Contesting Talk Talk & Debt Collection

otebb104

Talk Talk are a nightmare to deal with as many will know but I've become embroiled in situation which I hope I'm in the right but would love to receive some advice....
Summary of the situation here:

The minimum term of my broadband contract with Talk Talk was up in May, right in midst of the lockdown. I wished to leave my contract after this period. I attempted with plenty of notice to do this but quickly found out that I had no way of doing this for the following reasons: Their phone lines were reserved for key workers/vulnerable people only which I was of course going to respect. I sent numerous emails which weren't replied to. Their online chat facility was closed. I eventually found an online form to fill which went nowhere. As you can see I had no way of actually contacting Talk Talk to leave my contract. So I waited until my last direct debit payment to Talk Talk had cleared and then I cancelled my direct debit as I didn't want to pay any more money to Talk Talk for a service I no longer wished to have. I have ignored this for a few months now which probably wasn't the wisest thing to do but I was expecting them to start calling me, which they haven't. Roll on a few months and they have continued to bill me for each month, in addition to adding late payment fees. Now I'm not sure whether this was deliberate obfuscation by Talk Talk to keep people in their contracts using the guise of lock down for this or whether they genuinely couldn't facilitate my request. In any case I had been having an email exchange with them for the past couple of days outlining numerous times how it was impossible for me to leave my contract so I had to cancel my direct debit myself and so on. I was expecting them to after a bit of pushing to acknowledge this fact and waive any charges they sent me after my contract ended. They seem adamant I owe all the money and are now threatening to get debt collectors in. I've included here their statement on my specific case to illustrate their position on this: 
"Kindly note that due to the pandemic that we were facing around May, we were not able to process a cancellation as we did not have our Escalation team who would have completed this for you.

Please be advised that even though your contract ended, your services are still active which meaning the bills generated will continue unless you place a cease on your account and this is why you were charged beyond your contract end date"

I'd like to add that if I wasn't able to cancel my contract how was I supposed to place a cease on my account?

Can anyone advise me please as I feel that I'm absolutely within my rights to refuse to pay for a service I didn't use or want after my contract was up? Am I right? Could someone also advise on how I handle debt collection requests as well.
Sorry if this was long winded. Thank you very much if you read this far!

[Deleted User]

otebb104 said:

Talk Talk are a nightmare to deal with as many will know but I've become embroiled in situation which I hope I'm in the right but would love to receive some advice....
Summary of the situation here:

The minimum term of my broadband contract with Talk Talk was up in May, right in midst of the lockdown. I wished to leave my contract after this period. I attempted with plenty of notice to do this but quickly found out that I had no way of doing this for the following reasons: Their phone lines were reserved for key workers/vulnerable people only which I was of course going to respect. I sent numerous emails which weren't replied to. Their online chat facility was closed. I eventually found an online form to fill which went nowhere. As you can see I had no way of actually contacting Talk Talk to leave my contract. So I waited until my last direct debit payment to Talk Talk had cleared and then I cancelled my direct debit as I didn't want to pay any more money to Talk Talk for a service I no longer wished to have. I have ignored this for a few months now which probably wasn't the wisest thing to do but I was expecting them to start calling me, which they haven't. Roll on a few months and they have continued to bill me for each month, in addition to adding late payment fees. Now I'm not sure whether this was deliberate obfuscation by Talk Talk to keep people in their contracts using the guise of lock down for this or whether they genuinely couldn't facilitate my request. In any case I had been having an email exchange with them for the past couple of days outlining numerous times how it was impossible for me to leave my contract so I had to cancel my direct debit myself and so on. I was expecting them to after a bit of pushing to acknowledge this fact and waive any charges they sent me after my contract ended. They seem adamant I owe all the money and are now threatening to get debt collectors in. I've included here their statement on my specific case to illustrate their position on this: 
"Kindly note that due to the pandemic that we were facing around May, we were not able to process a cancellation as we did not have our Escalation team who would have completed this for you.

Please be advised that even though your contract ended, your services are still active which meaning the bills generated will continue unless you place a cease on your account and this is why you were charged beyond your contract end date"

I'd like to add that if I wasn't able to cancel my contract how was I supposed to place a cease on my account?

Can anyone advise me please as I feel that I'm absolutely within my rights to refuse to pay for a service I didn't use or want after my contract was up? Am I right? Could someone also advise on how I handle debt collection requests as well.
Sorry if this was long winded. Thank you very much if you read this far!

 Nope you are not right. It doesn't work like that. Until you cancel the service it is still being provided for you if you use it or not. You must pay for that service until such time you cancel and your cancellation period is up. 

otebb104

So because of their lock down staffing and infrastructure not being able to let me cancel my contract I have to just accept the fact I couldn't terminate my contract and I should pay them for the period beyond my contract? That doesn't seem right but if others agree then I shall do that. 

Aylesbury_Duck

You should never cancel the DD without properly cancelling the contract, or you end up in the situation in which you now find yourself.  With hindsight, the right thing to have done was to do all you did to try and contact them, keep records of your attempts (and a copy of your email), stop using the service entirely and then take it up with them afterwards, when you would have had a good case for a refund of all subsequent monthly payments.

You may still be able to achieve that, but cancelling the DD has complicated matters.  If you used the service at any point in the intervening period, that will have further complicated matters and I suspect they won't consider you to have cancelled at all.

otebb104

The service wasn't used at all in the intervening period. I've got records of all my attempts to cancel and now following my recent conversations with them a confirmation from Talk Talk that I had no way of cancelling my contract. I appreciate my cancelling my Direct Debit has complicated matters. Thanks for the advice

JJ_Egan

From your other thread/

<  have since moved house and contracted with a new provider which did as you say disconnect my previous talk talk line and cancel the contract I believe. >

Not sure if it works that way .as its a change of service address . You swap ISps same house yes they cancel ,but a contract at premise A  may not be cancelled by a new ISP at a new home .

Torry_Quine

During lockdown my talk talk broadband stopped working. I contacted them and got a new router. This didn't help so an engineer was sent round who fixed it. 
So I was able to contact them