TALK TALK charging a termination fee, after notification within 30 days of price rise

DynasticDux

Been having a LOT of trouble with Talk Talk over the past 10 month, so when the SKY offer appeared on here I jumped at the chance.

TALK TALK emailed me regarding the price rises on 7th September
I notified TALK TALK of my intention to cancel on 16th September
so I notified them well within the 30 days (I sent the following message)

Due to poor service (intermittent connection) and your recently announced price increases I would like to inform you of my intention to cancel my contract.

As you are aware if you make any notice of increases in payment to the service I am able to leave my contract penalty free with no termination charges.

I will inform my new provider to contact you in due course to finalise the cancellation and to take over service of my line & internet.

TALK TALK phoned me the next day (from India) to confirm they received the email and also confirm I would be able to leave my contract penalty free with no termination charges as I had contacted them within the 30 days

Today (9th October) I received a TALK TALK bill
Contract Breakage Fee £15.11
An early termination charge has been applied. This is because your services with TalkTalk were cancelled before your contract expired. The fee is calculated from the number of months and days remaining on the contract.

Why are they doing this? They are breaking the law

poppasmurf_bewdley

DynasticDux wrote: »

Why are they doing this? They are breaking the law

Have you asked them?

DynasticDux

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

Have you asked them?

Yes, and they just seem to be ignoring the fact they are charging customers a breakage fee.
Seems a lot of others are also been charged looking at their own community forum

pmduk

All of a sudden their social media rep has gone dumb...

DavidP24

I had the same thing whenI left TalkTalk but not due to price rise, just when I was out of contract.

I gave them notice TWICE, I called to terminate the service and they said would send email

I chased email via online helpdesk and got "copy and paste" email more or less saying you are out of contract but still laying out a load of waffle which left me confused.

The date passed, the account showed I was cancelled but then they had the cheek to add another month's line rental AND £4.50 because I had cancelled Direct Debit.

TalkTalk have become a dire company to deal with, I am just waiting for them to get nasty then I am going to get them to sue me, at which point I will issue a counter action with costs.

We all bounce around ISP's from year to year if a deal is better but I would not go back to them, never say never but they would have to PAY ME!

jbuchanangb

I have seen in the TT community forum reports that even when a contract is being terminated under the 30 day rule, the computer still generates the ETC message. Very annoying and confusing to affected customers. The real test will be when the service is ceased and the final bill is produced. It is standard advice NOT to cancel DD during the account closure process, because if you do this then TT can't refund any credit amount direct to the customer's account, and have to use cumbersome process of issuing a cheque.

TalkTalk

Hi DynasticDux,

When an account disconnects the ETC is raised automatically. IN situations such as the price rise this is why it is necessary to contact us, so the fee can be waived from the account. The agent should manually load a waiver to the account, but this is set to a maximum of a 30 day period.

Was the actual date you transferred within 30 days of you contacting us? If not this may be why. Sometimes if there's delays with the orders then you can end up outside the 30 day window, in which case we can manually credit the ETC for you, as you notified us within 30 days of the price rise. IF it wasnt outside of 30 days we will need to look into this as it sounds like the agent didnt apply the ETC waiver correctly.

Please either tweet us @TalkTalkCare or post on the TalkTalk Community and we can look into this in more depth for you.

Cheers

DynasticDux

TalkTalk_Company_Representative wrote: »

Was the actual date you transferred within 30 days of you contacting us? If not this may be why. Sometimes if there's delays with the orders then you can end up outside the 30 day window, in which case we can manually credit the ETC for you, as you notified us within 30 days of the price rise. IF it wasnt outside of 30 days we will need to look into this as it sounds like the agent didnt apply the ETC waiver correctly.

Please either tweet us @TalkTalkCare or post on the TalkTalk Community and we can look into this in more depth for you.

Cheers

As stated in my original post

TALK TALK emailed me regarding the price rises on 7th September
I notified TALK TALK of my intention to cancel on 16th September
so I notified them well within the 30 days (I sent the following message)
Transfer date was 2nd October -- so yes, within 30 days


I have also left this same message on the Talk Talk community boards on 9th October .. (no response from any OCE)

I have left the message on Twitter (I was asked for my details) and last message received on 9th October was Thanks, we will get this looked into for you and update as soon as we have further information.

I have left the message on Facebook (I was asked for my details) and last message received on 11th October was

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
I'm concerned about the experience you've had with us and would like to escalate to our UK CEO team, who will be able to resolve.
Can you please provide your account number, landline/mobile number and post code & I'll arrange a call back for you.
Thanks,
Sid.

I have also used the CONTACT US form on your website -- No response

DavidP24

@DynasticDux

Twitter, FB, Forums, Community etc Wow you take no prisoners do you! Well Done You

So here again we have some STUPID Talk Talk computer system generating a fake (and in this case illegal) bill causing stress and anxiety to customers, clogging up support lines and generally causing grief.

Why should this behaviour be tolerated by OFCOM?

It should NOT.

Why do TalkTalk do it?

Because they know most people are too busy and will just pay.

This obscene and disgusting behaviour must STOP

It is very easy for a computer system to be coded to avoid the generation of charges that have to be credited later. For example when you cancel they can ask you for the reason for cancellation and offer a choice which might include PRICE INCREASE, they know what date they increased their price, they know when the termination is received and the computer can use that condition to immediately issue a credit on the account.

No waiting 2 months for a final bill, no threats to credit record or other hassle.

Other companies have been fined hundreds of thousands when their computer systems charged people.

I think there is a case for OFCOM to investigate here

Remember TalkTalk is the company that IGNORED the tenet of the Data Protection Act about PURPOSE, so customers would put in their number to check broadband availability and TalkTalk would call them later. Their staff said they were exempt from the Data Protection Act and the Telephone Preference Service. They then put a note in a tiny font saying that they would call you with no opt out, again illegal. If you Google it you can see that the ICO eventually "came to an understand" with TalkTalk (they told them they would be fined if they did not cease and desist).

THAT tells you all you need to know about this company.

DynasticDux

FINALLY resolved ..... even though NOBODY from Talk Talk has contacted me about this problem.

The "Contract Breakage Fee" has been credited back to my account

I have now cancelled my Direct Debit and am finally free from Talk Talk
NEVER AGAIN will I have anything from them - totally useless company

helenmcr

My story is the same. Following the price increase I transferred over to Sky following their great package deal. I phoned TalkTalk to get the customer advisor to remove my contract breakage fee due to being within the 30 day period of leaving following the price rise. No problem or so I thought. She waived the fee and told me it had been applied to my account and will not show on my final bill. The final bill being 11th October. Today the bill showed contract breakage fee of around £15. Surpised? No I was not because I didn't believe her in the first place... lying to customers. So I was adamant of getting MY money back. Following a 45 minute phone call which was me being EXTREMELY firm and threatening them with reporting to OFCOM for their failure of standards she finally takes the breakage fee off my account with just a mere flick of a computer button! By the way at first she refused to talk to me about my breakage fee and said she would go get a manager. As soon as she said that I knew she was about to fob me off and ACCIDENTLY hang up, so I refused a manager and asked HER to do it herself as that is HER job!!! I have now got my rightful £15 back but it took a good strong fight for MY MONEY. I have now told my story to WATCHDOG which is the way forward with this particular problem.