MSE News: TalkTalk hits broadband and mobile customers with price hikes

Former_MSE_Megan_F

Telecoms giant TalkTalk is to raise prices from 1 August, MoneySavingExpert.com can reveal, with some broadband customers set to pay an extra £21/year and mobile customers facing an increase of up to £30/year. Yet it's possible to beat the hikes - you can quit your contract penalty-free or try to haggle a better deal...

Read the full story:
'TalkTalk hits broadband and mobile customers with price hikes'

Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply.

VeGGie-STyLe

Hello, I am one of those people who are being hit with a price hike... hoping for some advice...

I use the 'Simply Broadband' package at £27.95 per month, which is being increased by £1.75 per month in August. Not a huge hike, but their email said I could switch to their Fixed Price 'Fast Broadband' plan which will only cost £19.95 per month (including line rental, 18 month contract).

Is there a catch to this? It seems far too obvious and straight forward to just click the link and confirm the order for a package that gives me the same service, possibly a better router, but costs £8 less?!

Have I made a mistake by doing this?

Mihangel

I've just rang talktalk loyalty department and said I wanted to leave. I was informed I just need to apply for broadband from another company.

I was surprised they didn't want to keep me just ended the call. I'm currently paying £43 for line rental and fibre.

Cornucopia

VeGGie-STyLe wrote: »

Is there a catch to this? It seems far too obvious and straight forward to just click the link and confirm the order for a package that gives me the same service, possibly a better router, but costs £8 less?!

Have I made a mistake by doing this?

I don't think so. (The only caveat being that you are likely to find yourself in the same position again later on).

I've been with Talktalk for a number of years. They've informed me of a price rise several times (three, I think) and each time, I've contacted them and haggled (not very hard) to get to a price cheaper than the rate I was previously paying.

I am currently on an 18-month contract for Fibre BB + landline for £25 per month.

Ricky43

I am in the same situation but I found this which I reckoned was a good deal.

<<Faster Fibre Broadband

Price fixed for your whole contract

£26.50 a month
For 18 months, includes line rental & free set-up
Unlimited, uncapped with speeds up to 38Mb
Up to 4x faster than standard broadband
Price fixed for 18 month contract, other contract lengths available
Keep any of your existing boosts or manage them in My Account>>
It also includes a free sim with 200 call minutes , unlimited texts and 500MB sim which at a pinch I could cope with.
We already have their TV rewind and pause but not record contract which hubby wants to keep as he can get more channels on HD apparently.
Now line rental alone is £18.99 which means I will be paying approx £7 for the fibre optic broadband and sim and yes I know I won't get 35mb but it will be better than the 6.9MB out of possible 17MB that I get now. They will send me a new router free.

I tried the "I'm going to leave" speech and I really think that they have got wise to it. This contract does not include any phone calls. They have scrapped the free evening and weekend calls. I managed t get the contract at £26 and for 24 months. Tonight I was trying to get free phone calls out of them but they basically told me to leave then.

At the moment I am on a haggled deal for which I pay £5.75 for just the broadband + TV + evening and weekend calls with the line rental extra but my contract ends next month anyway. I also have a contract sim for which I only pay £4 but haggled an amazing number of calls and data which I never use anyway so could manage on their free sim.

I have tried to look at other packages with other companies but TT do look like the best deal

Cornucopia

Ricky43 wrote: »

Tonight I was trying to get free phone calls out of them but they basically told me to leave then.

When I negotiated my deal (about 9 months ago), I was previously on Free Calls (I didn't really need them, but they were offered in compensation for the hacking debacle). When I came to negotiate, that was their first gambit - this is going to cost you £5.75 upon renewal, and we cannot move on that price. I dropped Free Calls and £5.75 was magically removed from my on-going price to give an overall total of £25. (ISTR a loyalty discount of £2 was also mentioned).

Ricky43

VeGGie-STyLe wrote: »

Hello, I am one of those people who are being hit with a price hike... hoping for some advice...

Is there a catch to this? It seems far too obvious and straight forward to just click the link and confirm the order for a package that gives me the same service, possibly a better router, but costs £8 less?!

Have I made a mistake by doing this?

I think you, like me had some form of free phone calls with your package only on the package you have been offered there will not be any. They now want another £7.50 for that privilege!!.

VeGGie-STyLe

Ricky43 wrote: »

I think you, like me had some form of free phone calls with your package only on the package you have been offered there will not be any. They now want another £7.50 for that privilege!!.

I didn't have any free calls... the package seems exactly the same, just cheaper. The contract period on my previous package had ended some time ago, so maybe they were just keen to get me tied into another contract?

I'd love to have Fibre broadband too... but at the moment my speeds seem to be satisfactory for my internet use, and I'm just happier that I'll be paying less for it

TalkTalk

Hi VeGGie-STyLe,

Please don't hesitate to drop us a tweet (@TalkTalk) if you need any further advice, we can have a look into this for you

Thanks,
Becky

Snakey

I have their "Essentials TV, Phone and Broadband" package (I don't actually own a TV but it worked out cheaper than not having it), which started off at £5 a month but is now £5.75 and shortly to rise to £7.50. I paid the line rental up front (it doesn't look as if you can do that any more as all the links are broken) so that's in the bag at £15/m. So it'll be £22.50 a month from August.

Once I'm out of contract in November the monthly cost would go up to £12.50 and then undiscounted line rental on top of that... so if I stayed I'd pay £19.95 a month for the "fast broadband" package and send them the telly box thing (sitting unopened in my cupboard) back. It looks like there are no calls at all included in this, even evenings and weekends, but that's not that big of a deal.

But maybe Origin or Plusnet might be better? They're certainly cheaper. I'm dithering because I've been with TalkTalk for years and years (before that it was Bulldog, if you remember them, who were a nightmare when I tried to leave).

If I'm going to jump ship I might as well use the e-mail they sent me this morning to get out of the contract early, and go now.

I prefer not to haggle.

Has anybody moved from TT to either of these providers using the price rise as a contract get-out? Did you get your Value Line Rental refunded OK? Did you need a new line? Any other hassles that I should know about?

Saeed

Snakey wrote: »

I have their "Essentials TV, Phone and Broadband" package (I don't actually own a TV but it worked out cheaper than not having it), which started off at £5 a month but is now £5.75 and shortly to rise to £7.50. I paid the line rental up front (it doesn't look as if you can do that any more as all the links are broken) so that's in the bag at £15/m. So it'll be £22.50 a month from August.

Once I'm out of contract in November the monthly cost would go up to £12.50 and then undiscounted line rental on top of that... so if I stayed I'd pay £19.95 a month for the "fast broadband" package and send them the telly box thing (sitting unopened in my cupboard) back. It looks like there are no calls at all included in this, even evenings and weekends, but that's not that big of a deal.

But maybe Origin or Plusnet might be better? They're certainly cheaper. I'm dithering because I've been with TalkTalk for years and years (before that it was Bulldog, if you remember them, who were a nightmare when I tried to leave).

If I'm going to jump ship I might as well use the e-mail they sent me this morning to get out of the contract early, and go now.

I prefer not to haggle.

Has anybody moved from TT to either of these providers using the price rise as a contract get-out? Did you get your Value Line Rental refunded OK? Did you need a new line? Any other hassles that I should know about?

I gave Talktalk notice to leave yesterday , told them that it's due to their price increase and I'll be leaving penalty free and not serving out 30 days notice period. Told CSA to note all this on my account incase of problems. I saved the chat transcript. I am moving to orgin ignoring the negative comments (all providers have em). i got email from origin about my transfer date the next day. My transfer date is 13/8 and so far so good. I guess we'll see what happens.