Switching from BT to TalkTalk

Hansie

We have recently moved into a new house and immediately set up a BT phoneline (with little thought). When researching broadband decided to opt for talk talk and so a month after moving in our phone provider was switched to TalkTalk. Two weeks later I recieved a bill from BT stating we owed £72.77 in cancellation fees. Not too happy with this i immediately phoned BT to express my displeasure and after being on hold for an hour was basically told tough I had entered a contract. I looked through all paperwork I had received from BT and there was nothing outlining any contrcat term or length (by the way all correspondence from BT was sent to our address in a name that had been totally mispelt 2 letters right out of six). I emailed the BT complaint department and got a response within a few days by phone basically saying I had enetered a contract, I demanded to see a copy of the contract or to see the script used by the sales people when setting up a phone line in order to prove I had been informed of the contract, I also complained that my name had been mispelt/made up and suggested as a matter of goodwill for poor customer service etc the charge be waived. Sure enough after 4 emails and 4 phone calls BT have agreed to waive all charges. Very happy thought I would join the forum to share with you that persistance does pay:j

superscaper

Need to know the "answer" to this as well. My brother just moved into a new house and couple that moved out took the number with them. But brother wants the talktalk phone and internet package. So phoned talktalk and they told him to call BT to get a new number. After three days he finally got through to BT who said that it would be a 12 month contract and he'd be charged £70 for cancelling and he should get talktalk to connect him if he doesn't want to go through BT (AFAIK this must be bull because I thought talktalk can't do that).

Heinz

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=6884875&postcount=117

superscaper

Heinz wrote: »

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=6884875&postcount=117

In other words, tough. Talktalk say they're looking into setting up their own lines in the near future but can't do it yet. So if talktalk refuse to do anything about it looks like will have to sign up to BT and deliberately cancel contract and incur the cancellation charge.

Heinz

superscaper wrote: »

In other words, tough. Talktalk say they're looking into setting up their own lines in the near future but can't do it yet. So if talktalk refuse to do anything about it looks like will have to sign up to BT and deliberately cancel contract and incur the cancellation charge.

Correct - except substitute the word "won't" for the word "can't" in that sentence.

And, as I always say, are you sure you want the 'services' of a firm which lies to you when trying to get your business?

superscaper

Heinz wrote: »

And, as I always say, are you sure you want the 'services' of a firm which lies to you when trying to get your business?

It's not for me so it's not really a question of what services I want. But BT never mentioned talktalk getting them to connect the line they said talktalk could do it completely themselves not as a proxy to BT.

superscaper

So even though it's still a 12 month contract with BT there shouldn't be a connection fee though should there? It's not a brand new line.

jarrod1

talk talk are pants

Heinz

Just like all then other 'line providers' now in the market, BT has to pay Openreach to install or reconnect a line. Talk Talk could do the same - but they won't because it'd cost them the £103.40 Openreach would charge and they prefer to imply they can't do so and make you pay and then take over the line for £2.35.

If Openreach say work is necessary to reconnect, you may well have to pay BT £124.99 to get the BT line operational and then £70 to break the contract - so you can go to the cheap Talk Talk service.

The break even point is about 6 years if my maths is correct.

sammiboo

I used to work for Opal/Talktalk for two years. I left in march of this year.

My job was in the "connections" department and it was me who used to set up new lines and also transfer existing lines.

I moved in with my OH in april who was already with talktalk, we moved house in October hoping to take the line with us but as we were on a different exchange it couldnt be done.

We were told that we would have to get the line with BT then give the number to talktalk to get the line over to them. It was my OH that was speaking to them on the phone as it was his contract.

I ended up taking the phone off him to speak to the guy, this was my job for two years so i knew if they were going to give me crap.

The guy told me that I still had to get BT to set the line up, I told them I used to transfer lines myself and asked them to explain why I could do it but they couldnt. They did say there is a new system (that didnt work) so in the end i lost my rag and told them to cancel the contract and disconnect the line.

We have been with BT now since october and our bills havent been any different to talk talk.

I have found BTs customer service better than that of talk talk, when i used to work for talktalk i ended up getting people contacting me as they couldnt get anywhere with the customer service.

I wouldnt go with talktalk being from both sides of the pond, as an employee and customer

superscaper

Heinz wrote: »

If Openreach say work is necessary to reconnect, you may well have to pay BT £124.99 (i.e. less than BT has to pay Openreach) to get the BT line operational

But it isn't a new line, even BT's website say the connection fee isn't applicable if the line has been active within the last 3 months. The previous owners only moved out last week! So why would there still be a connection fee (ignoring the transfer to talktalk side of things)?