incorrect bill from talktalk

potorium

Hi,
I had a talktalk contract back in 2014/2105. I was contacted by fraudsters with my account number. I asked talktalk to change my account number/phone number which, after a fight, they did via a change of ownership. Despite them still harping on about this being a nuisance call and 'no evidence' of my account number being 'hacked' this is not my main issue. the fact talktalks 3rd party employees were accessing and using the data means it's never going to admit how bad this was and no actual hacking from outside the company was needed so evidence of such would never be there. ( i have had browser warnings that my personal data has been found on a 'list' and that i should change a named list of website passwords etc. finding this list and determining if it was indeed related to talktalk accounts would be a nice thing!)


My account number change was actioned via a change of ownership and i was specifically told and communicated in writing as this having no charges for this action. - letter from ceo office clearly stating no change to contract etc

when i got my first bill with respect my changed account number i knew it was higher than expected but could not access both sets of bills to find out why. I ended up calling their head office to get this sorted after numerous failed efforts from customer service. They said it was a free call but failed to say only for the first hour - yes it took that long to figure out why my bill was not visible online and wrong and how to get access to them.


They had added a contract breakage fee despite no contract being broken or even terminated. and following the call above to try resolve access problems et al added a call cost for that too.

Despite a year of fighting them to get the bill correct they just closed my disputes and sold it to Lowell group, my last attempt being closed a day or two prior to being sold. Lowell wrote off the debt as they could not get any information from talktalk regarding my dispute over the charges. The 'internal' debt collectors BCW / now avarto ? also sent the debt back to talktalk re my disputing the breakage free and call cost to resolve access.

talk talk however marked my credit file as query,2late payments,query,defaulted over a 4 month period. then marked as settled several months later when they sold it to Lowell. They have stated several times their marks are legit and and still refuse to remove them. up until early 2020 they were still claiming the contract breakage fee was correct. In fact in their final response to investigating pre deadlock claimed the total balance was all contract breakage fee. - i should add the total balance ended up at  was approx £83. £40 of which were late payments , £5 a contract breakage fee and £4 for a call to restore access to bills. the original was £43.

I had told them numerous times, while the account balance was with talktalk, that i was not refusing to pay, but was willing only to pay what I calculated as owed and was expecting a correct bill. when telling them i was willing to pay what i calculated as owed they still insisted i pay the full amount to avoid late payment charges and credit marks.(my stating i was willing to pay what was actually owed supported by my DSAR along with their 'pay all of it or we will carry on late payments and credit mark responses) 

recently cisas adjudication found they had indeed broken their contract and failed in their duty of care by adding the contract breakage charges and closing my disputes but still insist talktalk were right in adding those marks as the incorrect part amounted to 'only a small part' of the balance. There must be a value a bill needs to be incorrect by before they believe demanding its payed in full is unjust?

My argument is that had the bill been correct, or had they been willing to actual investigate my claims the bill was wrong and not just keep adding late payments and credit marks while the contract breakage fee was being disputed then this issue would never have arisen as payment would have been made.

My bill was offered to be paid in part (as in what was actually owed), minus those contract breakage charges and a call cost to their head office to sort out my account(s) but they refused to accept that payment and insisted on full payment to avoid any charges/credit marks. ( i take this as legalised extortion) They however just kept adding late payment charges despite the dispute - the original bill was approx £43 containing the £5.03 contract breakage fee and a @£4 call cost to their head office. Both these charges were deemed worthy of 'a good will gesture' to remove but was never actioned (contained in my DSAR)

With cisas having agreed with the FACT that the contract breakage fee should never have been added, I view this as talktalk refusing to investigate my balance at the time, or since (their deadlock letter in march 2020 claimed the balance of £83 was all the CBF proving no real look at my account has ever been actioned. They have recently informed Equifax and Lowell that the balance of £83 is 100% correct despite clear evidence it was not and even previously found to be wrong by cisas). Their use of late payment charges and credit marks to enforce payment of a clearly wrong bill and selling it while the customer is disputing (and without investigating) the balance is just wrong.

The argument of paying and then disputing is mute given the fact they still, after a full talktalk investigation and cisas adjudication, claimed the contract breakage was correct (in fact claimed the entire balance was the breakage fee). And as such had i paid up in full to avoid their late payments/credit marks i'd still be fighting them for money they were not owed. As mentioned my offer to pay what was owed while my dispute for the rest was actioned is also mute as they still refuse to accept no contract was broken and thus no contract breakage fee can be justified and clearly stated that unless full payment was made charges and credit marks would still result.

Advice on small court claims action please as there seems to be no regulations regarding a company incorrectly billing a customer and refusing to actually check correctly when a dispute (found to be correct) is raised with them. 

brewerdave

Far too long to read !!

JJ_Egan

Ditto i got totally confused as to the question .

Small claims court do we not have a sticky ?

AstonSmith

It is a rather long post, so I'll try and condense how I understand it:

• In 2015 a large number of TalkTalk users' account details were stolen in a cyber attack. The OP gets a phone call from a fraudster who probably used that information.
• The OP asks for a new account number. TalkTalk closes the old account (and number), and sets up a new account. He receives documents to say there's no charges or contract changes for this action. However, he is billed an early contract exit charge (£5.03).
• He phones TalkTalk to complain about this charge, which cost about £4.
• TalkTalk ignore the complaint. The OP offers to pay for the services used (about £43), but not the exit charge or phone call on the old account. (£5.03 + about £4).
• TalkTalk said no, they only want full payment. He refuses. TalkTalk puts negative markers on his credit file and passes the debt to collectors (Lowell).
• The OP complains to CISAS. CISAS agrees that the early exit charge was incorrectly charged.

So I have questions:

• Has this really been going on for 5 years?
• Did the CISAS judgement not give steps for TalkTalk to take to remediate this situation?

Instead of going to court yet, I would complain to the CEO's office. Give them a copy of the original letter saying there'd be no charges and the CISAS judgement. Ask them (in a concise way) to remove the markers and tell Lowell that there's no debt to pay.