New "The Big Deal" & TalkTalk Package

JXHogan

I received an email yesterday from The Big Deal (TBD) with a fantastic offer from TalkTalk(TT) for:

Line Rental
Broadband
TV Plus Package
Connection (where applicable)
Inclusive unlimited UK landline and mobile calls
TalkTalk TV Plus box – pause, rewind & record up to 180 hours of TV (new customers, £25 charge if needed)

The monthly cost? £19.99 for normal broadband, £25 for fibre.

As you can see, this really is a terrific offer.....however there's a problem for me at least, maybe everyone?

When I click on the link in the TBD email it takes me to a dedicated page for the offer where you click the "get started" button for which of the two offers you want to take.

As an existing TT customer, when I click the button I am prompted to log into "My Account", which I do.

The site then loads the "view basket" page with the selected package added to it, all correct components and correct price. BUT as soon as it is there it is replaced by the following error message:

Sorry, our line check shows you aren't able to get any TalkTalk packages We can't currently bring any broadband plans to your area but we're expanding our UK network all the time so please check back again soon.

Which is somewhat odd, as I am already a TT customer on exactly the same package, just paying £13.40 per month more.

So, I called TT a few minutes after they opened at 8am and that's when the fun really started. The first person I spoke to, said "oh yes", when I asked if they knew what the TBD offer was. But, as is often the case, they weren't listening and were following their script or onscreen prompts. They then tried to sell me a contract renewal(mine happens to be almost over) at exactly the same price I have now.

I tried to get them to understand that this was a special deal, to no avail. I asked them to put me through to a supervisor / manager, which they were happy to do...OK try to do....and cut me off instead. I'm a 4-5yr TT customer, so this was not wholly unexpected.

I called back and tried a different tactic and told the computer I wanted to "cancel contract" and was still put into the bog standard queue, so I repeated the above conversation and then asked them to put me through to their "Loyalty Team". This time they did and they had no idea what this was and basically gave up and told me I could take their enhanced (I'm leaving) offer on not. So I didn't

I then tried approaching from a different angle, and called TBD. They said it was basically nothing to do with them and they couldn't / wouldn't help. So, I opened a support ticket on their website, thinking they might be a little more helpful if I did it that way.

Meanwhile, I tried approaching TT from another different angle, and used LiveChat to contact them. This proved to be absolutely hilarious, with a guy telling me the offer had expired over a month ago(it started yesterday and runs for 10 days) and that his best offer was...the one I already have.

So I presented him with the link, and asked him if he wished to reconsider.....he didn't, and said that this offer had expired. This puzzled me as there is a countdown in days on that page, showing there are 9 days left. Having been an IT consultant for many years, including upgrading some call centre systems once or twice, I suddenly had a thunk!!! I asked him to confirm that particular offer had expired and he said, "oh yes". I asked him if he could see the days left counter and he went silent.....he doesn't have browser access and was lying.

So, I asked him to put me through to a supervisor which he did. I thought the supervisor might have browser access; they didn't, but at least they didn't lie about it.

They basically said, I can't help you and I said that was not an answer they should be giving. I asked them if I could speak to their manager, and I think just to get rid of me they found one after about 10 minutes.

This manager had obviously earned her stripes and managed to work out that this is what they call, rather obviously I suppose, a third party offer, which was why it wasn't on their system. But they couldn't help and left it at that...."go away, you're asking the impossible", but that they would report the error message I wa getting from the page they didn't know existed anyway......

I was about to question this when I saw an email arrive from TBD in response to my support ticket. It had a phone number on for them and also one for a "dedicated TBD switching team". So I called this wonderful dedicated number, the answer to all my troubles, surely?

Nope......it just does the very same thing the normal number does. This is a trick TT pull all the time, as most of their different numbers have always done the identical thing.

Onwards!! and I called TBD again. They tried to give me a "dedicated TBD switching team number"; I laughed and, once I had dried my eyes, explained what was so hilarious. Oddly, she didn't seem to believe me and took some convincing but I won through. She said she would get someone to call me back, and that she would pass the info about the number up the chain. I also gave her the TT error message and asked her to report that as well.

So, here I sit after three fruitless hours(yeah really) and having "spoken" to eleven people in total, I think - 9 at TT and 2 at TBD.

Will TBD call me back later, will the offer expire before I get any closer to being able to take it? Will I die of old age first?

Tune in next time for the progression(I doubt we'll get a conclusion next).

James

rwalton159

Crikey James, that's horrific but not a surprise.

When you equate the time you spend on the phone to TT you start to realise the amount of time you've lost. You could have part read a book, gone shopping etc etc

I'm seriously thinking of jumping ship with the knowledge I'll pay more. I just need to make sure I chose the right company.

Good luck James and keep us informed ☺️

JXHogan

My mother has just managed to complete the contract change but the TT system has recorded a completely incorrect contract - I got her to use livechat to check, lucky I did.

Instead of the above package what it has done is simply add fibre broadband (she definitely chose the standard as we have the screenshots) at the standard price.

This has gone horribly wrong.

She has contacted TT via LiveChat, got this information and now been told she's stuck with it as the system cannot roll back to the pre-existing one, and they are basically saying, "nothing we can do...tough".

rwalton159

Ring TT and ask for Customer Loyalty. Tell them an error was made and you wish to cancel if they don't resolve it.

BlueZenith

As I told TBD when I heard about their offer:

=====

Dear Ed / The Big Deal,

I'm sorry to say there's a reason this is the cheapest deal.

TalkTalk is a really bad ISP.

As Wikipedia says:

The company has been rated multiple times among the worst landline and broadband providers.

See, e.g. this BBC article.

They also have a terrible record when it comes to security.

They also hire idiots as CEOs.

I am happy to pay £10 a month more for an 80 Mbps fibre connection from a provider that is actually good (Plusnet).

Encouraging people to switch to this provider seems really cynical, not to mention irresponsible. Many of them are going to have a lot of problems as a result of your advice.

Please do your research next time. It's no good switching to the cheapest broadband deal if it sucks. Broadband is not like energy. You get your gas and electricity anyway. Broadband providers actually have to provide proper connections, and you're about 10,000 times more likely to have to deal with their technical support at some point.

Best regards,

=====

I really feel TBD are doing their members a disservice by saying there's "nothing not to like" about TalkTalk... I feel bad for all the people who will just trust that they wouldn't send them to a horrible company.

Also, they referred to the fibre deal as "SUPERFAST fibre" (caps theirs), but it's only 38 Mbps, which I wouldn't say qualifies. I live in a relatively underprivileged part of the country and even here we've had 76 Mbps fibre for close to half a decade.

These aren't even really necessarily the cheapest deals you can get. At the time of writing, Plusnet for example has some options that work out cheaper per month on average if you take into account things like Amazon gift cards, and their service is actually quite decent.

This has really negatively impacted my opinion of TBD, to be honest. Based on further communication with them, they really don't seem to have the interests of the consumers they claim to "represent" (their word) at heart, just their own greed (because they get a cut every time someone uses their deal to sign up for this inferior provider's services).

It'd be one thing if they'd told people "now, be aware that they're not exactly the most well-reviewed provider, and their track record of keeping your personal data safe isn't terribly good either, but this is a really cheap deal". They said there's "nothing not to like", which is plainly very far from the truth. Sad.

JXHogan

Their staff - and I have talked to / chatted to NINE, my mother FIVE - know absolutely nothing about this deal and their intranet will not even display the page; I literally had to show them that they weren't viewing the same page, and were being redirected. Before that, I had to teach them what a redirect was.

After that I had to teach them why their email excludes certain numbers from the calls package - again they needed a lesson, this time in what a premium line was.

One of the call centre drones pretended he COULD see the page and that the offer was, "no longer available", when as you know it started yesterday and runs for nine more days. When I asked him how many days left the counter on the page said were left to claim the deal, he went silent for six whole minutes, hoping I would end the chat.

Another copied and pasted AT my mum - she has forwarded the transcript of the chat session - SEVEN times the same information about their "best offer" currently.

I tried another tactic with them...emailing screenshots of the deal. The email bounced back with ONE 6mb screenshot file as "rejected by the email server as too large".

This is supposedly and internet company, one that SELLS bandwidth and they have emails size limits that would make 3 man company in 1998 blush with embarrassment.

I COULD go with PlusNet, but I use their TV service, which somehow they manage to make flawlessly. Also, their fibre broadband is far far better than BT's and a couple of others I have used. The TT router will work without a power cycle for me for about 2-3 months. The latest BT one accumulates so much static charge that it fails to work properly inside of a week.
If only they could work out how to use PCs, and sack the web dev team and hire a 15yr old to do the updates after school and the maintenance as a Saturday job, then they would be pretty good.

JXHogan

As for The Big Deal.....they're certainly big somethings....they just totally absolve themselves of any responsibility.

Comically, they gave me a number for their "dedicated Big Deal switching Team" at TT...it's just a different number to get to the same main robot asking you why you called them, and laughably they never even tried it.

I shall be reporting TBD to both Ofcom and the FCA, and TT to Ofcom once I have finished my current challenge.

Amusingly, I just got an email from 38Degrees telling me how excited they were to announce their new energy offer with......The Big Deal, so I am also going to start a petition on 38degrees to force 38degrees to break all ties with TBD.

superbigal36

I appear to have the same offer by simply logging in and clicking on contract review.
Therefore the affiliated offer is almost a red herring.

Ps Just placed the order successfully.

TalkTalk

Hi JXHogan,

I'm so sorry for the confusion here, this deal is available to existing customers if you call in. I understand you've had some problems when you've done this, so we'd really like to put this right. Would you be able to drop us a tweet (@TalkTalk) so that we can make sure this gets sorted for you?

Thanks,
Becky

BlueZenith

The_Big_Deal wrote:

• The deal is exclusive - you cannot find it anywhere else in the country.

The_Big_Deal wrote:

There are two options [...] both exclusive to the Big Deal…

superbigal36 wrote: »

I appear to have the same offer by simply logging in and clicking on contract review.
Therefore the affiliated offer is almost a red herring.

Ps Just placed the order successfully.

TalkTalk_Company_Representative wrote: »

I'm so sorry for the confusion here, this deal is available to existing customers if you call in.

So exclusive. *yawn*

superbigal36

Aside from the lack of exclusivity !
For current TT customers the fixed price of £25 for fibre including Line Rental, and unlimited calls is a very good deal. It states it is guaranteed for 18 months at that price and if anything lower comes along you can change.
I previously had discounts on my account but was still paying around £29 for the same service.