All Talktalk but very little action

filemike

I'd like to relate my experiences of dealing with Talktalk (and EE in a separate post) with the sincere intention of alerting other customers who might be thinking of signing up with either one of these providers of what they could be letting themselves in for.

My Dad has been with Talktalk for a couple of years now and is currently paying approx £25 for phone and BB per month. We thought this was a bit excessive and decided to check the deals on moneysavingexpert website whereupon we came across the EE offer. We decided to cancel our phone and broadband services with talktalk on 4th Dec with the intention of signing upwith EE immediately after. The agent I spoke to at Talktalk gave me a cancellation date of 12th Dec which immediately set off alarm bells because at this stage we hadn't yet signed up with EE. Out of concerns that I didn't want to leave dad (who is in his 80's, lives on his own, and has health issues)without a phone service, I sought reassurance from the agent that we would still have a phone service until EE took over the line. He reassured us this would be the case and that we could continue using the phone until the new provider took over. We also specified that we wanted our existing number ported to the new provider. On the same day, I signed up with EE. They sent a confirmation email that the order had been accepted on 4th Dec.

On the 12th Dec, Talktalk disconnected my dad's line.


He cannot receive calls nor can he make any outbound calls. I rangTalktalk on the 13th Dec. They claim they cannot reconnect the phone line despite being aware of my dad's age and healthcare issues and suggested I contact EE to see if they can bring forward their take up of the line services(due on 19th Dec). They offered to look into the matter but couldn't offer any immediate solution as they needed the approval of higher management (who happened to be on holiday because it was a Saturday). Talktalk said they would call me on Monday with news of what they could do for my father.

Update: they just called moments earlier. They concede that they shouldn’t have disconnected the phone service. According to the agent, the existing number (which we have had for approx 40 years) has not been lost but because the line has been disconnected, it cannot be ported to a new provider. The fact that I specified I wanted to keep our existing number should have alerted Talktalk not to disconnect the service—this in addition to requesting that my Dad not be left without any phone service. Despite being reminded of my Dad’s vulnerability, it will be Thursday at the soonest before ‘higher management’will be able to offer some kind of resolution.

trinidadone

sorry to hear of your experiences, i hope you and dad have a positive outcome on thursday

parttimeskint

Its unfortunate it has happened like that but, with the exception of moving services to virgin media, if you want to port your number to a new provider then your existing service must be kept active. If the service is in the process of cancelling down then another company can't port the number across.


Did the CS person you spoke to not advise an active line take over as the best option or did you insist the cancellation was placed at their end there and then? Normally cancelling something has a negative effect on the CS guys bonus so them mentioning the active line take over option is always high on their to do list, as they don't take the hit for it. I know a lot of people are told to say they are moving home or moving abroad or whatever to avoid a retentions conversations but that's not necessarily always the best thing to do.


Talk talk will not be able to do anything to get the service back up and running as, once disconnected, it takes at least 10 working days to reprovide the service, as you are finding with EE


The other thing is unfortunately you will have lost the number. When the service cancelled with talk talk, as it wasn't taken over and ported to another provider, the number will usually be taken out of circulation for 3 months or so and then reissued.


I would check with EE regarding your order with them as it will either be being provided on a new number or the order would have failed altogether as there is no active service to take over. If the order has failed then the providers don't generally get in contact to let you know as its pretty much all an automated switch over process, except for the actually engineer who does the connection.

filemike

Thanks for the kind words, Trinidadone.

Thanks for the info, parttimeskint.

When I put the cancellation through on the 4th Dec, I did specify I wanted the number ported to the new provider and that I didn't want my dad to be left without any service.
I'm still battling to save our number and somehow get our services reconnected. Talktalk sent a text on the 19th Dec informing us that they will escalate the matter to the Chief Executive Office team. Unfortunately, this may take up to an additional 5 days. So for an important issue that was brought to their attention on the 12th Dec, all they have managed to do is essentially pass the problem amongst themselves with the net result of achieving nothing. One gets the impression that if TT can get away with treating their customer's shabbily then they won't hesitate to do so: customer satisfaction seems to be well down on their list of priorities...
To make matters worse, things haven't gone according to plan with our intended new provider, EE. They sent a request to TT to take over the line on the 5th Dec but according to EE the request was blocked by TT who apparently had put a cease on the line which resulted in EE receiving a 'status 28' message at their end. At this stage, EE should have got in touch to inform me of this - but they didn't. I only found out by chance when I rang EE to request if they could bring the installation date forward. It means that EE had to restart the whole process again with the end result that they can't connect us until 30th Dec at the earliest. To be on the receiving end of the ineptitude of one company is bad enough: to have the process inflicted by a second really does add insult to injury.
Anyway, I will update this thread if there is any change but if there isn't before Xmas then I'd like to wish everyone at moneysavingexpert a very merry Christmas!

trinidadone

filemike wrote: »

Thanks for the kind words, Trinidadone.

Thanks for the info, parttimeskint.

When I put the cancellation through on the 4th Dec, I did specify I wanted the number ported to the new provider and that I didn't want my dad to be left without any service.
I'm still battling to save our number and somehow get our services reconnected. Talktalk sent a text on the 19th Dec informing us that they will escalate the matter to the Chief Executive Office team. Unfortunately, this may take up to an additional 5 days. So for an important issue that was brought to their attention on the 12th Dec, all they have managed to do is essentially pass the problem amongst themselves with the net result of achieving nothing. One gets the impression that if TT can get away with treating their customer's shabbily then they won't hesitate to do so: customer satisfaction seems to be well down on their list of priorities...
To make matters worse, things haven't gone according to plan with our intended new provider, EE. They sent a request to TT to take over the line on the 5th Dec but according to EE the request was blocked by TT who apparently had put a cease on the line which resulted in EE receiving a 'status 28' message at their end. At this stage, EE should have got in touch to inform me of this - but they didn't. I only found out by chance when I rang EE to request if they could bring the installation date forward. It means that EE had to restart the whole process again with the end result that they can't connect us until 30th Dec at the earliest. To be on the receiving end of the ineptitude of one company is bad enough: to have the process inflicted by a second really does add insult to injury.
Anyway, I will update this thread if there is any change but if there isn't before Xmas then I'd like to wish everyone at moneysavingexpert a very merry Christmas!

have you considered using EE and talktalks complaints procedures????

also, talktalk has a members forum where customers can log issues and staff follow this up, are you aware of this?