TalkTalk Refuses to Provide Phone Calls Which are Included in my Package

WhiskersTheWonderCat

Are you saying that you can make no calls at all? Or that calls aren't included for free with your package?

gord323

It has PAYG calls on the Full Fibre 150 plan. This is what I pointed out to them. But they cannot seem to see it. I am to be getting VOIP as there seems no other sensible alternative if TT insists that PAYG calls are not included in their Full Fibre 150 plan (which their own description says is included). I keep showing them their own description of the full Fibre 150 and they keep on doing the following:

1. Ignore what it says on their own website
2. Tell me that the complaints manager will contact me in two days.
3. The complaints manager doesn't contact me.
4. The whole cycle starts again.

BTW, 35harold I know TalkTalk does not provide VOIP. I'm looking elsewhere for a good VOIP service.

Ectophile

VOIP is the only option on a full fibre line.  The old copper wires aren't connected any more.  But that should be handled by the internet router, possibly with an add-on adapter to plug a normal phone into.

Ayr_Rage

TalkTalk DOES provide VoIP on some of its Future Fibre (FTTP) packages.

You either get a plug in Grandstream adapter or the latest HUB2 which has a handset socket.

It sounds to me that you have inadvertently purchased the Data Only product.

What exactly did your order confirmation email say ?

35har1old

littleboo said:

Really?
https://new.talktalk.co.uk/digital-voice

The info about voip was taken from a talktalk website 
Digital voice it appears you can use you old phone which must be a recent add on as I recently upgraded to full fibre and this was not offered.

Jumblebumble

Alderbank said:

Copper landlines are considered a legacy service nowadays and are seen as on the way out. What remains of the service will be shut down completely and switched off in the next few years.

When I switched to fibre I was advised that if I wanted to retain my landline number (I didn't) that would be difficult for the telcom because they were increasingly obsolete and porting could not be guaranteed.

If you need a landline you should look to VOIP. Most providers give you a free line when you switch to fibre. I think though that calls cost the same as copper (so not at all moneysaving).

Can you share who advised you that number porting from a single analogue line is difficult?
I only ask because any competant porting company will know if there are likely to be issues or not.

Alderbank

Jumblebumble said:

Alderbank said:

Copper landlines are considered a legacy service nowadays and are seen as on the way out. What remains of the service will be shut down completely and switched off in the next few years.

When I switched to fibre I was advised that if I wanted to retain my landline number (I didn't) that would be difficult for the telcom because they were increasingly obsolete and porting could not be guaranteed.

If you need a landline you should look to VOIP. Most providers give you a free line when you switch to fibre. I think though that calls cost the same as copper (so not at all moneysaving).

Can you share who advised you that number porting from a single analogue line is difficult?
I only ask because any competant porting company will know if there are likely to be issues or not.

At my previous address Plusnet asked if I wanted to retain my existing landline number and said if I did there would be a delay and they could not guarantee it would be possible.
At my current address Vodafone said substantially the same thing.

I didn't follow through either time and was happy to accept a new landline number

gord323

That's my point: TT are not competent. They are the opposite.

cannugec5

gord323 said:

I recently downsized from Virgin Media to TalkTalk to save about £50 a month, having just retired. I bought their Full Fibre 150 Plan, which includes broadband, TV and PAYG phone calls. Here is a screenshot of this plan and what it includes.

I had to order their package by phone because their online purchase method failed (I had been trying to order online for two weeks and after entering all my information I was met with the same error screen.  See other screenshot. This is STILL happening, which means that TalkTalk have not fixed this bug on their website for over two months!

So I had to order by phone. During the first phone call I made to TalkTalk I was cut off just at the point of purchase, so I had to make a second phone call to their call centre and go through the whole thing again.

About 10 days later the equipment arrived. But they sent me the wrong router/hub, and I had to wait until they sent me the correct item the following week.

Their were no instructions about how to join everything together. So I used their chat facility (one thing which actually worked) but I had several conversations with various technical people (apparently) who all thought this was a big joke and just wasted my time. Two of these people got me to do completely irrelevant things. I have a transcript of these chats. They are ridiculous, all of them.

But I was still without phone calls. So I emailed them and asked them why they didn’t allow me phone calls. They refused to acknowledge that my package included phone calls!

I get an email every week stating that the complaints manager will contact me two days after that email, but s/he never does. This has happened four times now.

I keep sending them emails, showing them the same screenshot to prove that the package I bought includes phone calls. But they completely ignore this and say that the complaints manager will call me in two days between 12:00 and 14:00, but s/he never does. 

Was this person trying to contact me by phone, perhaps?

Incredible, mind-boggling incompetence!

I’ve been fined by HMRC because I was not able to file my VAT for the first quarter of this year (my ID is validated by a phone call to my number, which no longer exists). And I have been inconvenienced in many other ways as well.

I need to phone HMRC and another government department on another matter. So I used my mobile phone. All that happened was that I sat listening to on-hold recorded rubbish for 30 minutes until my mobile ran out of credit (thanks to the 44p per minute charged by EE) and am then cut off.

This has happened twice now. I buy £10 of credit from EE and wait listening to on-hold recorded rubbish while the call burns through the £10 and then cuts me off.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to deal with this?

It is complete madness. My advice to people is NEVER to have anything to do with TalkTalk. TalkTalk are incompetent to a degree I have never experienced before. 

Does the screenshot that mentions PAYG calls actually come from a TalkTalk website or was that from a price comparison site? I question it because the format looks like a comparison site. If I’m right then your argument might be with the provider of the information you relied on rather than TT. 

In either case as you purchased over the phone they will likely deem the discussion on the phone takes precedence over what you read online. 

MouldyOldDough

PAYG calls means that you PAY for them - they were not offered free !