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Why I would rather pay double then ever, ever use TalkTalk for the rest of my life
dabrown
Posts: 2 Newbie
Actually about to crack, I have sent the following to TalkTalk - please share your hell stories in this thread and pass on the link!
31 December 2010
Carphone Warehouse Services Ltd
PO Box 737
Camberley GU15 3RF
Encs.
Cc: Claudio Pollack, Director of Consumer Affairs at Ofcom (plus list at end)
Sir/Madam
I have finally found the mental strength to write to you, after receiving your fifth incorrect and irritating letter, after trying to use your email customer services seventeen times and after twenty three pointless phone calls to drones that don’t care.
The bottom line is I have enclosed a cheque for the last month of service that can be considered actual provision of a working phone and internet line. If you want any more money from me, I will very, very happily take this to the Small Claims Court as I am sick from the highest hair on my head to the full extent of the nail on my big toe of your company.
Issue one: you cut off my phone line and internet connection sometime around 5 December 2010. Upon returning from holiday on the 7th I had a completely dead line. I called your customer services. During the fifteen or so calls over two weeks I was variously told: there is no fault, the fault is fixed, the fault has been passed to second line support, it has been passed to an engineer, senior engineer, there is no fault, the line will be working tomorrow and it has been passed to an engineer, and then third line support (didn’t even know there was a third). I received around 12 text messages, the messages ranged from will be fixed, will be looked at in 24 hours, does the line work (you have to ask me if it works?!) and it has been passed to a senior engineer.
I was about to give up and just cancel my relationship with you. I thought I would give it a few days to decide. When calling again, it seems you had actually ended it for me, without my express wishes to do so. Classic. Then, you sent me a bill including time into the future: asking me to pay for a service that does not actually exist.
Then you sent a letter telling about the exciting upgrade to my exchange I could expect.
Then you sent another bill. This contained charge for a “non payment”. Someone seems to have cancelled my direct debit. This person was not me.
Then you sent a letter saying my broadband would be terminated – nothing about the phone line.
This is pathetic; insulting; confusing
Issue two: my modem has never functioned properly. This is a design fault. There are pages of your customers complaining on your own forums. (The issue concerns port forwarding, something none of your phone support people understood).
I refer you to some of the printed attachments that detail some of the inane discussions that I attempted to have with you. Article (1) is a good example of your woeful incompetence, ill-mannered ineptitude and arrogance. Let me quote a few choice lines “Firstly, we do provided the replacement for faulty router or modem”. What? What is that supposed to mean? Maybe you mean you did not provide the router to me. Are you calling me a liar? Because three times when I called I was told you never ever supplied this D-Link router. Maybe an alien intercepted the post and replaced your brilliant modem with my non-standard one, and then using a range of ethanol based products carefully lifted all the extremely well stucj TalkTalk stickers on the back and glued them into place. Repackaged the whole thing and then paid for the onward postage.
“Secondly [should actually be Second, but no matter – we have more important things to debate], to set up port forwarding you need static IP address [there was no indefinite article]”. This is wrong. You simply need a dynamic IP DNS forwarder. The email from you then goes on to explain what an IP address is: one might have summised if I am complaining about port forwarding, I might have licked IP addresses by now.
I then replied insisting I wanted my faulty modem replaced. You own it, just lend me a different one. You then replied trying to sell me one. Unbelievable. I replied, you ended the thread arbitrarily and I could not respond further.
This takes us to Article (2): which speaks for itself. Article (3) hints that someone realized they were not treating me very well and that they asked for a new modem to be sent to me. Great.
But it never arrived. I called five different numbers to track it. It had never been processed, nor sent. Eventually I got to talk to someone on second line support. Do you know what they told me? This is great… Have a guess…
They said that is not a TalkTalk router. Honestly!
Then I got through to someone else in support who admitted it didn’t do what it claimed it could do and then said “sorry I can’t order one for you, I am support only.” He put me through to sales. Sales said they would send me one for £29.99 or if I signed a new contract. I had to stifle my laughs, which were now becoming manic and hysterical. You then ignored my next three emails.
Finally (there are many more, but I will save your blushes), Article (4) simply shuts down futher communication by saying my problem is resolved. Like Kafka, or Stalin perhaps.
I assume this completes our business. I have enclosed a cheque for £18.71 for the period until 1 December. I do not intend to pay more without a long and protracted legal fight. I am also moving house soon so you will need to act quickly.
Delete all records of my personal information, please, I do not want to receive any unsolicited mail from you.
I am copying this to Consumer Direct, OfCom, my MP, the Secretary of State for Business, talktalkhell blog, moneysavingexpert.com (where this thread: repeats my letter and asks for contribtions), published on my Blog, set up the Twitter hashtag of #talktalkareevil which is getting good results, chooseISP, broadband chooser, USwitch, and thisismoney. I wrote separately to Claudio Pollack, Director of Consumer Affairs at Ofcom.
David Brown
31 December 2010
Carphone Warehouse Services Ltd
PO Box 737
Camberley GU15 3RF
Encs.
Cc: Claudio Pollack, Director of Consumer Affairs at Ofcom (plus list at end)
Sir/Madam
I have finally found the mental strength to write to you, after receiving your fifth incorrect and irritating letter, after trying to use your email customer services seventeen times and after twenty three pointless phone calls to drones that don’t care.
The bottom line is I have enclosed a cheque for the last month of service that can be considered actual provision of a working phone and internet line. If you want any more money from me, I will very, very happily take this to the Small Claims Court as I am sick from the highest hair on my head to the full extent of the nail on my big toe of your company.
Issue one: you cut off my phone line and internet connection sometime around 5 December 2010. Upon returning from holiday on the 7th I had a completely dead line. I called your customer services. During the fifteen or so calls over two weeks I was variously told: there is no fault, the fault is fixed, the fault has been passed to second line support, it has been passed to an engineer, senior engineer, there is no fault, the line will be working tomorrow and it has been passed to an engineer, and then third line support (didn’t even know there was a third). I received around 12 text messages, the messages ranged from will be fixed, will be looked at in 24 hours, does the line work (you have to ask me if it works?!) and it has been passed to a senior engineer.
I was about to give up and just cancel my relationship with you. I thought I would give it a few days to decide. When calling again, it seems you had actually ended it for me, without my express wishes to do so. Classic. Then, you sent me a bill including time into the future: asking me to pay for a service that does not actually exist.
Then you sent a letter telling about the exciting upgrade to my exchange I could expect.
Then you sent another bill. This contained charge for a “non payment”. Someone seems to have cancelled my direct debit. This person was not me.
Then you sent a letter saying my broadband would be terminated – nothing about the phone line.
This is pathetic; insulting; confusing
Issue two: my modem has never functioned properly. This is a design fault. There are pages of your customers complaining on your own forums. (The issue concerns port forwarding, something none of your phone support people understood).
I refer you to some of the printed attachments that detail some of the inane discussions that I attempted to have with you. Article (1) is a good example of your woeful incompetence, ill-mannered ineptitude and arrogance. Let me quote a few choice lines “Firstly, we do provided the replacement for faulty router or modem”. What? What is that supposed to mean? Maybe you mean you did not provide the router to me. Are you calling me a liar? Because three times when I called I was told you never ever supplied this D-Link router. Maybe an alien intercepted the post and replaced your brilliant modem with my non-standard one, and then using a range of ethanol based products carefully lifted all the extremely well stucj TalkTalk stickers on the back and glued them into place. Repackaged the whole thing and then paid for the onward postage.
“Secondly [should actually be Second, but no matter – we have more important things to debate], to set up port forwarding you need static IP address [there was no indefinite article]”. This is wrong. You simply need a dynamic IP DNS forwarder. The email from you then goes on to explain what an IP address is: one might have summised if I am complaining about port forwarding, I might have licked IP addresses by now.
I then replied insisting I wanted my faulty modem replaced. You own it, just lend me a different one. You then replied trying to sell me one. Unbelievable. I replied, you ended the thread arbitrarily and I could not respond further.
This takes us to Article (2): which speaks for itself. Article (3) hints that someone realized they were not treating me very well and that they asked for a new modem to be sent to me. Great.
But it never arrived. I called five different numbers to track it. It had never been processed, nor sent. Eventually I got to talk to someone on second line support. Do you know what they told me? This is great… Have a guess…
They said that is not a TalkTalk router. Honestly!
Then I got through to someone else in support who admitted it didn’t do what it claimed it could do and then said “sorry I can’t order one for you, I am support only.” He put me through to sales. Sales said they would send me one for £29.99 or if I signed a new contract. I had to stifle my laughs, which were now becoming manic and hysterical. You then ignored my next three emails.
Finally (there are many more, but I will save your blushes), Article (4) simply shuts down futher communication by saying my problem is resolved. Like Kafka, or Stalin perhaps.
I assume this completes our business. I have enclosed a cheque for £18.71 for the period until 1 December. I do not intend to pay more without a long and protracted legal fight. I am also moving house soon so you will need to act quickly.
Delete all records of my personal information, please, I do not want to receive any unsolicited mail from you.
I am copying this to Consumer Direct, OfCom, my MP, the Secretary of State for Business, talktalkhell blog, moneysavingexpert.com (where this thread: repeats my letter and asks for contribtions), published on my Blog, set up the Twitter hashtag of #talktalkareevil which is getting good results, chooseISP, broadband chooser, USwitch, and thisismoney. I wrote separately to Claudio Pollack, Director of Consumer Affairs at Ofcom.
David Brown
0
Comments
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Please dont take this the wrong way but there are several reasons why TalkTalk may not take your letter too seriously. First of these is the CC list. It acheives little. Most customer series agents hear a long list of people/press organisations who customer are going to take their complaints to every week. Trust me when I say they arent overly concerened (as long as they personally havn't stuffed up) by such threats. It's rare that it will get you any special treatment.
Secondly Ofcom dont get involved in customer servies issues as a general rule only regulatory and extreme customer service issues occasionally once the company concerned has had reasonable time (12 weeks from memory) to deal with a case through it's entire dispute resolution process from customer service agent to manager to complaints review service to chairmans office without bypassing any steps would be a normal typical process
Thirdly your letter is in places a rant. Again this is the wrong way to go about things. Again customer service reps see and hear rants everyday. The best way to get a CS rep to do the bare minimum they have to do to rather than going the extra mile for you is to rant or insult them.
I dont know about TalkTalks policy on supporting port forwarding support but again as a general rule an ISP will say you could get your emails and view webpages perhaps stream videos from youtube and iplayer therefore your service was working as intended. If their Ts & Cs specifically say they will support port forwarding then they may have a case to answer if it doesnt say they do then best to assume they wont.
Sorry if all this seems a bit negative. If I were you I would re-draft that letter. Leave out all the ofcom/twitter/MPs stuff. Leave out the insults e.g. calling the customer services guys uncaring drones etc.
Make it clear that it is a complaint e.g. start the letter I wish to complain about the service recived on my account number ########. Calmly tell them what you want them to do leaving the personal stuff out i.e. sort out your bill because it's wrong in this and this way. Most of all make sure that what you want them to do is possible and preferably reasonable too.
End the letter asking them to inform you of the nest stage in their complaints process should you be unhappy with their reply.
HTH
0 -
Thought TT where no longer part of CPW .
As to TT service i have had excellent service as have most that i know on TT .
And yes it is a rant filled with the usual threats and a complaint that i would personally move from my desk to the recycling plant asap .
jje0 -
Well having just read the thread from dabrown & all that follows, I can sympathise. I have been with TT for 20 months. It's been a very mixed bag. I've been using BB from the early days (my first provider was Freeserve - when they were UK owned! & it cost £30 per month for 512kbps!) I am an early adopter of wireless (separate router & wireless access points to begin with costing many hundreds) & 35+ years in IT/DP. TT is the worst experience I've had. I try to be patient & think all the time that I can walk & take my pennies elsewhere to someone who will provide a decent (not necessarily good) service.
TT aren't all bad. They've got some good people working as OCE's on their forum (although that has it's issues too).
In fact the reason I'm here is to begin the process of getting off of TT so that I can get back to the business of just *using* broadband rather than messing about providing local support. BTW we have a number of friends some of whom are with AOL but its' all part of the Opal "service" which I suspect is at the heart of these issues.
BB to TT!The meek will inherit the earth - except for the mineral rights. John Paul Getty.
0 -
Pipex Business used to be great and Pipex was a fantastic operation providing trusted and reliable services. It then became part of the Talk Talk mess and was rebranded Opal. The service has been poor including the sending of spurious cancellation notices, faulty billing links and a general lack of customer care. This was topped today when I received a bill for their broadband services that I had previously cancelled only to be told that I had not followed the correct procedure to cancel (although I did what their last 'operative' told me to do in December). So here I am with a new bill that I have to pay and my 30 days notice runs from today so I can expect another one. Apparently 'this has never happened before' but I'm sure it has and will again. If they're not prepared to train their operatives to get this right and this costs the consumer (all good bottom line for them) then would you trust them with your money. I wouldn't as they are a joke operation.0
-
well my story:
went to cpw to buy pre paid phone. girl tells me that im lucky today and can get free calls to europe landlines from talk talk at no extra charge for 12 months. i thought yey. reat paper (confirmed it said exactly that) and signed. after a year i was moving so i call bt to close my line and i find out my line is not with bt but with talk talk. :mad:i call talk talk to close my line and they say they need my new address to include as reason why i want to leave.
after that i set my line with bt and broadband with o2 at new address. only to find out that after about 2 weeks my line is taken over by tt. and i received welcome pack for full set ll and bb:mad: what the f*** called tt they said i have signed into 18m, called ofcom they closed it within a week, apologised etc. ater 2 weeks guess what! welcome pack from tt and line taken over again:mad:
i did not had internet connection because of those fraudsters for almost 2 moths, and no written apologies or any reimbursment. untill now those idiots call me and send letters with advertisments althoug i requested severall times for my details to be removed from their systems.
WOULDNT TOUCH CPW AND TT EVER AGAIN EVEN IF THEY WOULD BE PAYING ME TO HAVE THEM!!!0 -
It all went wrong for me once my ISP Tiscali was taken over by talk talk loads of disconnections, slow speeds, unable to get on the internet and no emails for weeks at a time to name just a few problems and the latest fiasco just posted. They do justify their bad name but the worst thing is they are getting worse not better, I have no problems what so ever with my latest ISP, speeds have more than doubled and no disconnections.
I was with tiscali since my dial up days and although not perfect they were cheap and seemed to offer reasonable customer service from guys such as Mr Tibbs on the tiscali forum, I wonder if its a case of the harder you try the worse it gets.0 -
Had nothing but trouble trying to set up with Talk Talk, never ever got my broadband connected and in the end switched providers and Talk Talk still kept billing me for line rental even though I was paying for it with another provider - they said there was a problem closing my account so each month I had to ring in and get them to credit my account when they sent me a bill.
In the end I contacted the ombudsman to deal with it because Talk Talk wouldnt reply to my letters of complaint.
The ombudman wrote to me at weekend to say that Talk Talk havent responded to them either so they have sent a final decision letter to Talk Talk requesting they pay me £75 compensation and an apology.
Very stressful, wouldn't go back to Talk Talk for anything!:mad:0
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