TalkTalk/Tiscali - A royal mess up

patwa_2

Hi,

I thought I'd start a new thread for this rather than just bolting on replies to someone else's, particularly as this is likely to take some time.

For the full story read here:
http://blog.patwanet.co.uk - post dated 19 July.

So, I both had e-mail contact and a telephone call with Tara Smith, CEO Team at TalkTalk, who will be working with me to resolve the issue.

The new development is that the line is now on TalkTalk's LLU equipment, but TT say only BT can transfer it off. Called BT and they're saying TalkTalk can do it themselves due to the equivelance of access that all telephony providers have to the network.

Tara said that TalkTalk would offer compensation for the trouble they've caused, but I want to get this confirmed. It's looking like I'll have to go to BT, enter into a 12 months contract, have the line transferred, then cancel the contract and move to TalkTalk to get the line back to how it was. This would cost a minimum of £120 in BT contract cancellation charges.

Waiting for mum to get home, she owns the TalkTalk account so only she can go into detail with Tara about it.

H.

patwa_2

An update.

Well, we were all set to go down the transfer to BT, back to TalkTalk and back to Tiscali route, but honestly mum said she couldn't cope with the stress and the downtime.

So we now have a username and password that we got from the CEO Team at TalkTalk, the only problem being that whereas there is an ADSL link, it's not been fully activated, using the TalkTalk CD and modem from the other phone line comes up with a failure for connection to the network.

The TalkTalk order checker says that everything is progressing fine, so I hope to hear from them soon with the welcome pack, etc, but am hoping even more that the link will activate before then, hopefully today or tomorrow. We were already told once on Thursday that Thursday was the 'go live' date.

It's a bit of a catch 22 situation. On the one hand mum says we would probably have gone with TalkTalk eventually anyway as it does save us money. But we've been forced to take up their service now due to their mistake.

MoneySaving wise, I have written confirmation from the CEO team that we will receive compensation for the hassle, and there are several people trying to trace the initial sales call from which this whole mess stems.

I once again uphold my recommendation to go with TalkTalk, but only for new customers applying directly via their website and not for those upgrading from an existing company, or those taking the offer up via a sales call.

I'll update as appropriate.

H.

JayTee99_2

Nice blog!

you are not alone, it seems talktalk have been accused of slamming by quite a few people recently. (slamming is of course transferring your line or service without your permission).

If you are staying with talktalk and have been promised compensation then i would push them to settle asap otherwise it may not happen. Mentioning Ofcom may spur them on as there must be many complaints logged there.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3117-where-as-my-broadband-gone.html

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=480806&highlight=slamming

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/18/plusnet_talktalk_spat/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/19/talktalk_vs_plusnet/

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=newnet&Number=3007844

patwa_2

Thanks, we'll certainly be seeking some sort of reperation for this. TalkTalk are trying to find the original sales call which started this whole mess.

H.

patwa_2

Well success in part.

They traced the call from the original sales agent and it turns out that they did mention the cooling off period and that the package could be cancelled, even before it was changed. However, my mum did ask several times for the info to be provided in writing (which it wasn't) and that she'd confirm the order.

There has clearly been a mis-communication or mis-understanding here, but for future reference TalkTalk and many other providers operate on an explicit cancellation policy rather than explicit consent. Unless you explicityly cancel, it's assumed you're happy to go ahead.

Anyway, Tara said she'd honour her original offer of compensation, and has credited mum's account with £61.47 or three months line rental.

We received the TalkTalk modem today and will see if it's capable of working on the extension. BTW we received the welcome pack from TalkTalk yesterday, that was sent out on July 7th.

I've suggested several things to Tara that she's going to look into that could improve the migration service. One of them is a telephone check with customers a few days after the welcome pack is sent to see that they've received it, so customers aren't left hanging with no idea on when their 'go live' date is. If we had known this in advance we could have taken measures to help things run more smoothly and it wouldn't have been such a shock out of the blue.

H.