TALKTALK woes.

AJG88_2

Hi,

I just thought I would share my experience with everyone on here.

Basically I took out a landline and BB contract out 12months ago, everything worked fine no problems. As I had no issues I took out 2x mobile contracts and Youview in about August/Sept.

Ok so this is where it all goes wrong.
The Broadband started becoming very unreliable and slow and signal in my area on the mobiles is shocking (I actually have a Vodafone Suresignal unit here but they cant use that).

I worked alot away from home for a few months so didn't notice any problems. The mobiles got disconnected in November for going over my credit limit. Thats fair enough paid over the phone £35.23.

A week later I look at my bank statement and I see TT took 5 payments for £35.23. Ok so I complained, they investigated and without informing me offset the £190 against Decembers bill. Sooo 3rd Dec DD should have gone out but no, TT cut me off for owing £12 because they didn't take the DD because they made an adjustment to my account.

So on 22nd December they disconnect the mobiles, I had to spend 4hours, yes FOUR HOURS 9am-1pm on the phone to about 20ppl (seeing as TT like to keep cutting their customers off) Anyway I do get somewhere and they reinstate my mobiles and agree to take the direct debit on 7th Jan and cancellations agreed to give me some credit for youview install and to look into the problems I am experiencing with BB.

They generate my bill in Jan, low and behold they didn't do any credits and according to the CEO's office I have never ever ever reported a fault with BB (I found that there is no fault raise 26 days after the CEO Exec Manager got assigned my complaint).

I send an email to TT CS, who give me some rubbish saying your bill is fine, I then try to reply to this and THEY CLOSED THE TICKET SO I COULD NO LONGER RESPOND.

I think to myself I am not getting no where, I also wanted FTTC which TT said they couldnt provide it to me (BT/SKY/EE all would). So I place an order for BT Infinity, I then get a letter from TT confirming that it will change on 18th, and I can stop this at anytime prior.

So I now placed an order to take over my line and TT have acknowledged it, So I send my complaint to the CEO's office. Dido Harding (apparently) assigned me one of her managers on 1st Feb.

My Complaint at the time was the following
TT Broadband Slow and unreliable
Unable to get TT FTTC (I COULD ON 2ND FEB, imagine that 1 day after i complain to the CEO's office)
Poor Mobile signal
Loads of dropped calls on mobile using up my call allowance costing £100-200 more a month (TT CEO Manager said 202 calls would fall into this category for my latest bill on one of the mobiles)
Poor customer services/4Hours/keep getting cut off
unauthorised payments taken from my account

Ok, so TT CEO Office now had 18days before my line got taken over.

So I go back and forth, back and forth getting nowhere.

BT take over my line on 18th (8 weeks 2 days from when they received my initial complaint), I get an email from the CEO Manager saying she cant tell me whats was wrong with my line as it is no longer active.

Errmmm OKKKKKKKKK, 18 days of my complaint sitting on your desk with an active line and you did nothing?

Anyway I carry on along those lines and I get a bill for £400 cancellation on 25th Feb, on 26th Feb I receive a reply saying

"I have looked at both your landline account history and the fault management database to determine if I would be able to give you an answer with regards to your slow broadband speeds and I have discovered that there has never been a fault raised on your account - had you placed a call into our agents regarding your slow broadband speeds a fault ticket would have been raised."

"Due to no fault having being raised on the account we have not performed any diagnostics and we are unable to provide you with a reason for your slow speeds. As you are aware this may be caused by a number of factors which we would require to diagnose and investigate. We are unable to initiate these investigations on your line now as the account is now disconnected."

Ermmm OKKKKKKKKK, 26 days of my complaint sitting on your desk and you only just check?

Anyway back off to Dido as this Manager is obviously incompetent.

Email 27th Feb

"I understand that you have already been in contact with Cheryl Fowler regarding this. I have now taken ownership of this matter and I will do a full independent investigation. I will respond to your email tomorrow confirming my findings."

Email 28th Feb

"So that I can make sure that we have addressed all of your concerns thoroughly I request that you leave this with me so that I can investigate further and come back to you with findings.

Please be aware that I am out of the office now until 05/03/13 so I will pick this up again on my return and will respond in full by close of business on Friday. Hopefully I will be able to come back to you sooner if my investigation is completed before then."

Email 5th March - Yes you guessed it!

"As advised in my previous email I require more time to complete a full investigation for you. The detail of the investigation required will take longer than you expect.

Please accept my apologies for this however I would like to ensure that all aspects of your complaint have been addressed.

I will send you a detailed response by end of business on Friday."

I wonder when I will receive a reply, hopefully before i keel over!

Rant over, Martin Lewis you should stop telling people to go with TalkTalk because they are cheap. The counterfeit black market offer cheap goods/services, it doesn't mean they are worth what you pay for them

My advice is to NEVER EVER EVER EVER go with TT, if they buy a company and wants to take over your contract, leave.

upallnight

Correct. An offer for TT, which has been "blagged" by Martin Lewis and MSE, amounts to an effective "seal of approval". My experience of TT is similar to yours though not as prolonged.
Martin Lewis please take note, things have not improved.

pickoftheday

After reading the horror stories in this thread it's enough to put anyone off even considering broadband from any provider.

What an absolute horror story Talk Talk has turned out to be on this occasion.

I know I'll NEVER consider any of their products if there is the possibility this might happen.

I hope things get sorted out.

AJG88_2

Just finishing off writing my complaint for the ombudsman, and I notice another problem that just shows how "sneaky" or "incompetent" they are.

Email from CEO office dated 20th Feb
"I also do not have an answer for you as to why the ticket was closed before you could respond however I can advise you that I have now raised the credit for the engineers charge."

ohh really is that right?
Credit - Engineers Fee 21 Feb 13 -£30.00 CRBrightSparks Engineer - TV Install 24 Oct 12 to 24 Oct 12 £50.00
I thought my maths were good after all I did do A level maths and went on to do computer science at uni but £30 != £50.

I get the feeling there is a reason for this ... TT bill on 21st Feb was £67, £35 + £30 (refund for powerline adapters too) .. sort of cleared the bill £50 would have meant they owed me money

AJG88_2

TalkTalk's CEO Exec Office "Its not our problem" reply

Further to your recent emails, I would like to thank you for your patience whilst I have investigated this matter for you. As you can appreciate the information you needed required a greater degree of investigation.

With regards to your mobile account I have spoken to Cheryl about your recent mobile bill whereby she advised that she would refund £31.00 as there was potentially 66 minutes that you shouldn’t have been charged for. The reason Cheryl offered to credit £31.00 was because you had mentioned this issue on more than one occasion and she felt that as a good will gesture she would analyse your most recent bill as you were under the impression that you would not have gone over your free minute allocation had you not had the issues with the calls not connecting.

This was offered by Cheryl purely as a gesture of goodwill. TalkTalk have no evidence that there was an issue with the calls connecting and disconnecting. I have checked over your invoices myself and can see that you have made several calls to one mobile number. However, there are gaps between you calling the number back so this does not indicate that there was an issue.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise that TalkTalk debited 5 payments of £38.23 instead of 1 payment. I can confirm that you were impacted by an incident whereby multiple payments were taken when a customer attempted to make a one-off payment via MyAccount. You were given a credit for 1 of these payments but are still owed a credit for the other 4 payments

With regards to your broadband speeds I have checked the historic notes on your landline account and cannot locate a note where you reported having a fault with your broadband service. I have listened to the calls you made to us on 22/12/12 and you did mention you were unhappy with the broadband speeds when you were expressing your dissatisfaction with TalkTalk in general. I am sorry if you were unhappy with your broadband speeds however if TalkTalk are not made aware that you wish us to look into an issue we would not investigate further. I understand that you did mention this to our Mobile Team however you then began to proceed to query the 5 payments that were taken in error.

As we are unable to confirm you had continuous problems with your broadband speeds and your account is now disconnected so no further testing can be undertake, regrettably the charges on your landline account are valid. I am able however to remove the £200 deferral fee if you return the set top box to TalkTalk.

With regards to the power lines adaptors and the engineer fee I can confirm that Cheryl has already refunded this back to your landline account. However, the credit she gave you totalled £65.00 when you were in fact charged £85.00. Therefore, I have raised a credit of £20.00 to cover the difference.

Please find below the answers to your questions:
I am unable to remove the calls that fall into the dropped call category as I have no evidence that this was the case.
The 5 payments that were taken I do agree that you are due a refund. I do apologise that this payment was taken 5 times in error and for any inconvenience this matter has caused. I can refund back £159.92 which is for the 4 payments of £38.23 as only 1 payment was due. I need to make you aware that once you have received the refund of £159.92 this will then be charged to your mobile account meaning your current balance will be £404.08 outstanding.
I am unable to refund back the cancellation charges incurred on your landline account as the issue you were encountering was with your mobile service which is separate to your landline, broadband and TV account. As advised there is no evidence to support that you were having broadband speed problems and as your services are no longer with TalkTalk I cannot confirm what the issue was and if was down to TalkTalk’s equipment or yours. I understand that Cheryl was unable to assist you as she is not technically trained. However, she did offer you a call back from Fault Management Team but as your services had already transferred to BT she was unable to arrange this. I am sorry that Cheryl did not identify the need get this addressed sooner her priority was to resolve the problems you were experiencing with your mobile account.

I would like to apologise for the problems you have encountered with our Customer Service Team whilst you tried to get the 4 payments refunded back that were taken in error. Due to the poor service you have received if you would like to cancel your mobile subscription I would be willing to clear the contact breakage fee. However, you would need to return the 2 handsets back to TalkTalk.

Please accept my apologies for the delay in resolving this matter. The reason this matter has gone on for so long is because of the outstanding balance. I understand that we did take 5 payments in error. However, this does not take away from the fact that you still owed monies to clear the outstanding balance in order to remove the mobile bar.

With regards to being put on hold for 4 hours I have listened to the 2 calls you made on 22/12/12 and I understand that you were left on hold. However, the agent needed to do this in order to investigate this matter for you. I can confirm the calls did disconnect and I do apologise for this.

With regards to your complaint not being logged properly, Cheryl logged this on 04/02/13 and attempted to contact you by phone to bring this matter to a resolution.

I can confirm that your mobile account has not been disconnected it is currently suspended and has been since 18/02/13 due to non payment. Due to you cancelling your Direct Debit we have been unable to extract payment for January and February’s invoice meaning your mobile account is currently £251.16 hence the mobile phones being suspended.

In order to resolve this matter for you I am proposing the following:
If you decide to cancel your mobile subscription then I will cover the contract breakage fee once you have returned the handsets. If you decide to stay with TalkTalk Mobile and clear the outstanding balance I would be willing to clear the contract breakage fee you incurred on your landline account. Also if you return the set top box the £200.00 deferral fee will also be removed.

As your services were restricted from 18/02/13 I am willing to clear the package charge from this date to up 06/04/13 to give you the chance to decide if wish to remain with TalkTalk Mobile or if you wish to cancel as it takes 28 days to disconnect your mobile account.

I am willing to refund back £159.92 as this amount was taken in error. However, if you accept this refund then the amount outstanding for your mobile account will be for the sum of £404.08.
I am willing to uphold Cheryl’s offer of £31.00.

You have already been given a credit of £85.00 to cover the engineer charge and power line adaptors which have been offset against the outstanding balance on your landline account.

In addition to this I would like to offer you a credit of £30.00 as a gesture of goodwill for the time it has taken to resovle this matter.

This offer is made in full and final resolution to your complaint. Please let me know if this solution is acceptable to you within the next 5 working days. If I do not hear from you within this time then I will close this matter down on our records.

EDIT:

For those who think this reply is reasonable, I have declined this offer.

Reasoning behind this is that Mobile charged me £708 for 5months mobile contract where It should have been £60 a month so £300, £408 in billed calls and most of these were disconnected because of poor signal.

Secondly they fail to acknowledge that I have ever made a complaint regarding my broadband service. Funny that I didnt know TalkTalk Landline would offer me a credit because of the bad customer service TalkTalk Mobile gave me.
I also have an email dated 14th Jan to TT via their webform asking what are they doing about it. Finally In my first email exchanges to the CEO's office I send the following on 11th Feb

My complaint is just about everything and to be fair I don't think there is much you can do to resolve it now but anyway here is list

Broadband is slow and unreliable (And I'm not the only one complaining in our road!)
Unable to get fibre (Talktalk website April, June, July, September, October, November, December, January, TODAY!) yet I am able to get fibre with BT, Sky, EE and it's being installed on Monday 18th.
Mobile coverage is really really poor
Your customer call center is hard to stay on the phone without being cut off after 10minutes
Talktalk mobile took £35.23 5 times from my credit card on 14th November 2012 (Same AUTH Code, Same Date/Time/Seconds) and then used this money to offset the next months payment which left £12 outstanding in time for the direct debit but they cut me off for non-payment and then i spend 4hours on the phone getting nowhere.
After spending 4hours on the phone I then spoke to cancellations who agreed to refund the fee for using talktalk powerline (I am a network engineer and have wired up 10floor buildings I could have managed 2meters of proper CAT5 cable).... but as usual I got cutoff and nothing happened..
I think emailed your helpdesk who were trying to help, who then closed a ticket so I was unable to respond to them.

LouiseTopp

I too have had problems with this wretched company. On August 22nd at 4.30pm I went into Car phone warehouse in Bournemouth to ask an sales assistant if he could ring up and ask for a PAC code, as my old one was wearing out and I wanted to upgrade to another handset. I had rang TalkTalk mobile previously asking if I could move my mobile phone bill to an upgraded handset, but I was told this could not happen.

When I got though the man at the end in the Indian call centre asked why I was leaving and I explained because my handset was wearing out, and I wanted to upgrade to a better handset through Carphone Warehouse.

He kept putting me on hold for long periods and when I asked for the PAC code I couldn't understand what he was saying so I had to ask him politely to repeat it.

I have borderline learning difficulties and find it hard to hear things. When he gave me a PAC code, the Car phone warehouse assistant said it was not correct.

The TalkTalk supervisor at the call centre kept insisting I hang up and call back again from my land line. This I couldn't do as I wasn't at home and it was a long journey back.

Eventually I was put on hold for over half an hour and never even heard back from them! It was 5.30pm closing time by the time we got anywhere, I feel this is not good enough for a service they promise to so many customers in the UK.

I feel I have been treated unfairly and this is appalling way to treat a customer. I will not be returning back to TalkTalk as the service which used to be very good and fallen considerably. And apology would be nice, but I am not holding my breath.

This company are terrible and should be reshuffled to a UK call centre. I never lie in my reviews and if you are thinking of signing up to this company, then DON'T! :mad:

staggerleeclash

I had the mis fortune of asking TT to arrange the connection for phone/broadband at my new home.After taking a days holiday they never arrived between 8am and 1pm.I called at 1pm to be told the engineer looked at the telegraph pole the day before and realised he could not connect us but no one had the decency to tell me even though he had advised TT and a note was on file. They claimed BT had to look at the pole and the TT back office team would ring me within 48 hrs............never heard a thing....On 12 occasions/4 weeks later of ringing to find out when I would be connected I was told the same old "we will call you with an update within 48 hrs".. Basically they never ring you back...................anyway cutting to the chase I rang again on the 22/10/13 and was told the BT exchange problem was resolved and an engineer was booked and coming on the 7/11/13. On the 5/11 i was eating in a restaurant when my phone rang. I terminated the call but no message was left for me but I could see it was TT. On the 6/11 because I had no faith in TT I rang again and attendance on the 7/11 betweeen 1pm and 6pm was confirmed again. At 0730 on the 7/11 I had a text from TT stating " WE ARE SORRY YOU WISH TO LEAVE US AND HAVE CANCELLED YOUR ORDER"......I rang them at 8am to ask what the hell was going on to be told because they were not able to speak to me on the phone on the 5/11 they cancelled the order. I was told the order was cancelled straight after the call I did not take and the guy I spoke to on the 6th should not have told me they were still comimg on the 7Th.
I told TALK TALK to stick it where the sun doesnt shine..................I rang sky and spoke to an english lady in Yorkshire who was able to understand me and vice versa........sky are installing within a week.............

******DO NOT USE TALK TALK************ THEY ARE USELESS**********THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS ABISMAL**************THEY DON'T CARE******************* INDIAN CALL CENTRES ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH*****************