5p being doubled to 1.0p and the decimal point then being misplaced. Somehow I doubt they'll spot their error though.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Anyone wanting to get out of their Talk Talk contract? Your opportunity has arrived.

savemoney

Jump before the ship sinks

Diabolical company make BT look like saints

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

Anyone wanting to get out of their Talk Talk contract? Your opportunity has arrived.

Paul_Varjak

I just got an email detailing a price reduction for TalkTalk's Secure Boost...

"We also recognise the importance of being safe online, and as a result the price of our Super Secure Boost will decrease to £1.99 a month on Essentials and remain FREE on Plus"

Wow, that is fantastic, TalkTalk want us to be safe online so they have actually given us a price reduction! I am impressed!!!!

So, just how big is the price reduction TalkTalk are offering? Surely it must be a couple of pounds because all boosts are £4, right?

Actually, no! The fantastic price reduction that TalkTalk boasts of is all of 1p, yes that is one penny! I kid you not!!!

I think I will save that £1.99p/month by ignoring Talk Talk's Essentials and follow MSE's (Money Saving Expert's) advice and use MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) instead, thank you very much!!

Paul_Varjak

Heinz wrote: »

50% or 100% appear to be TT's typical mark ups but, in the case of g22 rate calls, there is an astonishing 20-fold difference!

I would actually challenge you to find on TalkTalk's website just what numbers the various rate bands cover! TalkTalk lists the bands and their prices but does not tell you what range of numbers are included in each band.

I complained about this to TalkTalk more than one year ago. My complaint was escalated to the Chief Executive's office. The response I received was to use BT's website to determine TalkTalk's charges for non-geographical numbers, as TalkTalk merely pass on BT charges for such calls.

Heinz

Paul_Varjak wrote: »

I would actually challenge you to find on TalkTalk's website just what numbers the various rate bands cover! TalkTalk lists the bands and their prices but does not tell you what range of numbers are included in each band.

I agree, they don't produce a list - like Virgin and others, they use BT's price band designations and then apply their own prices (as is quite obvious now, they certainly don't "pass on BT's charges" - but merely "copy BT's charge bands").

They've been typically devious in the examples they give in that Changes to selected non-geographic call rates from 4 January 2011 announcement too by using 0843 and 0872 numbers - unknown to most people - as examples for most of the bands!

Inactive

Talk Talk and BT are equally as bad at their devious methods, I would not deal with either of them.

Paul_Varjak

Heinz wrote: »

I agree, they don't produce a list - like Virgin and others, they use BT's price band designations and then apply their own prices (as is quite obvious now, they certainly don't "pass on BT's charges" - but merely "copy BT's charge bands").

They've been typically devious in the examples they give in that Changes to selected non-geographic call rates from 4 January 2011 announcement too by using 0843 and 0872 numbers - unknown to most people - as examples for most of the bands!

Maybe BT are putting up their prices too? But I doubt that charges for G22 could jump from 0.5p to 10p.

There are such a myriad of different charging bands and so many prefixes within each band that it is impossible for any ordinary customer to know what they are being charged! The charging band can now depend on up to the first 7 digits!

As an extreme example:

0906514 (1p/minute at weekends)
0906515 (165p/minute at weekends)

I think all phone companies should be required to have on their website a call charge calculator - you type in the number and it gives the connection fee and per minute fee

Inactive

Paul_Varjak wrote: »

I think all phone companies should be required to have on their website a call charge calculator - you type in the number and it gives the connection fee and per minute fee

Great idea, alas I doubt that it will happen, that would be far too transparent for their liking.

ACDeag

Surely BT will shortly be announcing its own increases that will apply from April 2011. BT now have a habit of doing twice yearly increases in the hope that people wont notice so much.