New Talktalk poll; feedback needed, good and bad

wehavethepower

I become a talktalk account holder when they bought onetel. I jumped straight on the bandwagon for the free broadband. I ordered it in April 2005 my go live date was projected to be August 2005!!!! I signed up to Talk3 international (as you had to at the time), but is great for me as I get free phone calls to NZ where my entire family is.

I received several letters from them saying they could not connect my broadband which were all rubbish, the Indian call centre haven't a clue and unfortunately bore the brunt of some of my frustration at the time.

It took a lot of tooing and froing, emailing and calling before I got them to realise that all I needed was a MAC code and I could be connected to them. Very frustrating experience. The usual story of conflicting information from several different people. Because it took so long I went and ordered plusnet broadband for the interim specifically choosing a pay as you go monthly service (no 12 month contract) so that I wouldn't have to pay any so called "disconnection fee". Well I was wrong they made me pay £72 "hardware deferral fee" before I could get my MAC code... but that's another story, am going to try and get the money back.

Finally when my broadband was connected to talktalk I received no letter, no modem and no connect & go CD. The only way I knew I was connected was because my plusnet stopped working!!!! I then had to ring Talktalk to get my username and password so I could connect to the internet.

Of course this is all very well if you already have a modem, but for those new users you're a bit stuffed. It took me several phone calls and about 2 months before I finally did get my modem & connect & go CD.

Another thing when my talk3 international account went live in May 2005, I called "Customer Service" to link my nectar card to my account as you can get nectar points - and I discovered several months later that it had never been linked. I spoke to several people about it who assured me they would call me back (in the UK) who never did. It finally now is linked, but of course nothing has been backdated - so I am about to embark on a fight to get it backdated.

I also just discovered on my latest bill that I have been charged for an "Inv surchage" each month -- when I specifically get my bills via email/online - this charge is for people who get paper bills in the mail. So I am being charged extra for a service I have not received. I have phoned them and they are crediting my account with the money - but this has not yet shown up....

However, my broadband works a treat.
So the moral of the story is - IF YOU DECIDE YOU WANT A CHEAP PHONE SERVICE AND FREE BROADBAND (WHICH I DO) THEN GO FOR IT. You may have to accept that you receive poor customer service as a result of this - Although this of course does not mean that just because a service is cheap we should accept bad customer service. The trick with these guys is to keep on your toes. I will be staying with Talktalk, I don't use them for anything else other than the free broadband and the free calls I get. I have used the other methods for getting cheap/free calls as described in the phone section of this site.

OK this rant over.

Kman2001

Talk talk has a more than average amount of unhappy customers..the poll shows 30% have either cancelled or are unhappy and a further 20% are currently satisfied but it took to long...now let me tell you you may be lucky and have limited issues with talk talk, but if something does go wrong you are screwed. There customer service is TERRIBLE.Call centre staff are absolutely stupid and have no clue what they are doing. Their responses are read of a piece of paper and you will go round and round in circles being put on hold and cut off after waiting for 15 minutes. Timeframes mean nothing to these people who will say the problem will be fixed in a timeframe but never do so. Also it is one of the only phone companies I have known where the landline just dies? In 20 years with BT this never happend once, in 8 months with talk talk it has been down three times, sometimes for considerable periods and they are VERY rude about things. They offer little service. Broadband has been down now since xmas eve. Still not back on. The customer service is throwing us round in circles and after all that an honest guy over there told me that actually no action has been taken as in, noone has come out to fix the line. Nothing has been done, it's insane!

carolshillington

mekprice wrote:

i have had problems trying to get it 4 free. i was told it was not free at the point of signing but it would become free as soon as it came to my area. that happened some months ago. i got the email address for the director from this site last time this was talked about and i emailed him. he told me it would be sorted, i got a refund but they carried on charging me. i have now got someone else's details. i think the director is a little fed up with recieving lots of emails from u guys and has finally put someone on to the job of sorting it.

don't bother contacting the customer services section with this problem they will tell u that u can't have it for free and where totally unhelpful. go straight to the director.

I have had a similar problem and have been paying £10 per month since last summer. I have spoke to customer services and got no where. I would be very grateful if someone could tell me the best perseon to contact and how to get some money back!

Gay

We have had talktalk since August. We often find we cannot get on to inter-net which is very fustrating. The worse thing is not being able to contact someone by phone - as obviously cannot report fault when system down. They have refunded modem cost. Happy with price but not with service.

howard_bretman

I ordered in July promised go live by end of August. Asked for MAC 24-8-2006 but Bulldog took over 3 weeks to issue it. Cut off by Bulldog 3-10-2006 got on line with tt 16-11-2006. Spoke to helpdesk in India, South Africa and Preston. Once online seems fine and is saving me £24 per month which as a pensioner is worth having. Supplied modem useless kept losing the connection bought an adsl router with built in firewall works well. There is no point them having a 'contact us page' on their website as they never respond to any messages.

PIppa

I joined Talk Talk in September 2006.

I was with AOL for broadband prior to this and AOL cut off my broadband prior to Talk Talk being connected.

When I contacted Talk Talk to see how long it would be before I got connected they told me an alternative way to access the internet in the meantime so I wasn't really inconvenienced.

I did have a few problems setting up the Talk Talk broadband connection and email which took a few calls to resolve.

Since then, on the whole, it has been working fine.

Last month my landline had a fault. I contacted Talk Talk whereupon they immediately asked if I would like my calls diverted to my mobile at no cost. I was really pleased with this.

I was regularly updated by text message as to the progress of the fault. It was resolved in 24 hours.

For the price of £20 per month I think it's good value.

tightwad101

Does anyone else have problems connecting to talk talk boadband? I can never connect on my first try. I have to restart my computer and then try to connect. Usually takes 20mins just trying to connect. Also it tends to crash a lot.

mattsaze

I applied more than 3 months ago, canceled the broadband and kept the phone line. Technical issues meant I would have had to wait for over a month just to be transferred.

The service I received was very good and am happy with my package.

beefcarrot

I applied in October. When the broadband switched, I had no connection info. However, one five minute phone call later, I was given all the login details needed and have connected without a hitch since.

Calm-Seas

A Very good friend of mine who is 65 has been waiting since June to have her broadband connected she has rang countless times and always gets the same responce your box will be sent out within the next 10 days.
She has now asked me if I can ring them which I dont mind doing.
Have you any tips email address etc to get to the foremost person to deal with this dont want to start at the bottom and just get the runaround. What is the best phone number to call I am on bt so isnt free for me to ring there number.
Thankyou in advance for any tips you may have