TT overcharging for leaving contract early

skea56

This post is for advice on behalf of my brother who is not on this forum.

Recently moved into his first house on his own, and I suggested TT as Id gotten a reasonably good deal with them.

From the get go there was problems - delays in setting up the the TV. Engineer never came out and made him sit in all day. Promised call backs never came.

It all came to a head and my brother got so annoyed he tried to cancel the contract, but was by this time outside the 14 days cancellation period, so instead agreed to a downgrade of his package at a cost of £50.

He received his bill on Fri, and they have instead charged him £160 to cancel, with this coming out by DD on Wed.

How do we get this sorted? I feel so sorry for him, he's just getting started out and has done so well so save up and get this house, and all this has knocked his confidence.

Appreciate any advice you's can give.

sk56

oldharryrocks

They have a members forum your brother can take it up direct with their online team.

See: http://www.talktalkmembers.com/t5/My-Account-Billing/bd-p/45

skea56

Thank you have directed him to that.

They don't have a live chat facility like BT - I want him to get all future correspondence don in writing, but I think we are running out of time - the DD comes out of his account tomorrow

poppasmurf_bewdley

skea56 wrote: »

Thank you have directed him to that.

They don't have a live chat facility like BT - I want him to get all future correspondence don in writing, but I think we are running out of time - the DD comes out of his account tomorrow

He can always cancel the Direct Debit with his bank today.

skea56

After an hour on phone today, I think we have gotten a result.

The initial call was finally listened to and my brother actually received a promised callback - his first!! The advisor agreed that only £50 of a penalty had been agreed, and there was no mention of any additional charges and the difference is promised to be credited to his account.

This was after sitting through 50 minutes of trying to explain to an advisor what the problem was:

The first advisor had a very thick accent and couldnt manage to grasp my brothers (very easy to pronounce imo) name. She was unable to transfer him to anyone else, nor to her manager so he struggled through the call.

She put him on hold countless times, each for about 4-5 minutes at a time.

She spent a considerable time explaining pro rata charges, interrupting him and repeating herself, even after he tried to explain he was not querying these.

She found the overcharge of £160 odd was £10 per month of the remaining contract to downgrade the fibre optic broadband - but then couldnt understand why brother was contesting this charge.

It was only when he said he wasnt happy with the outcome that he was passed along to her manager and within 5 minutes he had someone with a grasp of the problem and a promise to callback.

This came within a few hours and the positive result as stated earlier was received.

His and my confidence in TT has been greatly knocked, and we'll be keeping a very close eye on his account over the next few days to ensure that promised credit is received and refunded to his account.

Apart from the last call, a very poor effort on TT's side.

sk56

Scooterman

I had a lot of trouble with TalkTalk just over a year ago about a faulty outside line which they kept trying to charge me £50 for (as BT Openreach came in the house once and changed the master-socket, which didn't improve anything). My dropping out of service lasted over a month and I eventually kept a log of my innumerable calls to TT on an Excel spreadsheet. Eventually I got my dosh refunded, but I am now in the process of leaving them in favour of PlusNet as they have started migrating everyone to a new email `platform' which just doesn't work properly in many respects. There are many pages of complaints on the members' forums.

Finlay2601

Hi!

I was wondering if someone could help me with an issue I am experiencing with TalkTalk?

I have been a TalkTalk customer for the last 17 months and my contract is due to run out on 26/04/2015. I have no intention of remaining with them after this date and have decided to try Virgin Media instead.

I was advised previously to call TalkTalk 30 days prior to my contract end date in order to begin the cancellation process, However, today I was told by the customer service team that beginning this process now would incur early termination charges of £114. Is this correct?

If I call them up again on the end date, I will have to wait another 30 days for them to process the cancellation and I will have to pay another month of usage charges.

Surely I should not be charged from the date of starting the process? Otherwise I will be paying for one more month pointlessly.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Finlay

Cycrow

If you make it clear when you want the service to terminated (ie at the end of the contract) then they shouldn't be charging an early termination fee.

however, could it be a disconnection fee instead ?
which you would have to pay even if you are not in contract.

poppasmurf_bewdley

If you are going to Virgin cable, you will have to pay a disconnection fee to Talk Talk. They in turn have to pay BT OpenReach to close your line.

This is because going to cable doesn't use your current telephone line, so it will have to be disconnected, for which there is a fee.

But it shouldn't be anywhere near £114. It should be about £35.

macman

Ring TT again and this time hope to speak to someone who has a clue. As long as you give the full 30 days notice there should be no ETC, only a BT OR cease charge.
Ask them to reconfirm the start date of your contract and the end date of your minimum term. It may well be that their system does not think your minimum term ends on 26/4 (your contract does not 'run out', only your minimum term ends).