MSE News: TalkTalk customers to be hit with price hikes from October, but you can bea

RenTheRoosta

Dragonfly1 wrote: »

You can contact their live chat team via their website.

What you should have done is told TalkTalk that you intend to leave penalty-free - before actually applying to switch somewhere else. Basically they can put a marker on your account (or to that effect) to say you can leave anytime penalty-free..... But you can't just swap without talking to them first (Twitter doesn't really work as they need to log it onto your actual TalkTalk account).

What they should do is just have an automatic system without needing to talk to them, but that would stop their cancellations people trying to persuade you to stay.

Basically, you'll spend longer on live chat and get it sorted - or you can do it quicker over the phone. But you can get the live chat emailed to you at the end of the chat, so I would go for that option for the written proof. The live chat people will probably need to speak to their manager as it involves going off-script and they don't like doing that

You should be fine, you just need to explain they didn't make that at all clear on Twitter.

Hi. Thanks. Theyre now saying on the Twitter thread 'Was this in relation to the price change? Did you call the loyalty teams before leaving to arrange the fee was waived?' - I said no as they didnt tell me on Twitter that I had to! Waiting for a reply to that. Cant tell people one thing then tell them another after theyve already taken action then start threatening to charge them. Ridic!

RenTheRoosta

Just rang Talk Talk (0800 0499999 works: say to automated voice system that you want to leave to get through to right department). They said that a note has been put on my account on 3rd September when Talk Talk's Twitter a/c confirmed I would not be charged cancellation fee for leaving: note says that they have waived cancellation fee. Advisor I spoke to today has also made a note under her name and the time that the fee has been waived. Apparently the email I received saying I would be charged that ridiculous amount is an automated email and I can ignore it.

They said the reason all customers don't get the price hike email on the same date is that they purposely stagger the emails in line with each customer's billing period - so they don't get bombarded with calls all at once.

Their advice was - ring them and they will sort it out: don't bother with Twitter or live chat.

Dragonfly1

Glad it seems to be sorted.

I don't normally get involved on MSE at all, it's only the way that TalkTalk treated me when I tried to cancel. I am convinced 9 out of 10 people would have not managed to cancel because of the persuasive- and factually incorrect - phrases they used during my conversations. Hence why I felt the need to share my experiences on here

I had conversations for ages:

Me/Talktalk: [Hello/Security Questions]
Me: Helena (another live chat person) says I can cancel penalty free, so I would like to exercise that right.
TalkTalk: I do not understand why she would say that. It is clear that you have 10 months of your contract remaining so you cannot cancel Sir.
Me: But TalkTalk have increased their prices
TalkTalk: We do occasionally increase our prices but we are still the cheapest. I can see your contract runs out on 27th of [] and you can cancel penalty free then.
Me: I would like to cancel now.
TalkTalk: If you were to cancel now Sir, there would be an early termination fee of []
Me: You are in breach of contract, so I can cancel penalty-free.
TalkTalk: But Sir, you have free Simply Broadband. The price rise will not effect you.
Me: But it will before the end of my contract.
TalkTalk: Your line rental has been paid for the next 8 months as well Sir!
Me: But it will cost me more money before the end of my contract.

The written live chat conversation went on for ages like that - page after page. It was like banging my head on a brick wall. If you didn't know you were entitled to cancel for certain, they would get away with you staying due to your lack of knowledge & rights.

Personally I cancelled because of the increase of anytime calls from £5 to £7.50 a month without any notification, the removal of the 10% (15%) speed payment discount and the future line rental increase. Not to mention they think my data was stolen. The broadband itself was fine.

Shock

Had the email.. Called them to say I'll be leaving!

Was with them for

Landline essential pack

Fiber

Mobile.

Just signed up to Sky.. With Quidco and £100 cash back.

Thanks Talktalk.. You have finally saved me money!!:TT :rotfl:

daymouse

Had a nightmare with talktalk so far trying to cancel!

Saw the email from MSE and been wanting to leave currently have 40Mb fibre about half way through the contract.

As this is the case I called TalkTalk explained about the price increase asked will we be affected and do we have the right to cancel with no penalty to which the guy confirmed. He then proceeded to try and keep us by giving us another deal to which declined. He then explained you have 2 options to cancel which is give notice now and we will be disconnected in 30 days or just go to another supplier and they will deal with the disconnection. He also said that he will put a note on the call stating were leaving and the penalty is to be waived!

After finding this out we then ordered Sky

Yesterday we received the dreaded letter saying we are leaving mid contract and here the penalty you have to pay £201!

Back onto the phone where I explained the situation but she didn’t have a clue and said we had to pay and said I can see you called on the 4th but there's no notes about this etc which really annoyed me. We kept going back and forth even to the point she said we received the notification email back in May and as this is the case you are over the 30 days notification! To which I pointed out that was for another price increase which I think didn’t affect us?

Anyway after being very adamant and firm on the phone she eventually put me through to a ‘Manager’. We went through the issue again and after about 15 minutes of her reading the notes came back and said we don’t have to pay anything the line will be disconnected on the 17th when your final bill will be produced. “we can’t take the penalty off on the system until the bill has been produced so your final bill will show the charge. Call us back and we will clear it off, I’ve made a note on the call etc for you and here’s your reference number.

I explained I didn’t believe her due the last notes failing to appear on the system so I got her to repeat what she explained while I recorded it.

Don’t know what else I can do to give me peace of mind!

Useless!!!

Ricky43

I finally had a letter yesterday and the price hike was to do with the line rental rise which I knew about and had paid upfront for a years rental at the old rate the previous day as it was due the beginning of October and the new rate is from Sep 30th.
I then went to Webchat and explained that I was on an Essentials Broadband, phone , TV package which went up recently from £8 to £10. She informed that there would be no price hike on this. I hope she is correct!!

Karol_Zuchowski

I've had TalkTalk for nearly two months... and my phone line hasn't even been installed yet. I became so frustrated with them that I put together a website - talktalksucks.org. One of the most satisfying £10 I ever spent...

Crabman

Karol_Zuchowski wrote: »

I've had TalkTalk for nearly two months... and my phone line hasn't even been installed yet. I became so frustrated with them that I put together a website - talktalksucks.org. One of the most satisfying £10 I ever spent...

I have sent you an email address via private message which you can use to contact the TalkTalk CEO team. I found them very helpful and hope they'll be able to assist you too.

olip74

I'm off!

I've had enough of one thing increasing after another only for it to increase again a few months later. I think in the last year VLR has gone up twice from around £140 to £180 to £190, BB from £3.50 to £5 to £7.50 and I even took out a SIM only contract only to get a letter in the first week telling me it was raising prices (I walked). I had ditched the TV and the phone package to keep costs down but this latest increase was the straw that broke the camel's back. The MSE deal to go to EE and get £120 Amazon voucher represents a huge saving for me.

I feel that TalkTalk are disingenuous. They use overlapping periods of line rental and TV/BB deals to keep you from leaving and then whack you with price rises. Their marketing is also dodgy, when I tried to get cashback via Quidco on a SIM only deal the Web site prevented me from completing the transaction online only for them to deny they would ever do such a thing. I do wonder if they are doing alright though. Inflation busting price rises only a few months after the last round suggests to me they are scrabbling?

RenTheRoosta

Yesterday I called Talk Talk to request a refund of the last payment they took via direct debit as I had been told two days previously by their call centre in India that I was due a refund of between £22-24 and had to wait until 23rd for my bill to be generated to request the refund. The advisor even emailed me a form I have copied and pasted below:

TalkTalk Customer Service <noreply@talktalkplc.com> Oct 22 at 3:45 PM
Thank you for contacting us today.
Here is the link we promised you;
Request a refund

Remember, everything is easy to do online. You can view your usage, pay your bills and make changes to your package in My Account. You’ll need your user name – this is usually the email address we send your bill to.
If you do need more help you’ll find the answer online. Just search the comprehensive Help section or ask the community, where our customers come together to help each other out.
Thank you for being a TalkTalk customer


Nick Gunga
Director of Customer Service

When I rang them yesterday to sort out the refund I spoke to the call centre in India again and they told me I would be charged the cancellation fee! Back to square one! I said that can't be right as it was all sorted out on 3rd September when they had put a note on my account to say I would not be charged the cancellation fee. They transferred me to a Manager (still India) who said she could not see because her systems were down and to try again in 24 hours (Talk Talk My Account is still down now 24th October due to the hacking incident).

Not satisfied with how the India call centre had handled my call I rang again and got through to cancellation department in the UK. The advisor I spoke to said she could not see any notes on the system despite me having been told that the advisor I had spoken to on the 3rd September (J. Padden) had made a note on the system that I would not be charged the cancellation fee. Are notes mysteriously disappearing off Talk Talk's records accidentally on purpose so they can try to charge the cancellation fee you wonder. Something funny is going on. The advisor, who was very vague and unhelpful, then put me on hold to talk to their manager and over 20 minutes later had still not come back to me so decided to call them back another day and hung up.

Today I received this email from Talk Talk:

Your latest TalkTalk bill for October 2015 is now available. Log in to My Account or My TalkTalk App to check the details.

Remember, by receiving your bills online, rather than in the post, you save £22 a year - plus you’re helping save a few trees!

View your bills online:
Your payment of
http://myaccount.talktalk.co.uk
http://www.talktalk.co.uk/app
£350.77
is due on 02/11/2015

So they have completely backtracked everything they told me: on public tweets on Twitter and on the phone and are trying to charge the cancellation fee anyway.

After all the reassurances I have had from their Twitter team on public tweets and from their UK call centre staff on the phone that they had noted I had been informed of the price hike and therefore would not be charged the cancellation fee - I don't trust them at all now.

I have yet to call back and speak to someone who doesn't try to give me the runaround but I am so far absolutely disgusted by Talk Talk. Even Sky have never sunk this low. And that is saying something.

This is the link to all the public tweets in which Talk Talk assured me I had 'been advised of the increase' and was therefore not liable to pay the cancellation charge:

https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3ATalkTalk_UK%20OR%20from%3ATalkTalkCare%20%40BrassChihuahua&src=typd&lang=en

As you can see from their tweets they told me that I had 30 days from 3rd September to leave but if I left after that they would charge the cancellation fee. So I went ahead and changed providers. THEN they told me they would charge the cancellation fee anyway: meaning they have lied online in a public forum that will be there forever for all to see.