Hidden TalkTalk charge

nfraser75

Has anyone else fallen victim to a hidden TalkTalk charge where they cease your old service which causes BT Wholesale to charge your old ISP £30 which they then pass on to you?

I changed from PlusNet to TalkTalk and ended up getting charged £30 by PlusNet because TalkTalk did not migrate my service, the ceased it and then started a new one.

I spend weeks on phone and email with TalkTalk blaming PlusNet and stating they did not cease my service, until PlusNet gave me a BT wholesale job reference and now TalkTalk admit they did cease my service but it is in TalkTalk's terms and conditions that I was supposed to check with my old ISP with regards to charges and it's my responsibility.

When asked how I was supposed to check on something I didn't know was going to happen and TalkTalk wouldn't tell me happened after they had done it, they have just stopped responding.

Am I the only person this has happened to? Or are others having the same problem?

JJ_Egan

Did you transfer via a MAC code ??

JohnDinton

I have never changed broadband provider, so I am not speaking from experience.

There seem to be quite a few comments in this and the Phones & TV forum about problems with transferring broadband. In particular people have said they have lost service for 10 days or more when transferring. It may be there is a lot of confusion over the difference between transferring from one provider to another, and terminating service with one provider followed by a new installation with another. I replied a few days ago in a case where broadband had been lost on a move from BT to Primus and a possible explanation was that BT had terminated the service instead of transferring it, so a chargeable new installation from Primus was needed. OFCOM told me a transfer was only a matter of billing.

A complication since you are moving to TalkTalk may be that it wants you as a LLU customer. If that is the case it ought to have been explained beforehand, because it may make it more difficult to move away from TalkTalk in the future. Also if they want to do the transfer in a way which will incur additional charges for you that ought to have been explained in advance, otherwise there may be a breach of the Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

It may be worth a call to OFCOM on 020 7981 3040 option 1 to ask whether what TalkTalk has done breaches any regulatory provision.

macman

Standard charge with any ISP if you don't use a MAC.

iniltous

When you changed from Plusnet to TalkTalk did you enquire about keeping your phone number, or did you get a new number from TT ?, if your number was to be ported then the cease of the Plusnet service and provide of the TT service should have been linked, if you got a new number and were not bothered about keeping the number you had, TT probably just ordered a new MPF line and your old Plusnet line would have been ceased separately and the £30 charge raised for that.
Mac's are really only for migrations on BT wholesales broadband, and shared Metalic paths, where BT provide the telephony, even if the bill for the telephony comes from the same company supplying the broadband, if you are moving to a full MPF provider like Sky or TT where the telephony as well as the broadband is supplied their own network they don't even ask for you to provide a MAC because they don't apply to MPF
OFCOM are supposedly looking at migration issues, but they don't seem in any hurry, from a charging point of view, after you left Plusnet, someone has to go to the exchange, recover the Plusnet connection and sort out electronic records etc...this is done by Openreach, who bill the service provider (Plusnet) who generally pass the fee onto the customer they have just lost as part of the final invoice