Talk Talk - hopeless

sheffsimon

Anybody else have the misfortune to require tech help from Talk Talk We have TV/phone/bband package with an intermittent fault, TV and bband unavailable for hours at a time, crackly phone line.

Missus rings up, get her to do a few simple checks, plugging phone into master socket, still crackly - they put our problem into the "Voicebox" whatever that is, and somebody will ring us.

Nobody does, they say we left a message on your mobile, do they have wifes mobile number? No, the lying b@stards. Then ask the missus to do the same checks as already done, missus says no, wants to speak to someone more senior to escalate things. Does so, someone will call us back.

Someone calls back while only my 11 yr old was in, he answers phone, they ask him if phone is OK, yes seems OK. Talk Talk then record fault as being fixed.

Wife rings back to clarify that asking an 11yr old is in no way accepatable. Next step is, BT engineer will come, but will cost £100 if problem is on our equipment. OK. No sign of BT engineer for days.

BT engineer rings and comes Wednesday, checks house wiring all OK, and changes master socket. Goes away. Phone line still crackly but tele and bb seem OK, then stop working yesterday. Wife rings last night, explains that still a problem and we think it must be on the incoming cable to the house as it seems weather/wind dependent. Someone will call back.

Someone calls back today, and starts off with saying they are pleased that the fault is fixed. :twisted:

Rant over.

Useless, p1sstaking, incompetent w@nkers.

Rant fully over.

Any comments, similar stories etc welcome.

Alain Quay

Not bad 80s band. It's My Life is my favourite track

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQYyKzyDaE

Bronzie

Do you still pay line rental to BT or is it an inclusive package with TalkTalk?

Padgie

Hi,

Yes, had a very similar sounding issue when I was with Tiscali (now been bought by Talk Talk). Issue went on for nearly a year because BT said the line was ok and so did Tiscali even though I knew all my kit was ok including the master socket which BT changed.
I eventually got BT to give it one last try and was told I'd have to pay if it was found that my kit was faulty and the cause of the fault.
Engineer comes out, quick test, 'all seems ok here' he said. I replied 'Look mate, with all due respect, this has been ongoing for ages, I work from home, work in I.T and 100% knowfor sure that's it's got nothing to with any of my kit, event tried it next door, all ok'.
So the engineer says 'i'll try one last thing', goes outside to the pole, fiddles around in the black box and then goes a little further to one of them green BT boxes that house all the lines / cables etc. Turned out to be a dodgy and corroded connection on the line for our house so he changes over onto a vacant line - all tested ok!!!!!!!!! Speed back up to 8mb, no line crackling etc.
Ask them to change your line over at the exchange etc...

Good luck,

Padge

Heckler1974

Oddly when I moved I was so hacked off with expensive shite BT and the fact they wanted £130 to connect us that I plumped for Talk Talk for Phone and Broadband.

I lost sleep worrying that of all the bits of the move that I could control and / or have a plan B for this was completely out of my control.

BT guy turned up (they still have to do the initial connection, even though you pay Talk Talk for it) on time and connected us, service was working (broadband and phone) within a couple of hours.

My only whinge was I asked for all mail and the router to be sent to my current address and this was duly taken. Nothing turned up and I phoned and was told nothing would turn up until the day.

Get to new house and builder (it's a new build) has taken in a pile of mail and a router from Talk Talk (luckily). Phone to complain and get told "Oh yes I can see a note here saying send everything to your current address, but we don't take any notice of notes on a call" :roll:
Which may go someway to explain why every time you ring up you get the run around.......

jairaj

one of my work mates was with them and took forever to cancel his contract with them. there was some kind of balls up on their behalf and they refused to even acknowledge anything was wrong at all regardless of blame. It was quite funny over hearing his phone conversations with them in the office and watching him get all steamed up :twisted:

All I'll say is good luck hope it doesn't drag on too long.

TuckerUK

You really need to browse the TalkTalk forums to get a feel for their customer service (or lack thereof). Cheap yes, but I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy TBH, life's too short to put up with their incompetence.

Funny how they can afford to advertise during the most expensive spot on TV though eh? You'd think their priority was to service existing customers?

sheffsimon

Padgie wrote:

Hi,

Yes, had a very similar sounding issue when I was with Tiscali (now been bought by Talk Talk). Issue went on for nearly a year because BT said the line was ok and so did Tiscali even though I knew all my kit was ok including the master socket which BT changed.
I eventually got BT to give it one last try and was told I'd have to pay if it was found that my kit was faulty and the cause of the fault.
Engineer comes out, quick test, 'all seems ok here' he said. I replied 'Look mate, with all due respect, this has been ongoing for ages, I work from home, work in I.T and 100% knowfor sure that's it's got nothing to with any of my kit, event tried it next door, all ok'.
So the engineer says 'i'll try one last thing', goes outside to the pole, fiddles around in the black box and then goes a little further to one of them green BT boxes that house all the lines / cables etc. Turned out to be a dodgy and corroded connection on the line for our house so he changes over onto a vacant line - all tested ok!!!!!!!!! Speed back up to 8mb, no line crackling etc.
Ask them to change your line over at the exchange etc...

Good luck,

Padge

This is exactly what I'm thinking is problem with mine. All equipment in the house is fine, new master socket, cabling tested etc.

Will ask for outside line to be checked.

Crapaud

I had the same crackly line proiblem with BT. Took over a year to get sorted. As with the previous posters, the fault was with the cable coming into the house.

A timely thread this, I was checking out Talk Talk's website yesterday and was considering changing. Not sure I'll bother now - unless it pishes off BT, in which case I might.

sheffsimon

Bronzie wrote:

Do you still pay line rental to BT or is it an inclusive package with TalkTalk?

All inclusive.

freehub

Reminds me of AOL, Oh wait........

deptfordmarmoset

I had a talk talk problem and couldn't get anywhere until I'd left messages on the forum.

Here http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums/

Once I'd done that, things started moving, but the Catch 22 is that you can't access the forum if you don't have an internet connection, just as you can't use your phone to report that your phone's not working....

MarcBC

I binned Talk Talk some time ago when they took over Tiscali. The worst service of any company I have ever dealt with.

rabk

I had the misfortune to be involved with this company when they took over Tiscali.

Appalling customer service, Started an 18 month contract with Tiscali in November 2009 at agreed price of £9.99 (for full 18 months).

Remarkably Talk Talk unilateraly increased the charges by 50% in June with no consultation with me (they said they sent an email - never received)

When I contacted them to complain all i got was meally mouthed niceties, and rubbish about "price reallignment" but they wouldn't address they issues I raised.

They said I could leave early - which I did.

giant_man

I've heard they're a bit crap so avoided them.

Stewie Griffin

Their service is supposed to have improved. When they started providing broadband my mate went with them & it took two months of him calling them for them to get it working. I went with Sky & its been faultless. My mate was a mod for nthellworld when they were around. They used to provide templates for complaint letters. Our phone is with talk talk, should go to Sky but dread the trying to leave them phone calls. Trying to leave Orange to go to Voda was much harder than it should have been.

geordieindevon

Interesting thread....

I have been with Talk Talk for 3 years and its all been very good....the set up was pretty smooth and the only fly in the ointment were BT who wanted a HUGE amount of cash for moving to TT.

Since then we have had faultless internet and telephone for a good price.

I guess its like a lot of things in business...have a product on a mass scale and there will be a good and bad view of it....just look at mass produced cars..some people love the reliability and running costs of a focus others do not. :roll:

-spider-

geordieindevon wrote:

Interesting thread....

I have been with Talk Talk for 3 years and its all been very good....the set up was pretty smooth and the only fly in the ointment were BT who wanted a HUGE amount of cash for moving to TT.

Since then we have had faultless internet and telephone for a good price.

I guess its like a lot of things in business...have a product on a mass scale and there will be a good and bad view of it....just look at mass produced cars..some people love the reliability and running costs of a focus others do not. :roll:

It's not the product that bothered me - problems do happen. It was the woeful customer service from Tiscali that bothered me. Nothing, NOTHING, was their fault - it took forever for them to sort out their problem.

I got the BT engineer out for the line - and switched to BT (with a discount).

Tiscali (Talk Talk) are to be avoided at all costs. They want your money but consistently fail to deliver.

Crapaud

-spider- wrote:

... Tiscali (Talk Talk) are to be avoided at all costs. They want your money but consistently fail to deliver.

So it would seem. I'm beginning to wish I hadn't gone to their site. I got 2 calls from them yesterday and 1 this afternoon. They seemed to think that me changing over to them was a fait accompli.

If there's one way to guarantee not getting my business it's to harass me.

Tossers!

Anonymous

Trouble is all these call centre customer service people are judged on various figures and stats.

One will be how many engineer appointments they make, others will be if the same customer calls back with in a given time (24/48 hours) and the length of the call.

So if the operator can get you off the phone quick and not book a appointment for a engineer, they look good. As long as you don't call back. Hence why a they try and blame your equipment or make a promise to call you back when they have no intention to do so, it's just a way of stopping you call back in.

Instead of having a person on the end of the phone trying to help, which is their job they'll just be trying to make their figures look good to keep their manager off their back and probably get a bonus in the process.

Retro1702

AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!

Ditched them in the summer, initially they refused to give me my MAC Code until I threatened them with legal action. Their argument was I was tied in to a contract, problem was for them, that my tie-in time had long expired & I had letters from Tiscali saying I could leave whenever.

They then refused to process their side of the MAC code so when BT tried to push my order through it had expired. Cue another few hours of dealing with various inept cretins (both UK & India) at the call-centre.

Get another code sorted & BT notification that order is through. I then have 5 days of them calling my house 2 or 3 times a day to try & get me to reconsider moving. Day before transfer is due to take place I get a TalkTalk letter saying I'm in danger of losing my service & need to urgently contact them as BT are taking my line away. Ignored & BT transfer goes smoothly.

10 days or so ago I get another letter saying my line will be transferred to my new provider on November 20. Shame I've already been with BT since July then & I made sure I stopped my Talk Talk direct debit the month after I switched.

MUPPETS.

sheffsimon

Latest from Talk Talk hell....

Phoned them last Friday night, got some useless tw@t on the phone who then told me an appointment had been booked for a BT engineer to come at 7pm Sunday night.

Asked her a number of times to confirm that somebody was actually going to be at my house on Sunday night. "Yes" she says.

Surprisingly, nobody turned up! Call Talk Talk, apparently it was an appointment for somebody to ring up with an update. Who makes an appointment to make a phone call? Then requested that a BT engineer phsically checks the line from exchange to my house. They agree.

BT engineer rings yesterday - will be coming next Monday, one bloke in the exchange, one in my house to do a check on the line.

Two hours later Talk Talk tw@t rings up to tell me an appointment has been made for a BT engineer to come on Monday. "I KNOW, I ARRANGED IT WITH THEM, AND DONT NEED YOU TO PRETEND THAT RINGING ME UP TO TELL ME IS A SUBSTITUTE FOR GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE!"

We'll see what Monday brings but am hopeful of light at the end of the tunnel.

Next battle will be when £100 call out charge for first engineers visit appears on my bill.

verylonglegs

A BT engineer doing a house visit at 7pm on a sunday night?! I don't think I'd have believed them despite someone telling me that, regardless of the company.

MarcBC

Which magazine has just surveyed a bunch of people and Talk Talk were the second worst service provider of the lot. :!:

sheffsimon

verylonglegs wrote:

A BT engineer doing a house visit at 7pm on a sunday night?! I don't think I'd have believed them despite someone telling me that, regardless of the company.

I didnt, but just clinging on to some hope