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Seeking advice - legal action against Talk Talk?
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auntie_prawn
Posts: 18 Forumite


Hi -
I'm looking for some advice. 3 years ago Talk Talk terminated a broadband / phone contract 3 weeks after i had opened it. They say that I transferred to another service provider and breached our contract and are therefore pursuing me for breach of contract. They have passed this on to a debt collection agency and have affected my credit rating.
I did a service access request and the record says that a change of service provider was instructed via Internet TV. I've never even used internet TV, hand't opened my welcome packages at the time the change was apparently instructed, and wasnt even in the country.
Since I did not instruct another provider - and indeed have never been contacted by any other provider - I have refused to pay. I did go to the ombudsman who said they could only comment on whether Talk talk had followed their own termination procedures (which they had - by writing me 2 letters, which I didn't receive because I was away from home; although I had spoken to them by phone and they hadn't mentioned they were closing the account 2 days later, because phone communication wasn't on their procedure for termination, the ombudsman did not consider that). THe ombudsman was not able to comment on whether I had actually instructed the termination or not.
I'm fed up with this and i would like to get it sorted out. I have been advised by the Citizen's advice bureau that they can't help as I've already been to the ombudsman and that the small claims court isn't appropriate as Talk Talk doesn't owe me money from a bill. I'm therefore moving towards getting a solicitor involved to help me get this sorted out . If I have to pay a solicitor I will also seek damages / expenses from Talk Talk. I really didn't want to go down this route but it seems that I have no choices any more. It just can't be that I can suddenly be charged £250 for breaching a contract which I didn't actually breach, and have no recourse within the system.
I'd really welcome any shared experiences from others, suggestions on how to seek appropriately skilled legal support, and suggestions of other things I can try. I am desperate.
THanks,
Lorna
I'm looking for some advice. 3 years ago Talk Talk terminated a broadband / phone contract 3 weeks after i had opened it. They say that I transferred to another service provider and breached our contract and are therefore pursuing me for breach of contract. They have passed this on to a debt collection agency and have affected my credit rating.
I did a service access request and the record says that a change of service provider was instructed via Internet TV. I've never even used internet TV, hand't opened my welcome packages at the time the change was apparently instructed, and wasnt even in the country.
Since I did not instruct another provider - and indeed have never been contacted by any other provider - I have refused to pay. I did go to the ombudsman who said they could only comment on whether Talk talk had followed their own termination procedures (which they had - by writing me 2 letters, which I didn't receive because I was away from home; although I had spoken to them by phone and they hadn't mentioned they were closing the account 2 days later, because phone communication wasn't on their procedure for termination, the ombudsman did not consider that). THe ombudsman was not able to comment on whether I had actually instructed the termination or not.
I'm fed up with this and i would like to get it sorted out. I have been advised by the Citizen's advice bureau that they can't help as I've already been to the ombudsman and that the small claims court isn't appropriate as Talk Talk doesn't owe me money from a bill. I'm therefore moving towards getting a solicitor involved to help me get this sorted out . If I have to pay a solicitor I will also seek damages / expenses from Talk Talk. I really didn't want to go down this route but it seems that I have no choices any more. It just can't be that I can suddenly be charged £250 for breaching a contract which I didn't actually breach, and have no recourse within the system.
I'd really welcome any shared experiences from others, suggestions on how to seek appropriately skilled legal support, and suggestions of other things I can try. I am desperate.
THanks,
Lorna
0
Comments
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You had TT thy closed it .
Who has provided your serviced since then .0 -
I was doing up my flat but mostly living overseas so I didn't go to another service provider, although in order to get the services I needed, I ended up taking out a dongle contract with vodaphone so I could get internet in the home. I didn't set up another contract because I would have had to wait another 3 weeks for a cooling off period and I was also at that time trying to persuade TT to come and look at the line for themselves, so I didn't want anyone else taking it over. They refused. in fact it wasn't until a year later, when the refurb was done and the flat was rented out that another service provider took on the line. That contract is between my tenants and the service provider, I don't know who it's with.
I opened the contract because I knew the refurb would take a long time and I would be back and forth overseeing the work and I thought it was worth paying for a year's contact over that time. It doesn't change the material fact that I'm being accused of doing something that I didn't do, which is terminate the original contract. I didn't do this and I can't understand why talk talk doesn't have to prove I did before they can pursue me for breach of contract and trash my credit rating.0 -
Since you capitalised 'Internet TV' I though maybe they were a company I'd not heard of but I can't see anything obvious. Which company requested the takeover?0
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Thanks for responding - sorry, i capitalised because it's one of the abbreviations that Talk Talk included as a helpsheet with the Service Access Requests.
THey have always refused to tell me who took over the line and it doesn't actually say on the Service Access Request. I never received a bill from any other provider. I briefly suspected it was Virgin, but have been told they physically can't take over a BT (talk Talk) line and when asked they maintained I wasn't listed in any way as having an account with them and never sent me a bill. On that basis they also refused to send someone out to check.
The reality is that, whatever the Talk Talk system says, no service provider actually took over the line - and I certainly didn't instruct one to do so. Am I going to have to prove that legally for Talk Talk to back down and correc the blacklisting? It's quite hard to prove something i didn't do.
Lorna0
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