It's been 6 months and 11 days since I first signed up to get a Talk Talk service, having moved house in September. I have spent over 50 hours on the phone to them, and a lot of my money has been spent on the customer services number and in my local internet cafe. I have written to their compaints dept, their Press Office, and now Charles Dunstone CEO, with no replies. I have had to start my application for a service all over again several times and have never received any explanation as to why the previous attempt failed. I must have spoken to every single employee of Talk Talk, every single one as incompetent as the other.

I ask you, what should one do? How can they treat me like this? I'd had Talk Talk for 3 years prior to moving, and once up and running, it's fine, and is a good deal because you don't have to muck around with 3 other bills for line rental, calls etc. So that's why I've been persevering with trying to get this service. Should I give up? I can't find another company that does a similar deal! But then it feels like I've surrendered - and these corporations should not be allowed to get away with this sort of treatment of their customers.

I am now invoicing them for my costs - something in the region of £2500 - and I am taking them to a small claims court if they do not pay up for wasting my time. I am stuck in their system so I cannot sign up to get broadband from another company yet. I am seriously livid with anger and frustration. If anyone can think of anyway I can get to them before I tackle the small claims court option, let me know. It's PAYBACK TIME!

Not so much of a good deal when you have to spend all this effort. If you have Sky, they are pretty good but they can't deliver to all areas yet.

Give up and move onto someone else while persuing your claim via the small claims court.

Personally, I stick with BT. They may not be the cheapest but I think they are the most reliable although their Indian call centre is a pain in the rear. But at least you can get through to them, unlike the likes of Talk Talk.

and has the woman who's supposed to be the Supervisor, Sarah "not allowed to give out surname", called me back when she swore she would????

NO!!! surprise surprise.

I have phoned round loads of broadband providers today and they are all at least double the cost. I know that once I get the service it should be ok (famous last words), so I'm holding out till the end. Plus, I'm interested to see how they respond. Which are the newspaper columnists who investigate these things for you and get a result? They're my next bet. And Watchdog, but that wont get an immediate result.

I am sick of this. If it was an electricity service, they wouldnt get away with it. If it was a company or a business as customer, the likelihood is they wouldnt get away with it in that situation either. It's because I literally DONT COUNT to them. I am just a little needle in a haystack - I dont matter.

Except I do. As I am going to show them...

I wish I could say that this is "unusual" but for Craphone Whorehouse this is their Modus Operandae.

I really would not bother to deal with them any longer. TalkTalk is - at best - an adequate service for those for whom Internet access is not critical to their business. At worst, and as you have experienced, TalkTalk is almost criminal in their activities and tactics.

The way I would handle this is to write a letter and send it by recorded delivery to the registered office address (you can find this at Companies House) demanding that they issue you with a MAC code and that you are terminating any contract in place as they are clearly in breach of said contract. Give them ten working days to comply and to pay the costs incurred to date or take them to court. DO NOT DO THIS BY E-MAIL.

If they fail to respond - you have 9/10ths of the law on your side and I'd welcome my day in court. If they do respond, you are in the driving seat.

Good luck.

SHARK!

Hello Patica,

My name is Stephen Fell, you may have seen me on the forum posting? I am TalkTalk`s Online Community Executive and it is my role to help customers like yourself. Firstly please allow me to say a big "SORRY" for any lack of support you have recived from our contact centers.

With regards to your letter addressed to Charles this should have been processed and a response should have been issued within 28days, again sorry if this didn't happen.

I am more than happy to offer you all the support I possibly can to deliver the outcome you wish to arrive at. If you would like me to investigate this further could I ask you to visit www.talktalkmembers.com and register your account. Once registered I will be able to investigate further. I am registered on the members forum as "Stephen" please feel free to contact me.

Stephen Fell
www.talktalkmembers.com

Yes Stephen Thanks that is all very well but it appears I cannot even register on that talk talk members forum because in case you havent read ANY of my postings I AM NOT ACTUALLY A TALK TALK CUSTOMER AM I!!!! So, it's telling me my phone number is not recognised, your name is not recognised as referral contact, and, surprise SURPRISE I DONT HAVE A TALK TALK ACCOUNT NUMBER BECAUSE I AM NOT YET A TALK TALK CUSTOMER WHAT DO YOU THINK I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO DO FOR THE LAST 6 MONTHS AND 11 DAYS???

And to the person who replied to my post before that, thanks, however I cant get a MAC code because I've never even been connected to Talk Talk in the first place.

You have to understand my sheer exasperation at this STUPID situation where I am forced to spend yet more hours over a website when I should be speaking to a HUMAN BEING who actually KNOWS HOW THEIR COMPANY WORKS AND HAS THE MOTIVATION TO HELP A VALUED CUSTOMER SORT THIS CONFUSION OUT!

Ok everybody, just had a call from someone working in the CEO's office - who's going to take care of it from now on. Finally!!!

So, to everybody else in this situation, cut the C**P and write directly to the CEO Charles Dunstone threatening whatever you can think of, and send an invoice. FIGHT!

Hello Petica,

The CEO team will be able to address any issue you have, I am confident that you will reach a satisfactory resolution now.

Stephen

i doubt that stephen, your tactics are definitely underhand your broadband service is third rate and your customer support is non existant!

surely Ofcom enforce some sort of quality standards upon you?

i had similar experiences as this person as im sure tens of thousands of other have had, the outcome that i refused to pay and was served a default because your were in breach of your service contract to me, talk talk cost me thousands of pounds in lost business because i couldnt deliver to my existing customers with little or no broadband.

well done!

Johnny Earlybay Fan:

i doubt that stephen, your tactics are definitely underhand your broadband service is third rate and your customer support is non existant!

surely Ofcom enforce some sort of quality standards upon you?

i had similar experiences as this person as im sure tens of thousands of other have had, the outcome that i refused to pay and was served a default because your were in breach of your service contract to me, talk talk cost me thousands of pounds in lost business because i couldnt deliver to my existing customers with little or no broadband.

well done!

I, too. have been driven to distraction by talktalk. All talk and no action !

I have neither the energy or the timne to give details ogf my problems at the moment but I shall certainly do so later.Suffice it to say that after a day of frustrating phone call, I have kept a dossier of all further calls, their duration and a precis of their content. Lately I have been recording conversation with talktalk having told them in advance that it was my intention to do so..

I have shown my stuff, which includes printouts of talk talk screens, to a r4etired solicitor with whom I play golf, and he believes I have a case. Some points worth noting are :

I signed up expecting to get about 4Kbits based on previous experience with another provider , and a line check. I have beer getting no more than 0.9. When I took this up with talk talk I was told , after about a dozen calls that I had signed up for a 1K package.. There is no such thing on offer ! My deal was for the best speed my line could handle based on 8 K from talktalk.

I was told that, as I live in Cheltenham. my exchange could not not provide a faster service unless talktalk paid an additional sum. I see this as their problen, not mine. They made a promise so it is their duty to deliver.

Their online sales pitch makes no mention of the fact that they expect to be paid in advance. My first bill is significantly more that expected because of this. Accompanying the bill was a letter which told me " not to worry" as it would all come right next month.because it was their policy to take payment in advance.. What a comforting thought.!

I am awaiting developments and, if I am not given satisfaction, I shall have recourse to the law.

I shall report back on the outcome. Meanwhile, I urge anyone else thinking of switching to talktalk to think again.

Can anyone think of a single word to describe talktalk services? Heres a few to get you started:- "disgraceful"; "incompetent"; "liars" This is the letter talktalk should have sent to me when I agreed to move my existing account with them:

Dear Mr Duck

Thank you for using our home mover service to transfer your Talk International Anytime account to your new home.

We normally need about 2 weeks to set up your new phone line and it takes about 4 weeks to connect your broadband, but as a long established and valued customer we have arranged a special service just for you.

This is what we propose.

1 We will take over 5 weeks to establish a phone connection. We realize that this will leave you without a phone at a time when you need it most but never mind, you can always use a mobile (if you have one)

2 We won’t actually give you a broadband connection at all, although we will make a series of promises that we have no intention of keeping, just to string you along.

3 We wont be providing you with a talk international anytime account either. Instead we will itemise each call individual call at the maximum rate. Your phone bill will be enormous!!!!!

4 We appreciate that we haven’t actually provided you with broadband but if we ever do get round to it that will cost you an additional £180 a year.

To summarise then Mr. Duck we will provide our “services” late or not at all and they will nothing like you have been used to (or are expecting). The cost will be exorbitant.

Please confirm that you are willing to accept these terms.

Naturally this is a spoof letter. We would not dream of posting it on to you as only a complete idiot would agree to it. But it is important for you to realize that we are not completely useless. Should you not pay immediately for the “services” that we have failed to provide we will be very quick to invoke the services of a debt collection agency and threaten you with legal action. These people are similar to our own customer services i.e. a complete disgrace – for example you will tell them at least four times to put their demands in writing and not to telephone you but they will ignore you on every occasion.

We trust that you find this acceptable and look forward to doing business with you in the near future.

Yours faithfully

Total disgrace from Talktalk.

PS

Please ignore all our claims over the last three months that any failure to provide your services are the fault of BT as we know for a fact that Sky will have you up and running in just 9 days.

I made enquiries about signing up, they allegedly sent me a modem, then spent a year hounding me with threatening letters demanding money for a service I hadnt even signed upto, and a modem I hadnt actually received!!

Like you, I spent ££££££££s and hours talking to every person imaginable to resolve what appeared to be a simple issue, but apparently to little avail, despite profuse apologies & promises that the matter ended with them and I would no longer be troubled for the alleged debt that I owed them.

They passed the matter over to a debt collection company, who began to harass me with the vigour of a Rottweiler. "Not our problem" they said. The debt was passed to us by Talk Talk. "Too late. Pay up". By now the debt had quadrupled in size, and was beginning to be more than a minor irritation. In this day and age, who needs a neg on your Credit Rating?

So guess what?

I coughed up the money to protect myself.

The entire experience cost me nearly £200 with the cost of phone calls.

All for a simple enquiry that apparently had no strings, & did not confirm a purchase of either services or products!

Hang on?? You paid £200 for a service you never received? And they had already apologised to you for it? Why would they hand you over to a debt company if they already apologised and said you didn't owe them any money???

I know it's probably a bit more complicated than that but if that summary is anywhere NEAR the truth I would get on to their CEO Charles Dunstone immediately and demand your money back. What they did amounts to extortion and blackmail and you shouldn't let them get away with it.

If writing to CEO doesn't help, go round in person to their HQ and demand to be seen by someone at the top. Cause a scene! Embaress them! But above all, get your money back!!

The modem that was allegedly sent was charged at an initial fee of £30.

This increased over the year with each threatening letter I recieved. 4 in total. On each occaision I called, advised them of the error, recieved an apology, requested that the error & its acknowledgement be sent to me in writing, which was always agreed, and never materialised. The cost of the calls was in the region of £35 all told because I could only seem to be able to communicate directly via a premium rate number. By the time the matter was passed to the debt collection comp, they had added thier own fee to the original 'debt' to Talk Talk, which was about £42.

This was finally resolved last August when I choaked up the money. As said, a quick tot up bought the total to just under £200 with the premium rate calls that lasted upto 20+ minutes in length, while I engaged in endless circular arguments with idiots, thier managers, & thier manager's managers!

I didnt keep the documentation, as I was so totally ground down by the experience and to be honest, was just relieved to get the matter closed & dealt with. I therefore have no evidence of what transpired in hard copy or otherwise to demonstrate the unethical nature of thier conduct.

Extortion & blackmail - yes to both.

Unregulated companies are able to do this.

hey guys my names ricky i used to work for a company doing door to door for talktalk.

omg if i knew it wos that bad i would had quit sooner i feel bad cos i have signed people up to this mess. i done a line check for my own house on the phone when i worked they told me 10 meg wen i done it on the website it said 3meg its all a con if someone comes to ur door dont let them in cos once they r in they will sign u up.

i thought the offer wos amazing til now, i nearly signed my mum up im glad i didnt.

talktalk you are a disgrace to this world and rippin people off.

oh and also i got told i will get paid for the accounts i do and i didnt get a penny so if u do suddenly get a job involving talktalk walk out its not woth it.

thanks

ricky