Poor Talk Talk service ... can I get out of contract ?

i8change

Originally Posted by tcr
That's the thing, though, I'm not leaving in March. I want to leave now, for the sake of my own sanity.

If you are desperate to get out, just ring the BT Options Team on 0800 800 880 and say that you are ex-Bt phoneline and want to "Return to donor" from your current Talk Talk, some info below:-

http://talktalkmembers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3929

They should move your Phone line back onto BT Equipment at the exchange for free (check, some BT staff are not aware) but you will be tied into a 12 month BT contract for the Phone line.

It should all be done in around 14 days with a few hours downtime on the phoneline, BT contact Talk Talk and make the arrangements.

At worst you will have to pay Talk Talk 4 (months) x £8 = £32 for early exit of contract as detailed below:-

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/help/further-help/is-there-a-charge-for-terminating-my-contract-early.html

If you are a TalkTalk Broadband & Phone customer, unless you take TalkTalk Plus, it is £8 for every month remaining in your minimum period.

Once you have your BT line you can then choose another Broadband provider that is available on your particular exchange.

It will, unfortunately, take around 14 days till you get the Broadband service.

Get advice if you are not sure which to choose (o2 and BE are good, but only if LLU at your exchange.)

The only thing I would say is that with the bad weather and Christmas hols nearly here, there may be more chance of a problem if you move right now.

Also, if you have (or want) Sky their Broadband is not bad if LLU at exchange and some say they may be able to move you to their equipment without going through BT first, so it's worth asking them. If you like Plusnet, they are part of BT and can move you over without the BT contract for phone, so ignore the above and just contact them.

Good luck.

tcr_3

Thanks i8change, especially for the link to the Talk Talk pages which explain the disconnection charges. I feel much at ease now, the financial penalty doesn't appear to be half as steep as I had feared.

So ... I've gone ahead & ordered BT. Phone, broadband & BT Vision. Got waylaid halfway through the ordering process and BT sent me an email asking if I'd like to complete the order ... with a free printer and digital photo frame as an incentive ! It's about £12 pcm more expensive than the package I'm on with Talk Talk but I guess BT Vision accounts for most of that. We're not heavy broadband users so the less generous BT allowance is still fine for us.

Main thing is that I hope BT will be as reliable as they were before we transferred to Talk Talk. Touch wood.

Thanks to everyone for your advice, appreciated.

macman

BT Vision? Oh dear....

tcr_3

macman wrote: »

BT Vision? Oh dear....

Live in a listed building, matey, Sky dish isn't an option and there's no chance we'll get cabled up by Virgin anytime this century. The guy next door's got BT Vision, works OK with him, thought we'd give it a whirl.

macman

It's just normal Freeview with some limited on-demand content-and it locks you into BT broadband.
OK, you can't mount a sat dish on the building itself, but can you not site it at ground level in the garden maybe?

tcr_3

macman wrote: »

It's just normal Freeview with some limited on-demand content-and it locks you into BT broadband.
OK, you can't mount a sat dish on the building itself, but can you not site it at ground level in the garden maybe?

Nar, we can't even have a tv aerial on the roof let alone a Sky dish out back. It's mainly because our little cottages are several hundred years old, picture postcard stuff, everything's Grade A listed.

The tv signal for us & the neighbours is pumped in from an aerial mounted discretely on a barn about quarter of a mile away. Sky sent someone out years ago, seemingly, but they wanted to upgrade the cable and the amount they quoted for that was in five figures ... so you can understand why no-one wants Sky !

Can't see us qualifying for a grant for that work, the charity which looks after the cottages is cash strapped as it is ... so no chance, unfortunately. So it's really BT Vision or nothing. Our broadband speeds here aren't too shabby (for a rural area), consistently achieve download speeds of 5.5 to 6 meg so hopefully we'll be able to take advantage of the downloadable BT Vision content.

Heinz

If your back garden is roughly south facing, don't forget a satellite dish does not have to be wall, chimney or pole mounted, it can be at ground level.

macman

Heinz wrote: »

If your back garden is roughly south facing, don't forget a satellite dish does not have to be wall, chimney or pole mounted, it can be at ground level.

And virtually invisible with the aid of some strategically placed greenery...

tcr_3

We'd get hung, drawn & quartered for a Sky dish. We had to remove a battery powered doorbell last year !

pstuart

We had the same similar/problem with our TT line, it got steadily worse until the crackling drowned out any conversations last Monday (broadband also 'dropping out' on a regular basis).

We had already taken the forum advice (very many thanks macman) and tried the test socket, proving it was not our internals.

Our son phoned them (TT) yesterday to ask for an engineer and today a BT chap came round and sorted rotten connections in the BT box that connects to the house - no charge!

I don't understand why they (TT) should run such dual standards unless there are people on here posting with their own agenda's.