TalkTalk Charging My Account for 10 Years After Cancelling

sgreer

Hi There

I moved out of my parents' house when I left for university in 2003. At the point of leaving I had an account which was held with Tiscali for dial-up internet (initially the account was taken out with Screaming.net). I wrote a hand-written letter (under Tiscali's instruction at the time) in order to cancel my account with them (I still have a copy of this). The account was in my name, however the direct debit came from my mother's account.

About a month ago my mother opened a letter that was addressed to me from TalkTalk which included a bill. She passed it onto me and I rang them. They explained that my account was open, and that they'd continued charging my mother £15.40 every month for the last ten years.

After complaining and asking for a full refund (almost £2000), I received a smarmy letter back saying that I'd agreed to the terms and conditions of AOL/TalkTalk and therefore had to pay the money back. I then paid £10 and requested a copy of every document relating to my account under the data protection act. I then received a phone call back with someone trying to explain to me that I should accept the £360 because if it goes to the financial ombudsman then they will only be liable for the last 6 months of charges.

Whilst I'm confident that this isn't the case, I wondered if anyone had any advice about how I should proceed with this? Should I approach the financial ombudsman? Should I ask for the full sum (+interest?)

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks
Simon

magpiecottage

This doesn't sound like it falls under the remit of FOS but you first need to make a formal complaint anyway.

Get your mother to cancel the direct debit now, though!

TalkTalk

Hi sgrear,

If you tweet us @talkTalkCare or join the Talk Talk Members Forum we can investigate into this in more depth.

Regards

Mark
TalkTalk Online Community Department

cyberem78

This happened to my father. He changed to a different kind of contract with them (he was with Tiscali to begin with then TalkTalk took over) but they kept charging him the old one too. It was for exactly the same amount as you. I think it was about three years before my father found out - a Talktalk operative actually told him when he was phoning them about something unrelated as he didn't realise.
Company apologised but did not refund the whole amount taken but refunded some of it by crediting his account which was in credit for about a year afterwards.