The EE + Talk Talk Gangster Diaries

vonBlanko

Hello MSE patrons,

This here be a diary of my ongoing adventures with EE and TalkTalk.

I am keeping this thread as a duplicate public account of our interactions with each company. Hopefully the situation can be resolved, but if not, this is where I will document it. It is intended in good faith, and I hope is in the spirit of the forum.


There is a lot of prologue (some of which is included in previous posts), but I'll skip to recent developments.

The summary as of where do we stand on, 11th November:

Two companies, EE and TalkTalk, simultaneously taking or trying to take money for a single line rental service that, in fact, should be free.

Merry Christmas?


The Diary:

Just before this weekend (Friday 28th of Nov) we received a letter from a company called Buchanan Clark & Wells (which we returned with a phone call), to collect on behalf of EE for the princely sum of £132.

Except we don't have a contract with EE -- I'm typing this on a TalkTalk connection-- and the one we did initiate, was cancelled within days of ordering it, and no line ever went live.

Charming.

The £132 is presumably somehow for the upfront discount line rental, which was part of MoneySavingExpert's deal with EE, (well documented around the forum).

The contract was not only cancelled quickly but, a little while later after seeing we were being direct debited on a bank statement, I was advised by an EE representative that we indeed were cancelled, that we had no contract with them, that we had cancelled in time and that we were not due payment of any kind.

All's well, that ends well, then, I thought.

When she finished I was then told the quickest way to then complete the process, would be to have my bank take back the money under the Direct Debit guarantee as having a check sent out to us from EE could take weeks.

We did as advised, incurring several pounds of phone calls on the way.

By which we arrive at having at EE having their debt collections agency reindeer send round their friendly £132 Christmas card.

Ho, ho, ho.

Next up?

TalkTalk -- as part of their retention deal their man "Rowan" offered us a waiver on the line rental and matched the Amazon vouchers with £100 of love2shop vouchers.

(I excitedly mentioned this weeks ago on the forum)

Awesome! TalkTalk about competition in the market place.

Except, this past week I can see online that the little TalkTalk elves have snuck on the full line rental charge of £15.95.

Considering that is more than we were going to go with from EE, what kind of retention deal is that, I wonder?

So that's two companies after our money, for one line rental service, that should be free.


As of tomorrow, I have set aside some precious time to chase things up. I'll update as and when.

brewerdave

Only comments I can offer:-
1. HORRANGE (the former name of EE) were well known for the communications breakdown between their Customer Services and Billing functions. Many people have reported similar situations as yourself over the years,including me!!:(
2. Did you get anything at all in writing from TalkTalk?? Because they are equally as well known for their propensity to renege on phone deals -and to fail to find the recordings of said phone calls -my S-I-L got a similar offer to stay with Talk Talk rather than join Sky - never materialised and he had a battle over several months before they let him go!!:eek:

Davesquire

I attempted to switch from TalkTalk to EE after reading the offer on the MSE blog. I'm sure there are lots of happy customers, but I'm not one of them.
I have been left a couple of weeks with no internet (despite having three school aged children with homework portals).
I am just wondering how long they can string this out for before I have to really ramp up the effort?

Martin: i just wonder whether it is worth you checking on the number of unhappy customers, as it does appear to be quite a few and your site still appears to promote the EE deal. You've done fantastic things for consumers, but maybe this one wasn't that successful? Or maybe there are millions of satisfied customers and we are the tip of the iceberg. Would be interesting to know.

avoid_EE

I had this exact same problem, cancelled before any services were provided by EE as we were left waiting 3 weeks or so with no broadband and off to the owrst possible start on what was promised to be a simple no gap switchover. Promised all the same with nothing to pay no outstanding fees etc, then the letters demanding £132 from BC&W started arriving, on christamas eve of all times ! Had another letter from them and now a first letter from EE. totally unacceptable company and practice, they should not be recieving any promotion or recommendations from MSE, I will not take any recommendations from this website anymore as thats two bad bad terrible experiences so far.

EE

avoid_EE wrote: »

I had this exact same problem, cancelled before any services were provided by EE as we were left waiting 3 weeks or so with no broadband and off to the owrst possible start on what was promised to be a simple no gap switchover. Promised all the same with nothing to pay no outstanding fees etc, then the letters demanding £132 from BC&W started arriving, on christamas eve of all times ! Had another letter from them and now a first letter from EE. totally unacceptable company and practice, they should not be recieving any promotion or recommendations from MSE, I will not take any recommendations from this website anymore as thats two bad bad terrible experiences so far.

Hi

I beleive I have spoken to you on another thread.

I do apologise for the issues you have faced.

If you would like me to bring this up with customer services please email [EMAIL="jade.taylor@affiliatewindow.com"]jade.taylor@affiliatewindow.com[/EMAIL] with a contact number and outlining the issues you have faced.

Thanks
Jade- Representing EE