New Talktalk poll; feedback needed, good and bad

heather99

Hi,
I applied around July 2006.
I've been on the net via TalkTalk since September despite the TalkTalk website showing my Go Live date as Jan 2007. I cancelled my Freeserve successfully in September(big thank you to Freeserve) so did not have to pay for Broadband on top of the TalkTalk fee. I had to get my own Migration code off Freeserve and had to tell TalkTalk what it was 3 times. When I discussed this possible ‘double payment’ with the Indian call centre operative she claimed she could not understand what I was saying and would not agree to compensate me for the lack of my Free broadband as it is Free. Her manager could not understand either.
My problems now involve access stopping every few weeks. Raj very kindly explained how I could fix this: I have to delete all cookies and downloaded data then go into the Connections tab and restore my Advance settings. I have no idea why this works.
I asked TalkTalk to waive the £30 admin charge as I have already done all the admin myself. I am wondering now whether they will do the admin anyway and still charge me.
Heather

Julieoolie

bahnanna wrote:

I have also had terrible problems since joining TalkTalk in April 2006. In desperation I emailed Charles Dunstone as was getting nowhere after emails and numerous phone calls. Fixed within two days. So the moral of the story is go to the top.

I sent a letter via recorded delivery to Mr Dunstone in July 2006 and am still waiting for a response. :mad: It's in the hands of OTELO now so I don't know if it's worth bothering trying to contact him again.

Semp

I missed the last poll on this as I was having a nightmare trying to get connected at the time. I signed up at the start of August 06 and eventually got broadband in mid December. That’s bad enough, but the whole experience was made much worse by their appalling standard of customer service.

Anyway, the main things I learned were:

1 - Don't just complain to Talk Talk on the customer service number as you'll be fobbed off by someone who is 3000 miles away, doesn't have English as their first language and doesn't really care about your broadband problem even if they could do anything about it. Instead, email a full letter of complaint to cdunstone@cpw.co.uk (supposedly the CEO's email, so tell him what you think of the company too) and you should get a call from a UK based complaint handler who actually knows what they’re doing.

2 - Call Otelo who can give you some useful advice. Also call Ofcom, who won't try to help but will log your complaint. If they get enough complaints they might eventually get round to punishing Talk Talk for being so rubbish.

3 - We as consumers should start putting serious pressure on companies to use UK call centres. This isn’t a patriotic thing, its just that I’ve only ever had bad experiences with international call centres and I believe they actually represent a corporate tactic of saving money by providing bad service. We all know wages are much lower for the staff in these places, but if they don't solve your problem that also represents a saving for the company.

I know people who just don’t bother to complain to certain companies because its such a lot of effort and so unlikely to bring results. The language and cultural barriers make it more difficult to establish what your problem is and the high call volumes and targets about how quickly they need to get you off the line mean staff are less interested in helping. The result is that we lower our expectations and the likes of Talk Talk get away with not providing the service we pay them for.

Martin, how about an MSE campaign to bring UK call centres back?

Xx Benny Semp

Heinz

Semp wrote:

Martin, how about an MSE campaign to bring UK call centres back?

And start with British Telecom!

sjpsam

I was without internet from them for 5 months!!!

I have spent over 20 hours trying to get through to someone to speak to! again same problems as most, being left on hold, being cut off, being transferred to department to department, I have had several promises for a call back from a manager and I am still waiting for one. I have now moved back to NTL and I am still getting phone calls and letters and emails asking for money for my account even though I was told it was terminated and I would not have to pay the £70 charges. I have also asked for the £29.99 connection fee that they charged me as the one off fee to put me on their broadband!!!!! someone called this week and I explained and told them to actually read their notes on the screen if they could be botherd! I was told that this was out of order the way I had been treated and that I would be getting a call from their manager to get this resolved.

In addition to all of this, I took out their option 3, I called them and asked if the canary isle's were a part of the free calls under the offer, I was assure that because it is classed as spain that yes it would be. I asked if they could double check and I was again assured that it was. Low and behold when the phone bills eventually came through, these calls were not free. I have had several agruements about this with them, each time being told they will look into it and they will get back to me. I have still heard nothing and still have not recieved a credit for the calls.

I am sorry to say but the people they do not know what the hell they are doing in the slighest, but trying to leave them is becoming increasingly more and more stressful!! I had made numerious calls and emails and letters to them but still no joy.

Kim141179

No real probs, service is fine and reliable.

For a free service, it's good.

My phone bill is half what it was with BT AND free broadband (could only afford dial up before)

Charles

I applied as soon as the free broadband package was announced and got connected really quickly - no probs apart from some disconnections which I found were caused at my end, but even so, the call centre was keen to make sure I was satisfied. So much cheaper than ntl, especially as my son is in California and I can ring him on his mobile for free!

WELSH-DRAGON_2

I applied shortly after the talk talk offer was announced, my tiscali broadband connection was switched off by them but I then had to wait weeks for my modem so I could not connect. I was told to go into a carphone warehouse store and get the modem but when I did they could not help me.

The calls centres and time on hold was appalling so much so I emailed Charles Dunstone head of this company and complained. He put one of his high level customer complaint staff on to it and within days I was connected with the promise of a £20 credit in my account as a gesture of goodwill.

I am still waiting for the £20 - I am now using talktalk but sometimes I find it unstable and my email keeps going down/disconnecting

Welshy x

Bernie

...I had been a long time user of Onetel (only replaced by 18185 etc) and thought I would give TalkTalk a bash when we moved house.

In the old house, I had received a good service from Pipex but they suffered from "New Customer Only" syndrome and ignored my complaints that the mate I introduce to Pipex was getting a 2 MB service for £9 a month less than they were charging me for 1 MB. They literally ignored my emails so as my contract was up, I did not continue with them at the new place. When I phoned to cancel, Pipex did not seem to bothered to try and keep my custom.

Getting up and running with TalkTalk was quick and easy for us although I still cannot get newsgroups - they keep asking me to phone their Tech Service on a 0870 number - yeah! Right!

This is their response to all complaints - phone up our 0870 number, hang on while we rack up your phone bill sorting out the failed service we're providing.

I too was "promised" a 8 MB service when I originally typed in my phone number into TalkTalk's website. Reality is 2 MB. Lying, lying, ....liars!

I too will be dumping TalkTalk at the earliest opportunity, just another year to go....

hurrah

Still the complaints roll in see todays Sunday Observer.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/cash/story/0,,1989648,00.html