Talktalk mis-selling

ws.7

Been trying to get my 85 year neighbour away from talktalk for nearly three years, last time they got him into a new 18 month contract with a "free" router.
Since the last i time i delt with talktalk on his behalf, they attached my mobile number for service info which was handy at the time as his telephone line was out of service.

On the weekend i had a text from openreach informing me an engineer would be calling on Wednesday to install my new service on behalf of talktalk, this was of course for my neighbours line, talked to him Monday afternoon and he's had a letter from talktalk informing him his new service will start soon, he knows nothing about it, i called talktalk on his behalf, talked to customer services for half an hour and he passed me onto their sales department, unfortunately they would not talk to me or my neighbour as we couldn't pass security, so before i ended the call i asked if the OR Engineer showed up and my neighbour refused to let him in would that stop the service, he said yes.

So my question is, is that correct? 

Neil_Jones

ws.7 said:

Been trying to get my 85 year neighbour away from talktalk for nearly three years, last time they got him into a new 18 month contract with a "free" router.
Since the last i time i delt with talktalk on his behalf, they attached my mobile number for service info which was handy at the time as his telephone line was out of service.

On the weekend i had a text from openreach informing me an engineer would be calling on Wednesday to install my new service on behalf of talktalk, this was of course for my neighbours line, talked to him Monday afternoon and he's had a letter from talktalk informing him his new service will start soon, he knows nothing about it, i called talktalk on his behalf, talked to customer services for half an hour and he passed me onto their sales department, unfortunately they would not talk to me or my neighbour as we couldn't pass security, so before i ended the call i asked if the OR Engineer showed up and my neighbour refused to let him in would that stop the service, he said yes.

So my question is, is that correct? 

Depends entirely on what this new "service" is because you haven't mentioned anything about it so its a bit difficult to say its "mis-selling".

ws.7

Neil_Jones said:

ws.7 said:

Been trying to get my 85 year neighbour away from talktalk for nearly three years, last time they got him into a new 18 month contract with a "free" router.
Since the last i time i delt with talktalk on his behalf, they attached my mobile number for service info which was handy at the time as his telephone line was out of service.

On the weekend i had a text from openreach informing me an engineer would be calling on Wednesday to install my new service on behalf of talktalk, this was of course for my neighbours line, talked to him Monday afternoon and he's had a letter from talktalk informing him his new service will start soon, he knows nothing about it, i called talktalk on his behalf, talked to customer services for half an hour and he passed me onto their sales department, unfortunately they would not talk to me or my neighbour as we couldn't pass security, so before i ended the call i asked if the OR Engineer showed up and my neighbour refused to let him in would that stop the service, he said yes.

So my question is, is that correct? 

Depends entirely on what this new "service" is because you haven't mentioned anything about it so its a bit difficult to say its "mis-selling".

well from what i could get from the customer service guy, it's fiber and another 18 month contract, as regards too mis-selling no one has ordered this service, isn't that mis-selling?

southsidergs

I'm a bit confused by the unable to pass security bit as well, surely your neighbour knows their own number & address?

Cornucopia

ws.7 said:

well from what i could get from the customer service guy, it's fiber and another 18 month contract, as regards too mis-selling no one has ordered this service, isn't that mis-selling?

Not necessarily.   

The first step is probably to get the security reset and then with your neighbour's agreement, get yourself named on the account as someone who can speak for them.   You could then request a copy of the contract amendment call/paperwork.

Mis-selling certainly is feasible on telecoms accounts - I have seen it myself.   But, talking about mis-selling when that's unproven probably won't help sort things out.

Neil_Jones

ws.7 said:

Neil_Jones said:

ws.7 said:

Been trying to get my 85 year neighbour away from talktalk for nearly three years, last time they got him into a new 18 month contract with a "free" router.
Since the last i time i delt with talktalk on his behalf, they attached my mobile number for service info which was handy at the time as his telephone line was out of service.

On the weekend i had a text from openreach informing me an engineer would be calling on Wednesday to install my new service on behalf of talktalk, this was of course for my neighbours line, talked to him Monday afternoon and he's had a letter from talktalk informing him his new service will start soon, he knows nothing about it, i called talktalk on his behalf, talked to customer services for half an hour and he passed me onto their sales department, unfortunately they would not talk to me or my neighbour as we couldn't pass security, so before i ended the call i asked if the OR Engineer showed up and my neighbour refused to let him in would that stop the service, he said yes.

So my question is, is that correct? 

Depends entirely on what this new "service" is because you haven't mentioned anything about it so its a bit difficult to say its "mis-selling".

well from what i could get from the customer service guy, it's fiber and another 18 month contract, as regards too mis-selling no one has ordered this service, isn't that mis-selling?

Misselling is the deliberate, reckless, or negligent sale of products or services in circumstances where the contract is either misrepresented, or the product or service is unsuitable for the customer's needs.

For Fibre internet (upgrade from ADSL?) somebody has to have agreed to it.  They don't just spontaneously pick names out of a hat and decide Mr Smith is going to get a free upgrade to fibre internet (at a higher cost) and then go off and do it entering Mr Smith into a new 18 month contract.  You have to opt into that with consent, the automatic roll over of a new contract without any consent/agreement has been banned since at least 2011 - https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-3/automatically-renewable-contracts - the only "roll over" is onto a rolling contract, with no ext fees and often substantially higher price.

There are two potential causes of this situation.:

1) Your neighbour has either responded to an offer/phone call/letter/whatever and agreed the upgrade over the phone and then forgot all about it.

2) Somebody has requested an upgrade for the wrong address, or the upgrade isn't for the neighbour and is actually for somebody else (provider error).

You need to find out which applies here (TalkTalk like most companies almost certainly record calls).  If your neighbour is instigating the upgrades by agreeing to something and then forgets they've done it, that's not mis-selling on TalkTalk's side.  The age of the neighbour is irrelevant - if they're over 18 and sound of mind, nothing to stop them making new contracts,  Its a common thing to try and argue that once you get the other side of 65 "being taken advantage of", and its rarely the case unfortunately.

ws.7

well my neighbour knew nothing about a new service, 

he had called 1 weeks ago to complain about not being able to call his friend down the road,

but his friend being able to call him.

i suppose the service could have been added then.

Neil_Jones

ws.7 said:

well my neighbour knew nothing about a new service, 

he had called 1 weeks ago to complain about not being able to call his friend down the road,

but his friend being able to call him.

i suppose the service could have been added then.

Not being able to make calls and reporting it as a fault does not instigate a new broadband contract by any stretch of the imagination.  And the cooling off period for new/upgraded broadband is 14 days, not 7, so if the call was made last week and an upgrade agreed nothing should be happening until next week at the earliest.

As I've already said, upgrades do not happen on their own.  Something else is going on here.  The recorded calls (if you can get that far) will probably reveal all.  I don't mean to be nasty but from what I've seen so far I'm not convinced TalkTalk is the problem.

ws.7

my experience  dealing with talktalk is if you have a problem with their product.

the best way to fix it is to sign up for another 18 months,

well that's the opinion of everyone who works for taltalk.

Neil_Jones

ws.7 said:

my experience  dealing with talktalk is if you have a problem with their product.

the best way to fix it is to sign up for another 18 months,

well that's the opinion of everyone who works for taltalk.

Now you're just making things up because nobody agrees with your "mis-selling" theory. 

ws.7

Neil_Jones said:

ws.7 said:

my experience  dealing with talktalk is if you have a problem with their product.

the best way to fix it is to sign up for another 18 months,

well that's the opinion of everyone who works for taltalk.

Now you're just making things up because nobody agrees with your "mis-selling" theory. 

oh my god, nobody agrees with me!!!  my life over