MSE News: TalkTalk worst for complaints – again

dodger1

Was originally with AOL and had the odd (once a month) connection problem. After Talk Talk took over I had one problem at the beginning which was fixed via the helpline, since then not one single problem and excellent speed at all times. All the providers seem to have many complaints, it's the luck of the draw.

pixwix

I've been with half a dozen broadband providers in the last decade - and TalkTalk achieved a new low by a huge margin.

They simply don't LISTEN! Absolutely NOTHING you say to them - by email, post or phone - seems to register for more than 5 minutes. "Sorted" they'll assure you - over and over again. But - over and over again - it most certainly is NOT sorted and isn't going to be.

Worst is when you try to leave - hours and hours on the phone, letter after letter, email after email - all answered with corporate platitudes but absolutely no action. In my case it took the attention of my solicitor to get them to stop sending bills for money I just didn't owe. I've known silly people just give in and pay unowed money just to get TalkTalk off their back - it didn't work.

When we're dealing with any of the service industries - electricity, gas, comms, etc - they all tend to be much of a muchness when everything is going OK. It's when the customer has a problem that the faeces starts to hit the air conditioning. That's when the real cost of national and multinational corporations providing our 'cheap' services becomes obvious - the bigger they are the less they give a damn - just too many eager punters to care about losing the odd one. They can lose 1000 customers and care not a jot - they pick up another 1000 with their latest 'unbeatable' offer - people just never learn.

I wouldn't touch TalkTalk again if they were the only broadband provider in the country - and given our totally useless monopolies protection, I wouldn't dismiss that possibility.

tweeter

I opened an account late 2009 with Tiscali who gave me unlimited internet access, but when Talk Talk took them over, they told me from now on you're on 40g download a month (not that I use that amount anyway).

Talk Talk don't honour customers contracts when taking over other businesses, unlike bank take overs, who can't just change customers existing mortgage contract terms, as far as I'm aware.

Talk Talk see you as prey just like all the other providers.

stratocaster_2

Was with Tiscali then moved to TalkTalk because of the "customer" deal I got (which was very good) - took months to get broadband transfer sorted but when eventually done, turned out to be very good. My broadband speed (compared with Tiscali - same company - doubled and has been consistent). Help line is barely OK and a a bit "techy" - some good but often have to ask to repeat.

My telephone and broadband suddenly died!!!! Although the help line is free via land line - had to contact by mobile - watch out it is VERY expensive (no alternative available) - 3 days and £24.50 worth of mobile calls it turned out to be a line fault which was rectified by a free engineer visit 36 hours later!

Contacted TalkTalk after it was all sorted for a refund - no problem on line rental and broadband (small amount due to package!) but the best I could get them to do with a refund on the mobile calls I had to make was £10 credit on my next bill (and this was after finally getting though to the "manager" of customer services) - not what I expected as I was £14+ out of pocket!!!!!

Have to say that they did try very hard to sort out problems and were "nice" to speak to.

Biggest plus for me is that their inclusive calls package includes 0845 and 0870 plus quite a few overseas destinations - we make a lot of call to Eire and they are all Free

TalkTalk

Hi All, As previously advised if customers have any specific account or service related issues we can provide support via the TalkTalk members forum.

Davidroth - I appreciate your positive feedback and its always nice to see when we do get things right.

Douzeper - Once you are live if you have any questions or queries feel free to ask us via the Members Forum where we will be happy to assist you, hopefully you wont require any further support once everything goes live.

tazminator3 - Im sorry to hear you have experience issues, which required intervention from the CEO's Department. I find it odd that the renewal was supposedly conducted at 5:30am as the relevant phone lines are not open at this time. If you wish we can look to check this for you if your line is still active you can join the TalkTalk Members Forum so we can assist you.

pixwix - Im sorry to hear you had such problems with your services and the support you received from TalkTalk. I can assure you we do listen to customer’s feedback. In the Online Community Department we look to extend the reach fo our customers engagement as wide as possible, proactively seeking issues on various forums and offering support (as is evident from my earlier and continued attention to this thread and the multiple posters here) where applicable. tweeter - During the course of a merger it is not always possible to continue the current contract terms. In the event there are changes to the contract terms you originally agreed then you will not be held to the term of the contract and are given the option to cease service if you do not agree with the newly proposed terms. My understanding is there were a large number of different active and legacy plans and tariff with Tiscali and as part of the merger we undertook what’s referred as a "rationalisation" process providing matched tariffs from the Active TT Tariffs (TT Essentials or Plus for Phone and BB customers, Evening and Weekend or Anytime for phone only). Where these changes were seen as detrimental whether due to an increase in price or a decrease in service (using your example of unlimited to 40gb limit is a detrimental change) customers were given the option to either continue on the newly proposed terms and tariff or to cease the services and transfer elsewhere, without penalty.

Stratocaster - The TalkTalk members forum offers an alternative for you to report faults should you wish. You can also do this via email in the event you have no telephony services. In regards a refund this falls within the area of a good will gesture. However in relevance to any complete loss of service we do have a Compensation Policy as detailed on the TalkTalk Website.

Regards

Mark

grimsalve

My girlfriend is currently looking for a combined phone and broadband package so we had a chat with a Carphone Warehouse sales advisor at the weekend about Talk Talk. There's a few things that concern me about what he said....

1. He recommended a 40Gb per month limit without asking what my girlfriend needed to use the broadband for (I'm guessing the 40Gb limit is the "standard" package?). When I asked about an unlimited deal (so it would be similar to what Orange and O2 are offering), he said it wasn't anything to worry about because "shopping didn't count " and even if she went over the 40Gb limit all that would happen is they would just write her a letter. He eventually said that the unlimited package would be an extra £5 a month.

2. My girlfriend regularly uses 0844 and 0871 type services to phone abroad so there was some confusion about whether these calls would be included in the anytime phone package or not, and if they weren't included he didn't know how much they would cost anyway. He said that once the broadband and phone service is installed there is a trial period of one month - ie. if she discovered that the 0844/0871 calls weren't included or she wasn't happy with the service for whatever reason then she could cancel the contract - is this correct?

3. We then asked him about the bad customer services reputation that Talk Talk has and he said that was all in the past now because Talk Talk only use UK based call centres and problems hardly ever occur.

bod1467

3. Answer is a lie. TT still use India and South Africa at least.

2. Check the TT member forums (Customer Service & Billing). There's been a thread quite recently about calls to 0871-type overseas numbers. (I don't remember the answer).

1. TT Unlimited is actually 80GB, but they don't currently enforce this limit.

macman

Why would you expect a CPW salesman to give remotely impartial advice about a sister company?

grimsalve

macman wrote: »

Why would you expect a CPW salesman to give remotely impartial advice about a sister company?

Impartial advice is to be expected, telling porkies isn't

zagfles

grimsalve wrote: »

My girlfriend is currently looking for a combined phone and broadband package so we had a chat with a Carphone Warehouse sales advisor at the weekend about Talk Talk. There's a few things that concern me about what he said....

1. He recommended a 40Gb per month limit without asking what my girlfriend needed to use the broadband for (I'm guessing the 40Gb limit is the "standard" package?). When I asked about an unlimited deal (so it would be similar to what Orange and O2 are offering), he said it wasn't anything to worry about because "shopping didn't count " and even if she went over the 40Gb limit all that would happen is they would just write her a letter. He eventually said that the unlimited package would be an extra £5 a month.

2. My girlfriend regularly uses 0844 and 0871 type services to phone abroad so there was some confusion about whether these calls would be included in the anytime phone package or not, and if they weren't included he didn't know how much they would cost anyway. He said that once the broadband and phone service is installed there is a trial period of one month - ie. if she discovered that the 0844/0871 calls weren't included or she wasn't happy with the service for whatever reason then she could cancel the contract - is this correct?

3. We then asked him about the bad customer services reputation that Talk Talk has and he said that was all in the past now because Talk Talk only use UK based call centres and problems hardly ever occur.

1. 40Gb is the standard but if you only occasionally go over it's no problem, if you regularly go over it they'll upgrade you to the 80Gb package.

2. 0844/0871 aren't included in packages, 0845/0870 are. 0844/0871 are charged at about the same rates as BT, which apparently is quite good as most telcos rip you off on these numbers and charge considerably more than BT. Price depends on number (like BT):

http://sales.talktalk.co.uk/pricing/package/essentials
https://m1.ttxm.co.uk/sites/broadband.talktalk.co.uk/pricing/pdf/TT_NGN_prefixes_010911.pdf

3. Using the online CS is far better than calling them. Obviously you can't do this if you've lost internet completely... Phone CS is pretty bad but they get things done eventually, but I've only had one real problems and they handled that OK... I've used them for about 4 years and friends of mine have had more problems with supposedly "reliable" ISPs.