Charged for internet for nearly 19 years with talk talk

Jelbrow

Hi all I wonder if you could help me sort my dad out!

In January 2001 my mother passed away. She controlled all of the household bills and my dad tried to sort the land line out he rang talk talk , although he explained his situation because he didn't know my mum's password they would do anything so he just kept on paying the bill .
Nearly 19 years later he asked me to have a look . He's been paying £15 a month on top of his phone bill for internet. This surprised me as my dad doesent own any devices that would use the internet and there is no modem in his house. He is quite old fashioned and only just started using a mobile, one with keys that you have to press lol.
I'm a little angry with talk talk as they can see he pays the bills even though the talk talk account is in my mum's name and they would be able to see he has never used any data .
Before I ring them where do I stand, could I get some of his money back ???
Bless him it also turns out he pays virgin media £70 a month just for his TV too and he's hardly home and still watches the four main channels.
Thanks for your help

tacpot12

I don't know of any legal basis on which you father could reclaim money from Talk Talk. He decided to pay them when he didn't have to.

Same with Virgin. He's an adult and allowed to pay any amount for anything he wants.

Neil_Jones

Jelbrow wrote: »

Hi all I wonder if you could help me sort my dad out!

In January 2001 my mother passed away. She controlled all of the household bills and my dad tried to sort the land line out he rang talk talk , although he explained his situation because he didn't know my mum's password they would do anything so he just kept on paying the bill .
Nearly 19 years later he asked me to have a look . He's been paying £15 a month on top of his phone bill for internet. This surprised me as my dad doesent own any devices that would use the internet and there is no modem in his house. He is quite old fashioned and only just started using a mobile, one with keys that you have to press lol.
I'm a little angry with talk talk as they can see he pays the bills even though the talk talk account is in my mum's name and they would be able to see he has never used any data .
Before I ring them where do I stand, could I get some of his money back ???
Bless him it also turns out he pays virgin media £70 a month just for his TV too and he's hardly home and still watches the four main channels.
Thanks for your help

Simple solution here: If your mum was the only watcher of those channels then you or your dad should have cancelled the Virgin at the time, or when the contract ran out, whichever was appropriate. Same for the internet, if your mum was the only main user of it. You should really have put them in your dad's name at the time

I would be surprised if you have a leg to stand on, especially after 19 years. TalkTalk and Virgin are companies with aim to make profit, it sounds like you gave up relatively easily when trying to update them about the passing of your mum. So realistically this is not a TalkTalk or Virgin issue at all - just because the account is in somebody's name doesn't mean they have any way of knowing whether that person is the only one who uses it. They don't.

If your dad doesn't use them, cancel them now. Put the requests in writing if needs be, explaining the situation and learn from this for next time.

[Deleted User]

It may be worth ringing TalkTalk and Virgin and explaining the situation very nicely. I had to do that for an elderly relative earlier this year with EE. The person I spoke to said that he could see that the service (mobile broadband) hadn't been used for five years and, completely unprompted by me, said that he would arrange a 50% refund for her. It was, of course, just a gesture of goodwill and not one I was expecting, (I'd just phoned to cancel the service) but it can't hurt to ask.

littleboo

This may relate to when TT offered "free" broadband, it may have been included with the phone service at no extra cost initially, but then subsequently became chargeable.

Abbey1991

Write to the consumer rights investigator at your favourite newspaper (Anna Tims / Jessica Gorst Williams etc).

TalkTalk charging a widower for 19 years for a service they could see he wasn't using - looks very bad on TalkTalk.

In addition they once had a "free broadband forever" promotion which may or may not be what your mother signed up to.

Takmon

Abbey1991 wrote: »

Write to the consumer rights investigator at your favourite newspaper (Anna Tims / Jessica Gorst Williams etc).

TalkTalk charging a widower for 19 years for a service they could see he wasn't using - looks very bad on TalkTalk.

In addition they once had a "free broadband forever" promotion which may or may not be what your mother signed up to.

No it doesn't because they don't monitor usage like that to see if people are using the service.

Your basically saying as a Widower the OP's father is unable to take responsibility for his actions when paying for his bills.

Bigphil1474

OP, ring both companies, explain the situation in a calm friendly way, and see how you get on. You're unlikely to have any legal right to a refund, but you might get a good will gesture. Then cancel all the services if he doesn't want to use them in future. Freeview should do, which is... free. Maybe find an alternative phone provider anyway, or see if TT will be generous and then stay with them if it's the cheapest available.

Cisco001

Was the contract in your mum name or your father name?

sportsarb

Bigphil1474 wrote: »

OP, ring both companies, explain the situation in a calm friendly way, and see how you get on. You're unlikely to have any legal right to a refund, but you might get a good will gesture. Then cancel all the services if he doesn't want to use them in future. Freeview should do, which is... free. Maybe find an alternative phone provider anyway, or see if TT will be generous and then stay with them if it's the cheapest available.

This is how I would approach it too. The account was in the name of someone who is deceased, I am not sure if it is possible to hold someone else responsible for that, it is definitely worth pressing the companies to see if they will refund the amounts paid.

As someone else said, these businesses are out there to make money, and they do it perfectly well. So much so that it shouldn't cause them any hardship in resolving this in a customer friendly way.

tyllwyd

So the account is still in your mum's name 18 years after she died? He can't have explained the situation clearly (or they didn't act on it properly) because they should have transferred it into his name or closed it down when they were notified of her death, so her password is not relevant. I'm really not sure if he could get money back or not if he never actually had a contract with them. If they refunded his money because the contract wasn't in his name, could they then chase him for it back because he used a service he wasn't entitled to? In terms of whether he used data, it's not their problem whether or not he used the internet, they provided access to the service and it was his choice whether to use it.