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A Letter of Complaint to TalkTalk's MD Consumer
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editor1
Posts: 287 Forumite
Dear Ms Harrison,
Having the pleasure to review your business practices via your corporate website, I note that you have a drive to encourage the take-up of TV Ser-vices by your existing client-base, and also gain market share from your competitors – all very commendable!
However, do you actually implore your sales staff and "retention" staff to sell wholly unsuitable products and services to pensioners suffering "brain impairment”, be this dementia, or in my mother’s medical case, brain dam-age inflicted as a result of an influenza infection (swine flu) that migrated to her brain, rather than to her lungs and trachea; this has left her mobility and balance impaired and suffering from epilepsy, together with anxiety attacks. As such, she's not actually fit enough to determine via a phone chat the suitability of any utility, insurance and banking services, or much else for that matter – all of which is undertaken by me via the internet from Hong Kong, or from the family home when I'm visiting – which constitutes an annual visit of a minimum 50 days per annum.
Since I'm Hong Kong-based and not in the UK to deal with any of her utili-ty/banking requirements until 7th of February, I was aware that her 12 month subscription to your Talk Talk Broadband Essentials package was ex-piring, as was her pre-paid Value Line Rental Agreement. Given that it’s hugely expensive to phone your customer service lines from Hong Kong, I requested on Monday as to whether my mother could call your representa-tives and enquire when the VLR actually ended and what terms and condi-tions could be offered for us to agree to a new 12-month contract. We have, after all, been with your business as legacy customers from other ISPs you company purchased with operations in South Wales.
Further, my mother was instructed that under no circumstances whatsoev-er was she to divulge credit card details or agree to anything whatsoever, unless said new policy details were reviewed by myself via her email ad-dress, which I so happen to administer given my mother cannot use a com-puter as this brings on epileptic episodes – hence, she has no WIFI service within her home, unless I am visiting, this can be verified by checking my mother's account details and her broadband usage, which for the majority of the year is zero, as your sales staff are only too aware.
May I progress with this sorry tale of “mis-selling” and “strong-arm” tactics by your Company.
On Tuesday at 12.21 PM my mother made contact with your customer ser-vices department with a basic enquiry as to when her existing plan and VLR service was ending and to ask what, by way of an offe,r could be made for her to continue using TalkTalk services, given that more appropriate phone and ISP services had been sourced by me in line with my mother’s actual requirements, and not by some sales target demanded by you, given you head the consumer side of TalkTalk Group.
May I enquire why my mother was detained on the phone by your staff for some 40 minutes at a cost of £4.11 (such wonderful value that you profit from greatly!) and why my mother at the end of a long and exhaustive sales pitch felt obliged to release her credit card details, this despite my explicit instruction not to do so, thus agreeing to services of which she had no re-quirement, no ability to make use of and basically had been "lied" to by your staff, allegedly offering wonderful value for money at a hugely com-petitive price – none of which is true?
May I enquire why my mother paid £180.00 up front to your company for a VLR for 12 months, whilst the TV essentials package she was “mis-sold” was for 18 months? I never enter longer than 12-month contracts with anyone.
Now, I realise you have shareholders to satisfy; however given all the chari-table work you yourself are keen to highlight, one wonders how this plays out, given the fact your company takes advantage of "brain impaired" pen-sioners, that your sales team sells wholly unsatisfactory services to the aforementioned "brain impaired" pensioner who had zero requirement, nor an actual ability to actually use the wonderful services sold to her by your overly aggressive sales team. Under law, this is termed both "mis-selling" and "misrepresentation."
Further, are your sales team given such stringent sales targets to push your newfangled TV services that they feel obliged to use sales tactics that result in mental anguish and extreme anxiety in their victim, which necessitates medical intervention by our local GP to administer "sedatives" via injection to calm my mother down following her less than satisfactory engagement with your business and its sales representatives.
Are these now all standard sales procedures your company wishes to asso-ciate itself with and administer to its long standing customers, who have been loyal to TalkTalk – we only ever required a stable telephone service at a decent price point – which up until Tuesday, 21 January your company had provided.
As of the time of writing this lengthy note to you I have incurred £25.00 of charges via Skype dealing with you lamentable staff via your customer ser-vice telephone line. I have wasted thus far 12 hours of my valuable time ex-tracting my mother from this deplorable situation.
Indeed, one of your team members in your Preston Centre, a Mr. Phil Cross had promised faithfully to me on Wednesday 22 January to sort the issue out and recompense my mother with a deal that actually fitted her re-quirements, and not those of your sales team, your executive office and your shareholders. No such details of said remedy were dispatched; rather, I'm informed that a TV Box that my mother cannot use has arrived to her address – this despite my, less than 24 hours after her initial contact with TalkTalk, cancelling everything and demanding funds removed from her Vi-sa account be returned forthwith.
I have issued an internal complaint with your company, this is referenced as: 1 - 00002–516862-0, this being issued approx. 48 hours ago.
My Mother’s TalkTalk account number is: XXXXXXXX
My Mother’s Tel No: XXXXXX
My mother’s email address, administered by myself is: XXXXX.
Please be advised that, further to this correspondence, a full copy of this message will be retained, full details of all my interactions with your staff over the past 48hrs are retained, that this and other details will be for-warded to Ofcom and the Ombudsmen should a non-satisfactory response be issued by you, that this note will be posted on numerous Telecom blogs and Consumer blogs, and that I shall be corresponding with both consumer advocacy groups and the London-based media (who I interact with as part of my own business) to gain traction and highlight this deplorable conduct.
One looks forward to your feedback on this issue and to an formal apology from your business and one looks forward to recompense for the stress, anxiety and mental anguish your company and your representatives have caused my pensioner mother.
Kindest Regards
Mr. Christopher Rogers
Executive Director
Institute of Regulation & Risk – North Asia
Hong Kong Main Office
Tel No: 852 6624 0787
https://www.irrna.org
Having the pleasure to review your business practices via your corporate website, I note that you have a drive to encourage the take-up of TV Ser-vices by your existing client-base, and also gain market share from your competitors – all very commendable!
However, do you actually implore your sales staff and "retention" staff to sell wholly unsuitable products and services to pensioners suffering "brain impairment”, be this dementia, or in my mother’s medical case, brain dam-age inflicted as a result of an influenza infection (swine flu) that migrated to her brain, rather than to her lungs and trachea; this has left her mobility and balance impaired and suffering from epilepsy, together with anxiety attacks. As such, she's not actually fit enough to determine via a phone chat the suitability of any utility, insurance and banking services, or much else for that matter – all of which is undertaken by me via the internet from Hong Kong, or from the family home when I'm visiting – which constitutes an annual visit of a minimum 50 days per annum.
Since I'm Hong Kong-based and not in the UK to deal with any of her utili-ty/banking requirements until 7th of February, I was aware that her 12 month subscription to your Talk Talk Broadband Essentials package was ex-piring, as was her pre-paid Value Line Rental Agreement. Given that it’s hugely expensive to phone your customer service lines from Hong Kong, I requested on Monday as to whether my mother could call your representa-tives and enquire when the VLR actually ended and what terms and condi-tions could be offered for us to agree to a new 12-month contract. We have, after all, been with your business as legacy customers from other ISPs you company purchased with operations in South Wales.
Further, my mother was instructed that under no circumstances whatsoev-er was she to divulge credit card details or agree to anything whatsoever, unless said new policy details were reviewed by myself via her email ad-dress, which I so happen to administer given my mother cannot use a com-puter as this brings on epileptic episodes – hence, she has no WIFI service within her home, unless I am visiting, this can be verified by checking my mother's account details and her broadband usage, which for the majority of the year is zero, as your sales staff are only too aware.
May I progress with this sorry tale of “mis-selling” and “strong-arm” tactics by your Company.
On Tuesday at 12.21 PM my mother made contact with your customer ser-vices department with a basic enquiry as to when her existing plan and VLR service was ending and to ask what, by way of an offe,r could be made for her to continue using TalkTalk services, given that more appropriate phone and ISP services had been sourced by me in line with my mother’s actual requirements, and not by some sales target demanded by you, given you head the consumer side of TalkTalk Group.
May I enquire why my mother was detained on the phone by your staff for some 40 minutes at a cost of £4.11 (such wonderful value that you profit from greatly!) and why my mother at the end of a long and exhaustive sales pitch felt obliged to release her credit card details, this despite my explicit instruction not to do so, thus agreeing to services of which she had no re-quirement, no ability to make use of and basically had been "lied" to by your staff, allegedly offering wonderful value for money at a hugely com-petitive price – none of which is true?
May I enquire why my mother paid £180.00 up front to your company for a VLR for 12 months, whilst the TV essentials package she was “mis-sold” was for 18 months? I never enter longer than 12-month contracts with anyone.
Now, I realise you have shareholders to satisfy; however given all the chari-table work you yourself are keen to highlight, one wonders how this plays out, given the fact your company takes advantage of "brain impaired" pen-sioners, that your sales team sells wholly unsatisfactory services to the aforementioned "brain impaired" pensioner who had zero requirement, nor an actual ability to actually use the wonderful services sold to her by your overly aggressive sales team. Under law, this is termed both "mis-selling" and "misrepresentation."
Further, are your sales team given such stringent sales targets to push your newfangled TV services that they feel obliged to use sales tactics that result in mental anguish and extreme anxiety in their victim, which necessitates medical intervention by our local GP to administer "sedatives" via injection to calm my mother down following her less than satisfactory engagement with your business and its sales representatives.
Are these now all standard sales procedures your company wishes to asso-ciate itself with and administer to its long standing customers, who have been loyal to TalkTalk – we only ever required a stable telephone service at a decent price point – which up until Tuesday, 21 January your company had provided.
As of the time of writing this lengthy note to you I have incurred £25.00 of charges via Skype dealing with you lamentable staff via your customer ser-vice telephone line. I have wasted thus far 12 hours of my valuable time ex-tracting my mother from this deplorable situation.
Indeed, one of your team members in your Preston Centre, a Mr. Phil Cross had promised faithfully to me on Wednesday 22 January to sort the issue out and recompense my mother with a deal that actually fitted her re-quirements, and not those of your sales team, your executive office and your shareholders. No such details of said remedy were dispatched; rather, I'm informed that a TV Box that my mother cannot use has arrived to her address – this despite my, less than 24 hours after her initial contact with TalkTalk, cancelling everything and demanding funds removed from her Vi-sa account be returned forthwith.
I have issued an internal complaint with your company, this is referenced as: 1 - 00002–516862-0, this being issued approx. 48 hours ago.
My Mother’s TalkTalk account number is: XXXXXXXX
My Mother’s Tel No: XXXXXX
My mother’s email address, administered by myself is: XXXXX.
Please be advised that, further to this correspondence, a full copy of this message will be retained, full details of all my interactions with your staff over the past 48hrs are retained, that this and other details will be for-warded to Ofcom and the Ombudsmen should a non-satisfactory response be issued by you, that this note will be posted on numerous Telecom blogs and Consumer blogs, and that I shall be corresponding with both consumer advocacy groups and the London-based media (who I interact with as part of my own business) to gain traction and highlight this deplorable conduct.
One looks forward to your feedback on this issue and to an formal apology from your business and one looks forward to recompense for the stress, anxiety and mental anguish your company and your representatives have caused my pensioner mother.
Kindest Regards
Mr. Christopher Rogers
Executive Director
Institute of Regulation & Risk – North Asia
Hong Kong Main Office
Tel No: 852 6624 0787
https://www.irrna.org
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Comments
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If you're asking for feedback on the letter, I'll give it 4/10 - too long, rambling, over use of quotes, generally badly written. And using your business title and contact in personal matter is very odd. But I hope you get a resolution for your mother.0
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It's the actual letter dispatched to Ms. Harrison, so obviously my contact details must be included - as for anything, its a full account of what's happened since 21 January - its not a solicitors letter, its personal and deserves highlighting for the shoddy practices dished out to OAP's unable to take the fight back and you chaps wonder why the UK is F--Ked.0
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Well obviously you need to include contact details, but unless you are writing in your capacity as a representative of the Institute of Regulation & Risk – North Asia, you would use your personal contact details.0
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Whilst you are no doubt correct, as a rule of thumb, and when communicating with executives offices, its best to utilise an actual business email account, rather than a personal account or gmail account, which usually lands up as spam - the note has been sent to the correct email address of the relevant person, I even rang the PA before issuing this under some pretext to gat actual correct email details - to note will actually go to Ms. Harrison's PA as this is standard industry practice.
Its also posted on TalkTalk's own website and has been forwarded by their company mods to the actual CEO - i could have forwarded to the CFO as well, but he's only just started with the business.
However, whilst you may not like the style, my techniques get results, but what irks me the most, if you visit their corporate website is the fact that Ms. Harrison promotes TalkTalk's charity endeavours and wishes to come over as all cuddly and caring - nothing could be further from the truth, and given I hate PR and media manipulation, best to highlight these matters.
Anyway, its posted as a courtesy to users of this site - we now most of these businesses are much the same, however how would Ms. Harrison like me to treat her mother in a similar fashion. Lets face it, she would not!0 -
Not an issue, the actual note is with Ms. Harrison, for what good it will do, and can be dispatched to the CEO's office, again for what purpose God knows as the fact is they do not care. Still, we are duty bound to highlight these deplorable instances and fight back as best we can - never had an issue with them until this week and now one has a big issue.
Obviously the other way to get at them is to vote with your wallet and find a different ISP, I'm looking at the Post Office, but their phone and broadband is a rebranded TalkTalk product regretfully.0 -
For all doubters, and following dispatch of this note to CXO office, matter has now been taken rather seriously, they have called me in Hong Kong to apologise, they have instigated an investigation and will be forwarding me a recording of the 40 min sales pitch my Mother suffered - the recording will verify my Mother told them she had no idea what they were talking, what they were trying to sell her, and that her son as an authorised account registered user was to deal with the issue - all ignored by sales to sell a TV package - which is what the CXO office has instructed them to do - obviously, they don't like having the tables turned on them or actionable threats.0
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However, do you actually implore your sales staff and "retention" staff to sell wholly unsuitable products and services to pensioners suffering "brain impairment”, be this dementia, or in my mother’s medical case, brain dam-age inflicted as a result of an influenza infection (swine flu) that migrated to her brain, rather than to her lungs and trachea; this has left her mobility and balance impaired and suffering from epilepsy, together with anxiety attacks. As such, she's not actually fit enough to determine via a phone chat the suitability of any utility, insurance and banking services
And just out of interest how is anyone actually suppose to know this?
With the immense amount of detail you went into are you trying to win the guilt tripping letter of the year award?
All the above that I quoted reads to me is it's like a soap opera on steroids as far as emotional manipulation goes.
It's like you're trying to attack others for something it's impossible for them to know but what you've written makes you sound much worse as far as attempted emotional manipulation goes.0 -
Too long, didn't read.0
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@Money Saving King.
Your quote: "And just out of interest how is anyone actually suppose to know this?".
They actually are aware given the fact that since my mother's illness I've be the "authorised" account user and its registered within their systems.
As for guilt trip, I just utilised the very same PR con they use on you and I, I have emphasised how Ms. Harrison utilises PR and media manipulation in an effort to present herself in a positive light as far as "charitable" works go - so please, do yourself a favour, check-out their corporate website and investor relations info, see what they are pushing and then see why little old ladies are being screwed.
The fact remains, action has now been taken, that I have to waste considerable time and energy to get any action out of them for their error just sums up their business model and lack of concern to many customers.
Obviously, from your own post I'm wrong to fight on my Mother's behalf and should just sit back and be reamed I suppose?0
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