Talktalk closed my a/c without consent, landline number stolen

armitageshanks42

Interested if anyone has any experience of this or advice. This is the email I sent to them, which is self-explantory:

On 4/2/21 I received an email from you asking me to stay with your service. I phoned the same day to make it clear I had no intention of leaving.and I had no idea why you were under this impression. Having, as I thought, remedied the situation, I later received an email entitled "Thank you for choosing to stay with TalkTalk".

For the last week or so my number is not working,. After lengthy phone calls to your customer services I have been informed that my account is closed and the number taken over by "Orange Home". I have never even spoken to this or any other similar company, I do not take calls from cold callers trying to get me to switch providers, let alone enter into any contract with them.

My number has been used by my business for around 20 years, it is my main point of contact, for new and existing customers, it is published on the internet, in print advertising, stationery, etc. The loss of this number has basically ruined my business and I am told that there is nothing you can do about it.

I cannot understand how my number could be transferred and my account closed without my permission. No attempt has been made to restore it and I hold Talktalk entirely responsible for allowing an illegal transaction and for the catastrophic damage done to my business.

JJ_Egan

Business to business transaction .

You have a TT business account ??

One of the problems is that customers do not own numbers .

pbartlett

It could be just an error - for example, someone, somewhere has mis-keyed something

Or it could be that someone has (dishonestly) deliberately said they owned your number and asked for it to be switched from TalkTalk to Orange.

iniltous

Was the line a ‘business’ line with TT, or a residential line you used for business purposes ?, if a residential line, the process if someone try’s to take over the line ( either in error , or with a malicious intent ) is the losing provider advises you that someone has asked to take over the line, if it’s a genuine request , then obviously you ignore the letter, if it is a mistake or malicious , you contact your provider , usually the ‘sorry to see you leave’ letter, includes a phone number to call ( if the takeover is not wanted ) , if you don’t respond within 10 days the changeover  goes through, so it’s best not to send email that can go to the wrong group within the organisation.
Using the correct process should get the takeover stopped, provided the ( losing ) provider responds within time, but things can and do go wrong even if the process is followed, but if you sent an email, TT may say you didn’t follow the correct process and should have called them, and this caused the delay resulting in the takeover going thorough.

 If it were the case that time ran out for the migration to be cancelled, you would have service , just not with your number on it ( a new number would be on the line from  whatever provider took over the line ).
This is for the phone service , broadband adds further complexity.
AFAIK, the losing provider doesn’t know the other provider that’s taking over the line ( so the Orange Home sounds iffy, ) and there is no such company as ‘Orange’ anymore it’s part of EE .
If the line was a ‘proper’ business line, then these takeover protections don’t exist, but usually a company doesn’t have the line taken over in the same way as a residential customer changing providers to save a few ££.
If you have had the number for 20 years , it’s not likely that it’s a TT number , as they were not a network provider back then , so the number probably was a BT or cable number ported to TT , and if it’s now returned to them, if you wanted  the number back, you would have to sign up with the original number range holder,  accepting a temporary number for a while before a renumber can be done , back to the number you want.

armitageshanks42

Thanks for all your replies.

It's a residential line, originally with BT but I migrated to TT last year thinking they couldn't be any worse and they don't charge for diverts to my mobile. I didn't get a warning letter, just an email and after calling them I was assured It was all sorted out. I was further reassured by the email that thanked me for not leaving so I was sure I'd stopped it in time.
The number when called just has a message saying something like, 'This number is not receiving calls'.
Yes, I thought the Orange Home thing was suspect but trying to get any further with a Philippino call centre will drive anyone insane. As you suggest Iniltous, I think I 'll have to approach it from the BT end, which will involve being bounced around different departments by inept and disinterested muppets until the men in white coats drag me away screaming. Wish me luck!

missile

Maybe BT were not so bad after all?

iniltous

If you post on the BT Community forum , there are many similar posts where people have ‘lost’ their number ( originally a BT number )  , ported to someone else, then lost by that other company .
The BT Mods on that forum , quite often get involved and get the number back , but obviously you have to accept BT as the provider, and get a BT provide order  issued , this will be with a random BT number initially , once that is done, the Mods gets involved to renumber the random number to the number you want...it won’t be instant though, as TT need to pass the number back to BT otherwise there is a chance some incoming calls never get through ( ones that are originated by other TT customers or company’s that use TT network , like the PO ), they  seem to have a good level of success though.

hareng

Sounds like the same practice TT were doing back in 2005 called Telephone Slamming. TT stole my line against authorisation and denied it, no emails, no letters nothing. First i knew was the initial bill end of the month. Had to pay to get away at 2 months and still owe me money.

Only been with BT last 10 years out of 32 tried nearly all out and yes have been with Orange never again worse than TT and Sky. Still have same number and they dont mind businesses run from home, i specifically asked. Last 12 months BT  now has a good customer service, all my calls and queries are handled within GB not from a script in India.

macman

If compo is what you are hoping for, you need to realise that you are not going to be able to claim anything for business losses if you were using a residential line for business purposes. There is no SLA on a residential service.

tehone

iniltous said:

AFAIK, the losing provider doesn’t know the other provider that’s taking over the line ( so the Orange Home sounds iffy, ) and there is no such company as ‘Orange’ anymore it’s part of EE .

And of course EE itself is a part of BT

naedanger

Do any companies (e.g. banks or email companies etc) ever call you on the number you have just lost to check your identity? If so then you had better let them know you currently don't control the number just in case it is part of a scam. (I know there are scams where fraudsters take over phone numbers fraudulently as part a bigger scam but I think that is usually with mobile numbers. I don't think it will be so common with a landline, but worth bearing in mind.)