TalkTalk (Talk Talk) Have Completely Messed Up and I Need Advice about VOIP or similar Phone Options

gord323

Hi,

I have just got a new TalkTalk account.

But TalkTalk have screwed up my order which was meant to include phone calls, which TalkTalk did not supply.

So I am now unable to make or receive any phone calls.

TalkTalk says I need to cancel the account and get a new account with their own VOIP (which I did in the first place but they messed up) but between one account closing and the new account opening, they were not able to say how long that would be.

So because it's TalkTalk let's assume it will be three weeks.

I cannot go for 1 day without Internet connectivity. I need it for my work.

Can anyone suggest a good 3rd part VOIP or phone supplier that I can use with my existing TalkTalk setup?

Or does anyone just have a similar nightmarish experience with these clowns?

I'd appreciate all feedback. Thanks.

Neil_Jones

If you need internet for work you should be on a business package.

Problems on domestic packages go to the back of the queue.  Problems on business get dibs.

gord323

Thanks @Neil_Jones,  and I certainly take your point. As a freelancer/consultant, I work from home. After several decades working for corporates I relish working from home (I'm semi-retired). So I'm not exactly the kind of power user who would be justified in asking for a business scale setup, but I just need an ordinary service which can do relatively modest things, very ordinary things. But I need it to do this (i.e. work properly) when it's needed to work properly. Not really a huge ask. It just needs to work properly.

The problem, I certainly admit, is that I didn't foresee the errors that TalkTalk seem to make on a regular basis. It seems to be a systemic failing of theirs, right across their customer base. I made the error of assuming that TalkTalk actually does what they say they do.

Now that I'm with TalkTalk I need to stick with them because of the internet connectivity that I need. Getting their own VOIP package would, so they told me, involve not simply adding the VOIP hardware, as common sense would suggest; instead I would need to close my current account/service with them, then order a new account/service package which included VOIP (which is what I asked for in the first place but didn't get).

They say they record all phone calls, so I asked them to simply replay and listen to the two phone calls I needed to make to order the package that they failed to deliver (I was cut off during the first call for no apparent reason, just as I was confirming the details of the package I needed). Strangely, they could not find these initial phone calls to justify what I was saying.

When I asked how long was the length of time between stopping one service and getting the new one, I was told that they couldn't guarantee any definite number of days. So I suppose I could be a week with no Internet connectivity. Or ten days, perhaps. Who knows? They didn't.

I certainly wish I had done more research into TalkTalk before I opted for them. I have only myself to blame for such a ridiculous choice of ISP.

I noticed a survey by Which? the consumer media group, published only two days ago (29 March 2023), a research study among nearly 4,000 broadband customers, branding TalkTalk as the worst major UK broadband ISP, a result also published by ISP Review and also copied by several national newspapers and industry websites.

The survey among these users, interestingly, found that while the smaller suppliers were rated better, the larger ISPs, including BT and Talk Talk, were said to offer, in Which?'s own words, "slow speeds, appalling customer service and mediocre technical support in return". (Incidentally, I also concur with their BT result, from my own experience. So it was no going back to them!)

In addition, "TalkTalk is set to hike its broadband prices by 14.2% next month", noted the Which? report. Trebles all round in the board room, no doubt.

Whenever I talk to their customer support by phone or through their chat facility, I find that their advisers tell me different things, depending on who I'm talking to. It's as if they had been trained to say different things (or perhaps construing this) instead of being trained to advise their customers what actually was the case. I have several transcriptions of such chat sessions which are difficult to believe.

Just reading the Google results listings, its SERPs, the conclusion is universally damning. Except, of course, for the Talk Talk website itself, which sticks out like a sore thumb among the other universal opprobrium, whose web page describes its own service as "TalkTalk: Great Value Broadband Provider" in its title tag. 

So, yes. I should have done more research. But I now need to move on. The quest is to find a VOIP service which not only works as it should work, but also is compatible with the Talk Talk equipment (they belatedly sent me the 4K TV box I had asked for, after sending me the wrong TV hub that I didn't ask for, in the package that was first delivered) so it was only fair to them for me to start again from first principles to see if it changed anything. It didn't.

I asked Talk Talk "support" this question about compatible VOIP service and equipment today and they couldn't tell me.

I've tried setting up their equipment, from scratch, several times now. It's interesting to note that their instructions for doing so, no doubt set up as "foolproof" step-by-step advice to their customers, advises users to operate the supplied remote control as part of the setup process. Only in the following "step" after that do they advise customers to actually insert the batteries in the remote control unit!

So if something as basic as that is incorrect, what else is/could be incorrect? Do I have any confidence in any of their other "advice"? Frankly, no. Once bitten, etc. Or in my case, several times bitten.

So I won't be using the TalkTalk VOIP equipment. That's why I'm seeking VOIP equipment/service from another supplier. Just something that works would be great.