New Talktalk poll; feedback needed, good and bad

pdmonks

I had TalkTalk broadband before it was free, paying £24.99 a month. I decided in early 2006 to change providers as my 12-month minimum term had just expired and I had just discovered this site :-) I duly applied to Talk Talk for a MAC code and to be fair this arrived within the timeframe quoted.

I applied for an account with Madasafish at half the monthly rate and am very happy with this. However I was under the assumption that the transfer with the MAC code automatically closed my TT broadband account (I also used TT for cheap phone calls too). Needless to say this didnt happen.

Although I rang them on several occasions (very poor customer service from non-UK contact centres) the monthly bills continued to arrive, though by this stage I had cancelled my Direct Debit.

Eventually last summer I received a red-demand and event though I made several other lengthy calls between customer service (!) and their accounts/credit control dept, AND THEY AGREED THAT I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED and was no longer taking service from them - it was like pulling teeth to get the account zero'd off and the pending court summons to be withdrawn - obviously they sell their debt to a collection agency.

And eventually it was credited and that was the end of that....

OH NO IT WASN'T - October 06 came and a new bill arrived out of the blue (this is 3 months after having received no monthly bills...) and the whole saga started over again. I have made several more calls and despite repeated promises it has been sorted, I have this week received a second letter from their debt collection agency stating that I am about to receive a court summons and that legal proceedings are pending!!

I am quite looking forward to my day in court....

Do any forum users know whether this is likely to already be affecting my credit rating or is that only on receipt of a CCJ?

I have now cancelled by telephone service with them and moved back to good old BT!!!

In my experience (and I can only speak from my point of view) I wouldn't ever touch TT with a barge-pole again!!

-peter

Topaz_3

As TalkTalk dont have equipment in my local exchange I had to go for the more expensive option. I waited about 4 weeks and went live on the day they said. The only problem I had was with switching off the power to the modem when I went away for 3 weeks and having no connection when I came home. After many phone calls they agreed that the modem was faulty. New modem (so far) no problems.

floss2205

I cannot believe I was stupid enough to believe the hype about Talk Talk. I had had them as a call provider with a BT line but opted for the £20 all in package.

What a mistake. My phone line is dreadful, my upgraded Talk Talk broadband operates at half a meg in terms of speed (and that is only after having many angry exchanges with technical support)_and to get this level of service is has cost me approximately £40 in calls to technical support who have still not resolved the problem. I am now in the process of switching back to BT and another internet provider as this just isn't worth the bother!

mad_as_a_hatter_3

My experience of Talk Talk has been absolutely dreadful and echoes many of the comments on here. Customer service is absolutely disgraceful. I ordered broadband back in October and still do not have it. I eventually gave up and am in the process of transferring back to BT. I am of course substantially out of pocket from calling "Customer Services" and have been without broadband for three months.

I honestly could not recommend it to anyone.

mcdonag

I had absolutely no problems at all with their service until Dec 11 when for no reason my line went down. After eventually finding the correct number to call on my mobile, I found out that my line was down because it was being upgraded to 8Mb and would be back within 24 hours.

3 weeks later, I eventually get my line back. No phone calls all over xmas new year, got 8mb line for about twenty minutes and it is now back to the 1.5mb standard.

I spent about £30 on my mobile just talking to TalkTalk.

Cheeky tw@ts just sent me my monthly bill.

I will be asking for a credit for the whole month as the only calls registered on the bill are test calls that I made whilst the line was working occassionally during the month.

I will be cancelling my line at the earliest opportunity.

Currymonster_2

Been with TalkTalk for 6 months now.

Pathetic customer service....nobody gives a damn about anything you ask for, if they dont have an answer to your question they say they cant hear due to a line fault on the phone:rolleyes:

My advise dont use them and not all calls are free anyway, as they class 0870 numbers as not being landline....thus chargeable!!!!!

Cant wait for CON...tract to end:rolleyes:

Heinz

Currymonster wrote:

My advise dont use them and not all calls are free anyway, as they class 0870 numbers as not being landline....thus chargeable!!!!!

That's standard (only numbers starting 01 or 02 are 'geographical').

TT's website shows:

Call charges shown and billed per minute. Connection fee of 3p applies to all chargeable calls. Mobile call charges relate to the Network the customer originally connected to. Please note that TalkTalk call bundles do not include calls to non-geographic numbers starting with 084 or 087. Calls to 0845 numbers are charged at 3p/m (day), 1p/m (evening) and 0.5p/m (weekend). Calls to 0870 numbers are charged at 7p/m (day), 3.5p/m (evening) and 1.5p/m (weekend). Our maximum price for calling other 084 or 087 numbers is 10 pence per minute (day/evening/weekend).

marsha8

Put my comments down on your previous Talktalk discussion but now I update.Had trouble for three & a half months & was without any internet at all for nearly 3 weeks.They did ring me on numerous occasions & also sent text messages. I wrote asking for compensation(it's difficult when broadband is "free") & received a measly £10.00 off my phone bill.Wrote again saying I was not satisfied but nothing else on offer.They did admit that the increase in speed had been the cause of my problems & the speed has now been dropped from about 6.9 to 4.0 which is fine by me.Can usually get on line but occasionally it is sluggish or disconnects but these occasions are infrequent.They must improve else there will be a mass exodus after 18 months.

pb1

Let's get things in perspective ..... free broadband from TalkTalk created a revolution in the market which resulted in a surge in demand which they struggled to service. I think the key issue is whether you believe TalkTalk is out for a quick buck or whether they are in it for the long-term? I believe its the later and feel that the service will improve over time. I have personally evidenced this from a customer service perspective. I recently made a service request to their billing department and the response could not be faulted. From a technical perspective, I can only see benefit from the tie-up with AOL and feel that the entire service will continue to improve over time. I have no complaints with the broadband or telephone services and am making increasing use of the free international calls! If Charles Dunstone reads these posts, the only thing that I would like to flag is the poor availability of their mobile service outside of the big cities.

hurrah

pb1 wrote:

and am making increasing use of the free international calls!

But they are not free!!! they are part of package you pay for,and unlike other suppliers you have to dial an access code ,which if you forget to do they will charge you.