I'm getting some help and much better info from Talk Talk now which is great. However speaking to BT today they are telling me that when Talk Talk finally take over then i'll be charged a cancellation fee.

When we moved into the house I told Talk Talk I wanted to continue with them as my supplier. Thet told me to get the BT line activated and then come back to them. When I had the line at my new house activated by BT they knew it was only so Talk Talk could use it and made no mention of a compulsory 12 month contract which I have apparently agreed to!

Talktalk plead ignorance regarding BTs Terms & Conditions for new lines which are clearly shown here -

(BT New Lines

* A minimum term of 12 months applies) however Dunstone knew enough about BTs T&Cs earlier this year to go running off to Ofcom

No supplier is going to arrange installation of a BT line just for Talktalks benefit. You should be asking Talktalk why they don't do it when companies like the Phone Co-op have been doing it for at least 3 years.

The Phone Co-op, Madasafish, Plusnet will all install BT lines, all with 12 month minimum contracts.

It doesn't surprise me that people are still having problems with TalkTalk and especially moving house. The fact that you have to sign a new 18 month contract is almost criminal to start with, given that you can't cancel without involving a "fee" of £70. I've just had two weeks of hell on the phone to TalkTalk and have been repeatedly told something new each time I call until the final call I made amounted to the customer service rep on the other end telling me that I'd been lied to and that sometimes they "say something to get people off the phone." What kind of a customer service department is this? Have they NO IDEA how to deal with customers. I work in a call centre myself and never would I consider lying to someone calling me for help.

Here's a brief outline of what's happened over the past two weeks:

Registered to house and advised process would start on 1st October. That it would take two weeks for phone and broadband to go live. That's fine.

Phone live on 1st October and spoke with representive to ask about the broadband. They said it would be a week after a BT engineer came out to check the line was ok. That's fine too.

Then the confusion started after the broadband didn't go live when promised. The Track Your Order feature says our broadband should be live by now, but it's not. I thought I'd call to see what was going on. I did this on Monday and after speaking to a few different departments, including homemover retentions, customer service and the normal homemovers department I was told that they could fill out a special form that would get the broadband set up in the next five days. Great. I gave it a couple of days and then called back to check on progress. Last night I called and was told that the go live date was 28th Oct, which I knew not to be true. I asked to speak to a manager and after explaining my story they told me that they'd found something from "High Level Complaints" that meant the broadband would go live by 4pm tomorrow and that they'd call me back in 10 minutes to confirm. I waited half an hour and called back as I hadn't heard anything. The manager, Ryan, that I'd spoken to had gone home, so I spoke to a different manager who apologised and said that I would get the 4pm call the next day to confirm everything was fine. Today at 4pm, no call and no internet. I called back and was then told there were no managers available and that it was all a lie and the broadband would definitely not go live until the 28th and there was no procedure or form that could be filled out to hurry this along. I'm giving up for now as I'm exhausted from their ineptitude, but might call back again tomorrow to get an update on what the hell is going on with my order as the last guy I spoke to said that he would e-mail his manager. I wasn't allowed to speak to Ryan as they don't have internal extension numbers, which I know to be a lie as well because I'd been transferred to him from the same number before.

So what I want to know is why it takes so long to flick a switch and enable ADSL and why TalkTalk operate a policy of lying to and deceiving their customers. If only I could leave without incurring a charge, I would.

I have tried to e-mail Stephen Fell out of utter desperation, having seen that he helped another Talk Talk customer on the internet on 'Money supermarket.com'.The address he has given is not being recognized and outlook express claims it doesn't exist. This is the first time I have ever joined a forum, so I hope it works!!I was due to move in July and numerous e-mails were exchanged with Talk Talk.I then had discussions with advisors in South Africa, who refused to allow me to transfer my account to my new address.Eventually, I spoke to a man in a call centre in Lancashire, Craig, who waived my cancellation fee of £69.99 because of all the aggravation, complaints and incorrect information I had been given.I subsequently settled my final account in July, as billed, for calls, line rental etc.Now, I find I am receiving, via my old address, threats of court action, debt collectors etc.Having been told my account is clear in July and then to receive these threats is outrageous and I would appreciate some assistance with this matter.What can I do??

Can anyone advise? I am getting nowhere

Moderator - Have you replaced the AT with the @ symbol. ?

I realised a while ago and the e-mail has been sent.

Thanks.

Still no response though.

Buzz2

Mod - OK Sorry can't help any further, you will just have to await his reply now. ?

Thanks

My first time on a forum, so just getting the hang of it.

Thanks for your reply

Just found this thread after googling "talk talk moving home".

We're not exactly in the same situation as most of the above, but maybe some of you can offer advice.
We're moving home at the end of July. We have already bought the new place but are remaining in rented property for the time being for work reasons. Our current phone is with Talk Talk, but our broadband is Orange. (Don't ask, I know I'm wasting money...)

The phone in the new place has a dialling tone at present (the old owners moved out less than a week ago). I don't know if this means it's "active". We haven't tried using it - but (just tested) we get a ringing tone when we call it. Their supplier was also Talk Talk.

We're not bothered about keeping our old number, and would probably like to switch broadband provider anyhow, and rationalise the phone/ISP package. Thinking about BT for the lot, if that makes it simpler.
We don't use the landline much, and the internet connection is more important for our work.

What problems do you anticipate, and how can we avert them? Is there a recommended course of action here?
I imagine we should get the new line working as soon as possible (to avoid paying a reconnection fee?), although it means we will be paying for two services for a couple of months. We won't need internet at the new place until we actually move, but would like to be able to use it there as soon possible after that.

TIA

Generally speaking you would be ok if you get a dial tone, no problem to get the line restarted free of charge. However, if the Talktalk package the previous owners had was on Talktalk LLU ie. not on BT's network, it can take 14 days for the line to be stopped and getting it restarted may be a problem. Unless you could get the previous owner to sign over the line to you via Talktalk the existing cease order would go ahead and you will find the line going dead eventually.

Easy to check though, dial 17070 and if you get the phone number read back to you plus other test options then it's a BT line and you could choose any provider you want to reactive it.

Any other result and it's non-BT, possibly some charges involved to get the line restarted and although any provider can arrange this via Openreach, many won't and you would find BT retail to be the only viable choice for line rental.

One thing I would say though, if broadband is important for work purposes, a residential broadband package may leave you high and dry if problems occur. The fact that you need it fixed pronto will cut no ice with such providers since they are offering a residential service.

Basic BT Retail line rental paying via direct-debit and paperless billing with the basic weekend call package is probably your best voice option leaving you free to choose a decent ISP with adequate support which you would require, either a business package,BT are doing a promotion just now, or maybe an Entanet reseller, Aquiss, ADSL24 etc. who all provide decent packages with the excellent support.

Thanks! I'll check all that out.

I'm currently going through a TT home move and it's beginning to get me down. I've been with them for just over 18 months - just started the second contract last month in fact - and I called them a few weeks ago to inform them I was moving home, and wished to take my account with me. They said there was no problem; they would send a BT engineer out to the new place to test the line, and phone would be installed that day, broadband to follow a few days later.

Great! I thought.

I got the text message telling me that the engineer would be arriving 5 days after we moved - leaving us without phone for less than a week. No problem. The engineer came on the day and at the time stated, tested the line, and the phone was on within the hour. He then called the system (whatever that means - I wasn't there to ask), and it apparently said that our broadband would be connected within 48 hours.

Excellent!

Nope. 48 hours came and went - no broadband. I called TT home-movers dept and got a very snotty indian lady informing me that broadband connection could only be applied for once the line was live, and could take another 14-21 days.

So I'm considering putting in some kind of complaint to somebody for the misinformation, but I have no idea where the fault is - BT for telling us 48 hours, or TT for taking up to 3 weeks to reconnect. I just don't understand why it would take so long, it's not like it's a new account or anything.

Also, after reading this thread, I'm a little confused as to who my phone line is actually with - when I called TT they ask for your talktalk number; I entered my new one and they said it wasn't recognised...Could it be I'm actually with BT at the moment and will get charged a cancellation fee?? Or would it be too late to opt out of TT (couldn't do before as was LLU) and go with a company who actually knows what they're doing?

Hi Mallory,

I would strongly recommend posting this on the TT members forum as you will actually get to deal with someone in the UK and not have to put up with waiting on the phone for ages. I sorted out all the problems from my post above and got a refund for a lot of overcharges. Two months of pain boiled down to a few posts on a forum and then they were sorted. I'm still with TT as I couldn't get them to let me go without paying the cancellation fee, but since the initial problems I've had none at all.

Good luck!

Ben

In addition to darkmaterial's good advice, in a sense both the openreach engineer and talktalk are correct. Initially your line will be on BT wholesale's network and BT Ipstream broadband can be provisioned within a few days of line activation (line rental paid to TT though so no cancellation charge). However if you are going to be on TT's network the active BT line has to be subsequently transferred to TT's LLU equipment which can take days or weeks depending on availability.

Thanks to both of you; I've actually managed to get out of the TT problem by simply telling them I no longer wished to use their service. Because the broadband hadn't been connected, I wasn't tied in under LLU, so it was just a case of asking them to cancel the broadband order, and finding another supplier who would take over the phone line and connect me onto Internet. No doubt there'll be a cancellation fee but I'm not too worried about that; I just wanted to get away from them.

Hi I'm new to this forum and would like some advice on cessation fees with Talk Talk, my mum has been with the company for 3 years with a landline and broadband service which each month is £6.49 the lowest one she could get because I never use the internet that much, she recently switched to Virgin for her landline and is now being told that she has to pay a cessation fee of £70, this was not explained in any terms or conditions because the whole set-up process of the account in the first place was done over the phone and she hadn't received any written T&C's by post when she had set up the account.

Why does she have to pay this cessation fee in the first place when I read that this is just in place for people who breach the 12/18 month contract with Talk Talk. What kind of legal grounds does she have to stand on here because there was no terms and conditions sent out by post they are wrong to charge this cessation fee in the first place, could this be taken any further with either, OFCOM, Watchdog, or anyone who an help her as she is struggling to pay bills as it is.

Hi DJ MIke, In answer to your question, yes we do have a Cease fee of £70.00 however this is only if you are still in contract and from what you are saying, it doesn't sound like you/your mum is and so may not need to pay the cease fee. The best advice I can give would be to get your mum to register on the TalkTalk Members Forum. Once registered we can check this and confirm if she would get charged or not. Thanks Stephen