How to sign up to the Talk Talk £7 deal? UPDATED THURSDAY

Tamiami_2

freda wrote: »

I have just come off the phone to TalkTalk, where I joined the current Essentials deal.

I asked about the £70 LovetoShop vouchers, which I then discovered are only available for online purchases of the deal.

So I said to the TalkTalk rep that I would just sign up online instead of with him. However, he insisted that if I did this, MSE would sell my phone number and email address and I would be inundated with marketing calls. According to him, they have already had a lot of complaints about this issue.

Has anyone else experienced this? Or was he, as I suspect, just trying to bluff and hang onto a sale?

Have just seen your message - the telephone advisor I spoke to ,last evening would not shut up, was clearly reading from a script, and said there were no freebies. So, I cancelled, this morning, went on-line and signed up there. Am expecting the voucher and all else that's offered - if not - why not? So, when confirmation arrived via email of yesterdays signing (still with me?) I rang and cancelled.

The_Enforcer

macman wrote: »

That's because you are presumably on a SKY LLU service, and TT can't do a direct LLU to LLU transfer. To do that you need to do a 'return to donor' back to BT for your line rental.

I read this thread before attempting to sign up, so I wasn't surprised when I got the following message:

"Our phone line checker shows that the address entered doesn't have a telephone line there that TalkTalk can use. Don't worry. We see this often when people move house or switch from Virgin Media and cable providers.

What do I need to know?
BT usually charges £50.00 to install a new line but we are refunding the total amount so you will pay nothing!
You will receive your new telephone number in the post
What happens next?
When you have confirmed your order you can pick a date and time for the BT engineer to come to your home and install the new line."

Whilst I understand the explanation you have given, this was their second reference to Virgin Media during the line verification process and no reference to Sky. I also don't understand why an engineer needs to visit, because in order to get our existing Sky landline rental/calls/broadband package, which we've had for about 2 1/2 years, we had to get a BT line installed (the previous owners had an NTL/Virgin cable), involving physical works, which took several months to sort out.

I couldn't go through that nightmare again, so that kills this blagged deal for me, even though the TT package is cheaper without the voucher. Also, we don't particularly want to change our number as we've given this as a contact to numerous organisations.

Does your explanation mean we'd have this problem trying to switch from Sky to ANY cheaper LLU package other than one offered by BT, unless we firstly switch the Sky line rental element of our existing package to BT line rental? As an aside, if we did this, would we then be locked into paying BT line rental for a minimum period, which would further delay our ability to benefit from a cheaper bundle with another provider?

Sorry for so many questions, any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
TE

macman

Tamiami wrote: »

Has anyone any previous experience of TALKTALK as a provider? Have just signed with them for BB and home phone. Son tells me they are lousy, so prepared to cancel if any adverse comments. Please, anyone?
Thanks

There are hundreds of threads about TT-just do a forum search.
TT are fine when it works, it's when you get a billing issue or technical fault that you find out why they are so cheap. CS is very low rated.

macman

TT can't get their act together to switch you LLU to LLU, so they're bypassing by this by offering you a new line provision FOC. A decent provider would be able to try and port the old number to the new line (which in reality will probably be the same physical line anyway).
Yes, the same issue will arise with a switch to any other LLU provider (BT is not an LLU service). A return to donor is free but requires a 12m line rental contract, so you'd be tied in to BT for calls and line rental for a year.

The_Enforcer

macman wrote: »

Yes, the same issue will arise with a switch to any other LLU provider (BT is not an LLU service). A return to donor is free but requires a 12m line rental contract, so you'd be tied in to BT for calls and line rental for a year.

If all the other providers would involve LLU to LLU (Plusnet, O2, Tesco, Zen etc), then am I right in thinking that the only viable way I can break the chain is to switch to BT line rental, pay that upfront thereby reducing the line rental cost (which would slightly offset the increase in broadband cost from Sky from no longer taking their line rental - still an increase from £264/year to £309/year) and sit tight for 12 months, following which we would then be eligible to switch to any cheap LLU packages?

A switch of the whole package to BT is a no-goer as their equivalent deal paying line rental upfront is still marginally more expensive than what I am on now (£274.08/year) and it would move me from an unlimited to a 10GB download limit, locked in for 18 months for the privelige. In the short term I could reduce the monthly bill by paying 12 months Sky line rental up front, but that wouldn't help in the longer run.

Perhaps I need to wait for a cheaper/market leading BT deal to come along, but how likely is that?

Cheers,
TE

macman

Of the list you mention, only O2 is potentially LLU. Plusnet and Zen run on the BT network, not sure about Tesco. LLU to a non-LLU service should not be an issue.

The_Enforcer

I found a useful list of LLU operators on this site: https://www.samknows.com/broadband/llu which includes Zen as a LLU, but not Tesco.

Also, just when I was feeling more positive about switching I saw this site: https://www.maccode.org.uk/switch-broadband/llu-and-switching/ which warns about the potential costs of disconnection/reconnection from switching (I think) from LLU to non-LLU (ADSL). Such costs would negate the benefits of any switch.

MrsE_2

The_Enforcer wrote: »

I found a useful list of LLU operators on this site: www.samknows.com/broadband/llu which includes Zen as a LLU, but not Tesco.

Also, just when I was feeling more positive about switching I saw this site: www.maccode.org.uk/switch-broadband/llu-and-switching/ which warns about the potential costs of disconnection/reconnection from switching (I think) from LLU to non-LLU (ADSL). Such costs would negate the benefits of any switch.[/QUOTE]

What does that mean?
I'm going from sky BB to Talk Talk BB & Talk Talk are giving me a new number - rather than porting mine across.

Does that mean I'm that senario?

macman

MrsE wrote: »

The_Enforcer wrote: »

I found a useful list of LLU operators on this site: www.samknows.com/broadband/llu which includes Zen as a LLU, but not Tesco.

Also, just when I was feeling more positive about switching I saw this site: www.maccode.org.uk/switch-broadband/llu-and-switching/ which warns about the potential costs of disconnection/reconnection from switching (I think) from LLU to non-LLU (ADSL). Such costs would negate the benefits of any switch.[/QUOTE]

What does that mean?
I'm going from sky BB to Talk Talk BB & Talk Talk are giving me a new number - rather than porting mine across.

Does that mean I'm that senario?

No, they're giving you a new line, to get around the LLU to LLU direct transfer issue.

macman

The_Enforcer wrote: »

I found a useful list of LLU operators on this site: www.samknows.com/broadband/llu which includes Zen as a LLU, but not Tesco.

Also, just when I was feeling more positive about switching I saw this site: www.maccode.org.uk/switch-broadband/llu-and-switching/ which warns about the potential costs of disconnection/reconnection from switching (I think) from LLU to non-LLU (ADSL). Such costs would negate the benefits of any switch.

If you click through on that link you will find that Zen only has an LLU presence on a mere 4 exchanges in the North West, around their home base. So unless you are on one of those 4, you won't get an LLU connection from Zen.
There are no extra costs for an LLU transfer out-a return to donor with BT is free, but does require a 12m line rental contract.