Talktalk grief

[Deleted User]

Hi guys,

My girlfriend is having a bit of bother from Talktalk - surprise surprise...

She had the bog-standard broadband package on a 12 month contract. £17.99 a month, that lapsed in November. She called to let them know that after the final payment, she wanted to leave. No problem, spoke to someone in the UK who did their best to try and convince her to stay but she stuck to her guns and that was that - a letter arrived a few days later saying they were sorry she was leaving etc. End of, or so she thought.

Now she's getting increasingly aggressive calls from India demanding she pay the £27.99 she owes or she'll be charged another £12 late payment fee.

They don't seem to get that she's left?! Where do we stand

Robin9

A formal letter by snail mail - headed COMPLAINT - enclose a copy of their letter.

iniltous

Did she move to a new provider or just give notice to completely cease the TT service at the end of the 12 month minimum ?, if it's ceasing completely there may be a notice period (30 days from advising TT) and if the £17.99 was a discounted 12 month price , and it would increase to £28/month from month 13, depending on when TT were advised, it may be the money they are after is for the 30 day notice period....if the minimum 12 months were up at the end of November, notice should have been given at the end of October , ( if the last month of the 12 was also to be the 30 days notice)...if notice was given at the end of November , then the 30 day notice takes it to the end of December , so you have to pay for the 13th month ( but obviously also have 13 months service ) but those 30 days (1 month) may cost more £££, than the previous 12 monthly fee's

[Deleted User]

So she rang them back, India again, over a 40 minute wait - I was listening, still no breakthrough. A stalemate and then suddenly a final bill notice (text) of £1.20something - which she paid straightaway. Hopefully the end of it?

MikeFloutier

Just to balance the Talk Talk experience, I experienced the same "month 13" issue when I left BT for TT in November; only difference being that my Month 13 cost an extra £54, for the extra month I didn't need because TT were now online and BT weren't even connected.

Small print, won't happen again "cancel at end of Month 11" as per Iniltous.

But I'm saving £492 pa so...

Also on the plus side for TT the switch and customer service have been excellent!

I was a little dubious about getting the Amazon vouchers but no, they were as good as their word.

Very impressed!

iniltous

MikeFloutier wrote: »

Just to balance the Talk Talk experience, I experienced the same "month 13" issue when I left BT for TT in November; only difference being that my Month 13 cost an extra £54, for the extra month I didn't need because TT were now online and BT weren't even connected.

Small print, won't happen again "cancel at end of Month 11" as per Iniltous.

But I'm saving £492 pa so...

Also on the plus side for TT the switch and customer service have been excellent!

I was a little dubious about getting the Amazon vouchers but no, they were as good as their word.

Very impressed!

If you and TT had used the correct switching process , then you shouldn't have had any period where you paid a BT for service you were not getting, the point at which TT connected is the same point at which BT were disconnected and the final BT bill produced, in other words no overlap, TT start billing you the day after BT stop physically being your provider.

If you paid BT for a month that they were not even connected to your property, then either you switched before the minimum term had expired (in which case it would have be ETC charged , not just an extra normal month) or TT issued a 'new line' order rather than a migration , and the cease of the BT line was not done as a consequence of that migration but by a stand alone cease order with its standard 30 day notice period.
You are happy with TT ,and TBH millions use them, but TT or you messed up if you paid BT for that extra month , by not using the correct switching ( migration ) process, so that month you paid BT could have been probably been avoided if TT had done the correct thing, but ( presumably ) if you have attached blame , it's BT you have attached the blame to , rather than the real culprit.

TBH , you probably had a deal with BT available if you had looked in your BT account or called and asked , so comparing the full outside any minimum term list price of BT with your TT price to get the saving of £492 a year is probably over stating it , TT are undeniably 'cheaper' but more realistically around £1 to £10 a month ( still a worthwhile saving ) but nothing like £500, if you had took a BT retention deal

MikeFloutier

Not attaching blame, apart from warning to self to be more diligent.

My reason for writing was simply to praise TT for great service/product.

D_M_E

Talktalk have an idiotic policy of taking an extra payment at the end of your contract - if you give notice and tell them you want to terminate - which then gets refunded less a small payment.

Wonder if OP's girlfriend fell foul of this as the £1.20 sounds like the small payment covering a day or so at the end?

PeterGr

iniltous wrote: »

If you and TT had used the correct switching process , then you shouldn't have had any period where you paid a BT for service you were not getting, the point at which TT connected is the same point at which BT were disconnected and the final BT bill produced, in other words no overlap, TT start billing you the day after BT stop physically being your provider.

I am not so sure that they know when services have switched. I recently ended services (properly) with BT & TT and started a deal with PlusNet. My TT broadband billing stopped on 11 Oct. PlusNet billing started on 31 Oct. BT line rental ended on 31 Oct but PlusNet line rental started on 19 Nov. But I only had 3 hours without broadband on the day Openreach switched. Both BT and TT billed me for an extra month in November which they refunded. BT made additional ex gratia payment of £20, and TT credited the amount twice.


So my conclusion is that they don't know when services start / end, and if you have a legitimate complaint, make it vociferously.

iniltous

PeterGr wrote: »

I am not so sure that they know when services have switched. I recently ended services (properly) with BT & TT and started a deal with PlusNet. My TT broadband billing stopped on 11 Oct. PlusNet billing started on 31 Oct. BT line rental ended on 31 Oct but PlusNet line rental started on 19 Nov. But I only had 3 hours without broadband on the day Openreach switched. Both BT and TT billed me for an extra month in November which they refunded. BT made additional ex gratia payment of £20, and TT credited the amount twice.


So my conclusion is that they don't know when services start / end, and if you have a legitimate complaint, make it vociferously.

Ending services with TT and BT and moving to Plusnet is these days unusual in that you presumably had 2 providers , BT for line rental and TT for broadband (SMPF) that is something of a legacy product these days, I would think at some point TT contacted you and asked you to switch line rental away from BT to TT so they could provide you as a MPF customer, presumably you refused, I would think the vast majority of TT SMPF took up the offer, I fact I thought TT 'sold' all their 'off net' customers to another provider sometime ago ?

Your problem as opposed to the OP is that the chances are your 2 separate accounts, TT broadband and BT line rental cannot be simultaneously ceased by one Plusnet migration order, WLR broadband cannot exist without line rental , LLU (MPF) is fully within the providers control.
This migration process is one that Ofcom came up with , and presumably didn't take someone like you and your (rare) situation into account.
FWIW , the large LLU providers like TT and Sky don't allow new customers to have SMPF it has to be MPF ( line rental and broadband) otherwise you won't be offered service at all, smaller 'niche' providers that do still offer SMPF probably will presumably have to manage the gaining and losing of customers outside of the 'normal' migration processes

PeterGr

All may be true, but my point was that TT did not know when it was providing a service, and the TT billing system generated a monthly charge 28 days after they thought the service had ended. Only a written complaint to the CEO office in line with their complaints procedure got them to correct the billing error.