Hi,

Yes it is a ridiculous situation.

My first thought isn't about right and wrong - rather practicalities. If somebody in your family can do without their phone for a few days then it might be a good idea to programme it with your number and leave it at your mother in law's house. I appreciate you shouldn't have to, but more important is that (especially if she is vulnerable) she is able to get help if she needs it.

Now on to the problem itself. I've seen a few of these and in general, tiscali and talk talk tend not to be at fault - the real culprits are BT as they own and manage the exchange and maintain who is connected to who. If they don't do their bit properly, all tiscali and talk talk can do is to keep asking them to do it and hoping that they do. On that basis, please don't reward BT by switching to them.

I know from experience how frustrating this can all be. I can also assure you that there is no easy way out and that any further changes in who you do business with will only complicate matters further and make it take even longer to resolve.

The best action you can take is this. Write to the chief executives of Tiscali, and Talk Talk, copying in Ofcom, explain as briefly and pertinently what has happened and ask them to arrange it amongst themselves as a matter of urgency and to reply to both you and Ofcom detailing what action they will take and by when. If you send this via email, then it makes it easier for all of these companies to reply to all without having delays of weeks whilst letters circulate.

Tiscali: Mary Turner, mary.turner@uk.tiscali.com

Talk Talk: Charles Dunstone, dunstonec AT cpw.com:

Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 (Sorry - you'll need to phone them to get an email address to send copy correspondence to, and yes it most certainly is a complaint, primarily about the landline phone)

Please help I am rapidly getting to the end of my tether with Tiscali. My mother in law was a Talk Talk customer who only had a land line phone with them until recently. She bought a lap top and wanted to have broadband installed for the first time. After deciding that Tiscali was a slightly better package she put the wheels in motion for the changeover. That is when the problems began. She should have been connected on 13.10.08 but has not been able to use her landline properly since (haven't even attempted to connect broadband).There is no dialling tone and if someone tries to ring her they just get the engaged signal. She has briefly been able to use the phone once to speak to me a couple of days ago albeit it very crackly. Within 10 minutes of this call the line went dead and hasn't worked since. Have made numerous calls to tiscali to sort out the problem but they are worse than useless promising to call back after sorting problem but never do. We decided this morning to cancel with tiscali and go back to talk talk but this is far from straightforward. Tiscali have told us that we can't just go back to Talk Talk we have to go to BT for transfer of the line and gave me an ISP code?? BT can do transfer but it will be 12 month contract for line rental. Don't want that just want to go back to talk talk.(all talk talk broadband packages seem to include line rental). Talk talk tell me that the line needs reactivating which has to be done through the post office. Rang the post office they blamed talk talk for disconnecting the line (they're well known for it apparently) and want to charge us £110.00 for reconnection. In the midst of all this forgot to mention that at 1am & 4am this morning my mother in law who couldn't sleep due to the stress of all this, picked up the phone and both times got a dialling tone. Didn't phone anyone because of the time but come 8am this morning line dead again. Line obviously hasn't been disconnected or there would be no dialling tone I assume!! In desperation have gone back to tiscali to try to sort out line problem one last time. They have promised to phone back between 4 & 5 today. If this isn't resolved today I really don't know where to go from here. 8 DAYS WITH NO PHONE FOR A VUNERABLE 73 YEAR OLD ON HER OWN IS NO JOKE, REALLY REALLY NEED TO SORT THIS OUT FOR HER ASAP. Any suggestions would be so so appreciated. Thanks