TalkTalk no longer value

aurongrande_2

For several months now I have been a TalkTalk member under the Pro/Plus package for phone and Broadband.

Everything was going fine to begin with. Apart from a first payment hiccup. Basically they charged me twice on the setup fee, but instead of refunding it, they set up the account so that I won't be charged any further on anything; line-rental, phone package, broadband, the works, until the £60 was paid back. Took a few weeks, but still.

My broadband speed was happily chugging along at 2.7Mbps with a few broadband disconnections a day. I wasn't complaining, it happens.

Then, after a couple of months, my download speed halved, down to 1.5Mbps. As my parents who live nearby and is on BT; their speed had dropped down to 1.7Mbps, I thought there was something wrong at the exchange and let it be.

After a few days, their speed went back up to 2.5Mbps. They had previously been hitting 2.8Mbps. No major loss for them. However, my speed was still down at 1.5. So I rang TalkTalk up.

After a lot of hub-bub and a broadband tester on their end failing, they finally told me that my broadband speed is at 1.5, and has always been at that speed. So more pillar to post calls to India, they finally told me that my they had installed something called "Dynamic Line Management" which due to the instabilities on my line, has forced my speed down.

However, despite lowering the speed, the instability remained. Eventually, I got them to actually do something... or so I thought.

After a while, I managed to arrange an engineer from a company called "Cube" or something. As I was waiting for the engineer, and my wall socket in pieces due to the engineer on the line telling me to leave it like that for the engineer to deal with, I received a series of text messages.

"The engineer has repaired your line. Please reply with 'FIXED' or 'NOT FIXED'". I checked my broadband speed, and noticed that the overall download speed has increased by 0.1Mbps. So I replied not fixed. The same message came back the next day asking for fixed or not. Each time I got that message, the speed went up 0.1.

However, I only got a few of the messages in total, which increased my speed by 0.3. Eventually the engineer arrived. He did exactly what the call centre tells you to do. Clear cache, connect via LAN and not wireless etc. Eventually he changed 4 settings on my router to the following;

Connection type - PPoE LLC
Idle time - 0
Authentication - CHAP
and changing the ADSL to ADSL2+

This in all stopped the disconnections, but did nothing to improve the speed. Without even checking the wall socket, he charged me £30 and left. This was a couple months ago. My wall socket is still bare.

In my town centre there is an advertisement board with a TalkTalk poster saying something like "Full-Fat broadband without the high prices." Every time I see it, I now laugh and say "Yeah right. That's a blatant lie. My broadband is Half-Fat at best.

I can see that TalkTalk has been removed from the main site as a value/cheap broadband package. I also read in the papers that TalkTalk has been rated the worst in customer service.

Now that I'm stuck with TalkTalk, I can't switch to any better options.

So if anyone reads this, I recommend that they avoid TalkTalk. As soon as my contract comes up for renewal, I'm leaving.

shortchanged_2

To be honest with you I wouldn't go with TalkTalk ever again even if it was free. Bunch of incompentent cowboys.

MillicentBystander

They are 'cheap' for a reason. And they insist on 18 month min. contracts for a reason also. I try and avoid any company with 'foreign' call centres. These companies tend to offer 'cheaper' products because, again, there's a reason for it. Until something happens you will probably bask in the glory of your 'bargain' broadband. It's only when you hit a problem that the reason for the 'cheapness' becomes all too apparent.

JJ_Egan

In my town centre there is an advertisement board with a TalkTalk poster saying something like "Full-Fat broadband without the high prices." Every time I see it, I now laugh and say "Yeah right. That's a blatant lie. My broadband is Half-Fat at best.


But in fairness that may well be the same with any provider on your line as it looks like you have a bad line .

Said it yourself
My broadband speed was happily chugging along at 2.7Mbps with a few broadband disconnections a day.


A few disconnections a day = bad line TT adjusted to make line more stable .

jje

aurongrande_2

shortchanged wrote: »

To be honest with you I wouldn't go with TalkTalk ever again even if it was free. Bunch of incompentent cowboys.

Cowboys is an overstatement. They make cowboy businesses seem top notch.

aurongrande_2

MillicentBystander wrote: »

They are 'cheap' for a reason. And they insist on 18 month min. contracts for a reason also. I try and avoid any company with 'foreign' call centres. These companies tend to offer 'cheaper' products because, again, there's a reason for it. Until something happens you will probably bask in the glory of your 'bargain' broadband. It's only when you hit a problem that the reason for the 'cheapness' becomes all too apparent.

I only found that out too late, but I'm not alone in that regard. I wonder how many more people will get burned by them.

aurongrande_2

JJ_Egan wrote: »

In my town centre there is an advertisement board with a TalkTalk poster saying something like "Full-Fat broadband without the high prices." Every time I see it, I now laugh and say "Yeah right. That's a blatant lie. My broadband is Half-Fat at best.


But in fairness that may well be the same with any provider on your line as it looks like you have a bad line .

Said it yourself
My broadband speed was happily chugging along at 2.7Mbps with a few broadband disconnections a day.


A few disconnections a day = bad line TT adjusted to make line more stable .

jje

Too right bad line, and they didn't even attempt to do any repairs. The b*******. Sorry for the language.