Talk Talk and EE: the worst companies I have dealt with

goodbuyer1

my review:

Talk Talk can't deal with customer complaints and they can't read simple sentences in English: apparently they took my complaint as a request to terminate the contract, which they did. As if I am stupid enough to terminate a contract after paying for one full year for the phone line and still having 5 months of credit. But this company actually thought I were that stupid. Then, with their foot in their mouth, they called me back and offered an excuse as to why my account was deleted (they claimed that Openreach had 'accidentally' disconnected me, which was a load of rubbish as an older email from them advised me that they had initiated a contract termination).

So they offered me another account, telling me how sorry they were. I stupidly accepted after making sure I didn't have to pay any other fees, which they reassured me I had nothing to pay, of course, on the contrary they would give me a discount.
3 days later I get their letter with a new 'account' with a NEW 12 MONTHS contract, plus as nice new £ 50 connection fee.

I could not believe my eyes. Now I was being stringed along for another 12 months and I had to pay them £ 50 for a new connection. Maybe the other one was rancid? I cancelled immediately, but hey, of course that didn't mean a thing to them.

Long story short, not only they ended up with almost £ 50 in advance payment for a phone line I should have used for another 5 months but didn't, they started to chase me up for early contract termination fees that I was supposed to pay after THEY ended the first contract, and also new fees for their bogus second contract. :rotfl:

Of course after months of this farce, all the charges were proven invalid.

In the meantime, I had signed up with damn EE, which provided me with the wrong package from the start. That immediately sent me a big red flag, so I cancelled the contract within 14 days. But EE would not have it, they tried the most pathetic things to try to 'keep' me, even after cancelling the contract in writing and sending them 3 copies, one by recorded delivery. After they could not disprove receipt of my contract cancellation, they sent me a letter saying that, well, what the hell, even though I cancelled, they installed the services anyways, so if I 'still wanted to cancel, to phone them'. :rotfl:

Now they are chasing me for fees I owe them AFTER i cancelled the contract and they involved debt collection agencies, just as Talk Talk did ! :rotfl:

My experience with all these clowns was so bad that now I resolved not to have internet at home AT ALL and to use the one in the library twice a week (couple of hours) only for the most important things. Been 3 months so far and doing fine. After 10 years of having internet at home, it's the first time I ever found such pathologically bad providers :rotfl:

Keep the heck away from EE and Talk Talk, you might be in for a LOT of wasted time and lots of unwanted stress

Oblivion

Well BT are set to buy EE so that should be a match made in hell!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31144009


As for TalkTalk, I wouldn't touch them with your bargepole.

macman

There's a reason why cheap providers are so cheap. When it works it's fine: when things go wrong, no one has a clue...

Cornucopia

I'm with Talktalk & EE. I can't say I've had any serious problems with either.

When I moved I had to have "extended discussions" with TT, but no worse than I've had in the past with other SPs.

The trick with TT is not to bother with their front-line Call Centre staff. They lack the training and the ones I have spoken with lack the English skills to deal with complex issues appropriately. I dealt with a very well-spoken Supervisor, and then with their UK-based Loyalty Team.

All resolved, and I ended up better off than I'd been in the first place.

goodbuyer1

Cornucopia wrote: »

I'm with Talktalk & EE. I can't say I've had any serious problems with either.

you'll see how good or bad a company is when there IS a problem, not when there are no problems. These clowns can't get their heads out of a paperbag, and once they start messing with you, they find it hard to stop. Before escalating the problem in more serious ways, I had sent a final complaint to a manager. In my complaint, I expressly asked reply only in writing. Do you know what he did? He phoned me twice, didn't find me, and threw the complaint in the bin, so I had to solve the problem externally.

The trick is to avoid them like the plague.

goodbuyer1

macman wrote: »

There's a reason why cheap providers are so cheap.

Rubbish. There's no reason not to expect a reasonable service from any companies, the price has nothing to do with a reasonable service. Talk Talk and EE are bad because they suck, not because they are 'cheap'. And how £ 13 a month for landline and internet is cheap? Especially when paying a year in advance.

macman

goodbuyer1 wrote: »

Rubbish. There's no reason not to expect a reasonable service from any companies, the price has nothing to do with a reasonable service. Talk Talk and EE are bad because they suck, not because they are 'cheap'. And how £ 13 a month for landline and internet is cheap? Especially when paying a year in advance.

Strange-most people would consider £13pm for line rental and broadband extremely cheap?
Not rubbish: The TT and EE models are built on volume selling at rock bottom prices headline prices, then marketing and upselling additional services aggressively, while reducing overheads to a minimum. TT in particular rely heavily on offshore call centres employing hapless script readers: as your experience demonstrates.
Bad service is not the result of a management that 'sucks', it's the result of a deliberate policy to boost profits by reducing service to the minimum acceptable. TT have been near the bottom of every consumer telcoms survey for years now, but can still grow their market share because many people buy only on price.

goodbuyer1

I have now signed up with Plusnet, and although it's too soon to tell, they are running circles around rubbish Talk-Talk and EE already.
The first time I phoned them, I swear I was talking to someone within 30 seconds. The operator I spoke to, texted me more info on my phone later. I was astonished. The second time I wasn't so lucky, but I was able to sort my problem quickly: I wanted to know when I would get connected and an automated response told me I was not connected yet and they would text me on my phone when they did.

Practically, they automatically sorted this without even asking. They did everything by the book, and I cannot fault them at all.

Talk-Talk and E-E is rabble in comparison.

So.....Very-very nice-nice, I am happy-happy to have got rid of these clowns-clowns called Talk-Talk and E-E, and joined what seems a far more serious company. And it's even cheaper which disproves what you said about price. It has nothing to do with how good or bad a company is. That's just pop myths. With Plusnet I am paying less than £ 13 a month, so they run circles around these other clowns both in terms of service and price.

I'll also add that I would never sign up with a rubbish company just to save a couple of quid a month, yet Plusnet wins on all fronts, big style.

Actually I signed up because of the MSE review and hints about Plusnet having generally good customer service.