MSE News: Talk Talk worst of big guns for customer service

MSE_Martin

Whats interesting for me about this is we get so many emails saying TELL EVERYONE NOT TO USE ????????? THEY'RE AWFUL. And every single provider is mentioned at some point. Yet of course one bad experience doesn't mean its bad service. There is no perfect provider. So these numbers at least tell us the risk level that your service will be awful. And we can let people decide for themselves the balance between price (our focus) and service (user ratings). I hope its a good marriage. It still won't stop people getting bad service though.

stj01

Having experienced Talktalk twice in six years, I'm not suprised. Appalling service. Painfully slow speeds. They lie, they don't respond, they're rude and I would not trust them as far as I could throw them. They refuse to provide names of senior staff to write to. They refuse to apologise for any aspect of their service. Corporate arrogance at its worst. And they keep mailing me to take up their service again - depsite me telling them to never to contact me again. In my view they need taking to task at the highest level.

Charles Dunstone - you should be ashamed of yourself and your company.

Drunkstar

smudger1946 wrote: »

I have been with TT for a few years, never had a problem AND WHEN WE DID IT WAS A FIRST CLASS SERVICE.
10/10
SMUDGE

On the other hand myself, my gran and my dad all went to them and we all got shocking service. On the plus side it meant I could reccomend them to my mother in law.:cool:

happyinflorida

We had a nightmare with Talktalk and then when our 18 month contract was coming to an end we decided to go elsewhere, this was the start of an even bigger nightmare. We were first going to change to Plusnet - rang them up and arranged for them to take everything over - it didn't happen, the problem was Talktalk wouldn't change us over - even though I'd phoned them to advise them we were not going to renew our contract and I wrote to them, online to advise them when we contacted Plusnet - got a reply, so they knew what was going on and told me I didn't need to inform them!

After 2 months of getting no where and them taking yet another direct debit payment, I decided to try and speed things along by cancelling the direct debit the day after they'd taken payment - result ...... Talktalk cut us off! We weren't just cut off either, we were cut off so we couldn't ring 999, which is actually illegal to do this and we had our line still held onto by them so we couldn't go with anyone else for nearly 3 months!

We kept trying to go with other providers - anyone just to get our phone line back and broadband, especially as we've got 2 older sons who needed the internet to do school work, etc - first Sky, they only got us their TV package, we already had a Sky box from when we'd been with them previously, but they couldn't get the phone line up and working - several start dates given, but nothing happened!

Lastly we went to Virgin in the hope they'd be able to get us connected as they're better quality - so we'd heard! They said 2 weeks which eventually became about 4 or 6 but they did eventually manage what no one else could!

Did I complaint to Talktalk? Not at the time as we were so busy trying to sort out getting reconnected to a new provider. It turns out they'd put something on our line which was basically like being cut off for non payment, even though they'd just taken another payment and we were up to date!! Finally I got a letter from a debt collecter telling me I owed them money! I wrote to them, outlining what had happened and telling them to take a running jump - I never heard from them again and I wrote to the CEO at Talktalk. I got a reply after 2 months!!!! From a useless !!!!! in the CEO's office, who didn't investigate what had happened and kept telling me I'd got cut off due to non payment. She insisted on ringing me, which I finally gave into and she rang my husband and was really nasty and rude to him, he finally got her to say she'd look into it and I got an e-mail reply 1 month later stating we'd been cut off due to non payment!!!

I then complained to Oftel who advised I had to go through Talktalk first, so I got back in contact with said !!!!! - who kept getting things wrong and not investigating and telling me to reply in 2 days but taking weeks herself! Finally she closed the case when I e-mailed back to one response from her to say I'd need a few more days and I got a reply telling me she was out of office for nearly a month and then I heard nothing, so I contacted her again to be told "You didn't reply in time and I closed the case!"

So I'm going back to Oftel again now - this has been going on since last October! This is what Talktalk are really like and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone, except my real enemies as my god, you will go to hell and back with them!!!!

Heinz

Sounds quite typical.

1jim

Heinz wrote: »

Sounds quite typical.

sadly true

astralbee

My experience of Talk Talk was when I set it up for my uncle a few years ago. I had to make a quick call to their service centre. My first ever Indian call centre! It took ages to get through but my query was sorted fairly quickly. I have never had to call them since and the service has just carried on without any problems.

Personally I am with BE, who I am led to believe are one of the fastest and most reliable providers. Certainly I can't grumble with their download speeds and limits! But when I had a problem with the router they provided OH MY GOODNESS it took the best part of 6 months to get them to admit I needed a replacement. They had me jumping through all kinds of hoops, performing technical tests that I KNEW were pointless (I work as an IT technician) and quite frankly seemed designed to put me off. In the end only a sarcastic email to their customer service department saying "I give up. Please tell me when I can get out of this contract" had the desired effect.

I guess what I am saying is that when things go right, everything is fine with the world. Broadband usually just works unless something drastic happens like a workman cuts a cable whilst digging the road. When things go wrong all ISPs seem to disappoint.

Dar

poppy10_2

Awful service, and kept on charging money from my bank account for months after I had left them. They should be shut down.

Bill_Raymond

All these companies are profit making. It isn't surprising that quality suffers since they have to extract a surplus from their workers and us consumers.
The Phone Coop is an excellent alternative that I have used for many years. The broadband which uses the BT copper system is very reliable and customer support is good (although not so good out of office hours). telephone service has everything BT offers but cheaper and they do competitive mobiles too. Become a member and they pay a good interest rate on savings and also a regular dividend.
Why would anyone go anywhere else?
Find out more by googling their site.

mrcjbeaven

I have been a Talk Talk customer since 2007 and by and large they have been OK but do find their customer services could be vastly improved from what it has been for several years. Their second line support would be the only good point about them, more so in recent times after lengthy times of waiting for a response. The bottom line is they are one of the cheapest and you get what you pay for.