Tiscali/Talktalk criminally negligent..................

[Richard Owen]

I have occasionally had problems with Talk Talk and Carphone Warehouse.

Sending an email to c.dunstone@cpw.com sorts it out within 48 hours.

I have been trained never to use their customer service systems as the customer service from the office of the chief executive is much superior.

[Hugo]

I have been with tiscali for a few years and have had good service so far.
I have 8mg broadband and all calls free on 01 & 02 numbers plus line rental, this cost me about £24.00 a month.
But I'm waiting for the Oh, how I wish it was better that Martin has had, if they mess me about then I'll go back to BT, Pronto.
Mind you I did have a connection fault a couple of times with tiscali, and the result was that I'm almost fluent in Punjabi.  

[martin]

I trotted off a furious email to C.Dunstone, and got an automated reply that they'd sort it within 4 days - I'm still waiting!

[langstroth2]

Technically can't fault BT. Had no problems with phone or broadband. However....their "customer call centre" process is appalling. Missed a Broadband payment as we'd changed CC. First knew when I couldn't log on to webmail (broadband still working fine) - got a message saying account in arrears. Then the fun began

1) Tried to update account details on-line. Kept failing login, although I know the details are correct (they work fine for pulling down email via pop3).
2) Rang the number provided on screen. Got recorded msg saying number is no longer in use, a new number given
3) Phone new number. Usual press 1 for this, 2 for that, 3 for billing enquiries. "Sorry sir wrong department", I'll transfer you.
4) Gave details all over again to second "customer assistant". Ah, you'll have to talk to bt yahoo broadband team. here's another number
thinks, does this company actually want my business?
5) Phone third new number. Give details again. "Can't find your account sir". Takes some generic details. I'll phone you back.
6) Still waiting.

Fire off a strongly worded complaint to BT about their so called customer handling process, just to make me feel better. Sigh.

Saga continued. Spoke to a very polite but hard to understand "reading a script on screen, but not listening to my answers, call centre operative" who reset my password, kept insisting she would now tell me how to change outlook express setting (yes, yes I know I need to do that, and I know how to do it).

I should be fair, after this second call and lack of progress - they did finally ring me back having "found" the account (??) and I was able to update my payment details.

Still waiting for a response to my complaint

[daftlad]

Guess what..... our internet (provided by talk talk) went down last night. 
I gave them a call, they talked me through re setting the login username and password, a quick shutdown and restart and back on line, brill. The faults woman was obviously reading off the screen but it worked. 
When we got the lightning strike, they sent a new modem after 3 calls, 1 from me to them and 2 from them to me.
So so far talk talk have been pretty good.
ta ta

[biff]

we had the famous perlico crowd,very very special outfit,i dont think i have ever heard of a company that annoyed so many people.
                   promise everything and help themselves to your bank account,we could not get rid of them quick enough but not before they dipped into my wife account and took 125euros,this was after we had instructed the bank to block all payments, the bank in question coughed up 75 euros but perlico kept the rest,,we never had any form of line or service off them.while my wife was signing up over the phone,i was listening to all the complaints coming over the  radio,so we cancelled straight away,lol, they went ahead and for some reason took 125 euros.
                  and guess what? eircom took them over,wots that old saying, about birds of a feather,,,,
                                      biff,

[wookey]

All the cheap ISPs are Oh, how I wish it was better if anything goes wrong. That's basically the deal. Very limited support and back-office in order to make it cheap. If you want good service you have to go with one of the independents and pay about twice as much. But few of us are prepard to fork out the £40/month instead of £20 required, because most of the time the cheapy service works well enough. I put my mother on talk-talk because it was cheap, and it's been OK so far. I just hope I never have to change anything or talk to them. I'm with NTL cable (Virgin this year), who have completely broken billing (due to taking over hordes of companies with incompatible back-office systems) but their net works OK. By far the best ISP I ever used was blackcat Networks, but they were expensive and are now defunct as they never really made any money due to being too helpful/competent.

One way of avoiding quite a lot of the trouble is to use your ISP for nothing more than IP-transport (and maybe DNS). All my services (email, website, DDNS, antispam, webmail, etc) are on my own server so nothing changes if I have to change ISP. This of course has an admin overhead and normally significant costs (although I've blagged mine so far), but can save significant pain.

NTL cable is pretty good value if you don't have a phone, at £17/month. All the others advertise numbers like '£15' but actually mean £26 once you've added the phone line in. I use SIP for the phone - an actual phone line is entirely unnecessary. Of course there isn't that much of the country that has cable - and if it's not already outside the house it's almost impossible to get them to cable anywhere new up. If you haven't got cable physically then there isn't much choice about having the phone line.

[martin]

The lunacy continues.......... awoken by (failed) mobile call and three texts from Plusnet - "your order has failed, please contact us" - 'phone them to find that the reason is that my post code and address "don't match" - I assured them that they did, went through them again, and then discovered that messrs BT had the wrong postcode on their records, and the order could not proceed as they didn't "tally" - was then told to contact BT to get it put right.............. (at which point I remembered that in the dim and distant past, BT had misheard a "g" in the postcode as a "b", and despite many attempts had never managed to put it right - but that was years ago)
So I get bounced around BTs atrocious "choose any one of 93 irrelevant numbers" in myriad layers until I hit a brick wall in their Mumbai call centre "I'm sorry sir, as your line is provided by TalkTalk we are unable to help,you need BT Wholesale, they won't talk to you, it must come from your provider - talk to TalkTalk"..........aaaaarrrrggghhh!
Eventually get a friendly Irish "techie" at TT who informs me that it is unlikely that the Queen of England (as he puts it) could get the error put right, and that my only course was to return to Plusnet, and get them to place the order using the wrong postcode (as last used by BT some years ago), which is what I've done..............
I didn't dare tell them that the "correct" postcode (as used for many years by everyone) defies all attempts to reinsert a missing "i" in the property name............

[SteveH]

 A little more than shades of "Brazil", that excelant film by Terry Gillian...

 Ahh... You must be Mr Butle or is it Mr Tutle...

 I would anticipate a visit from "Information Retrieval" Martin.....

[martin]

a post script to the sorry tale...........
Now connecting with a (so far) exemplary service from PlusNet after having eked out 1gb on a "3" dongle at a cost of some £30 all-in.......
All was looking hunky-dory, until the post arrived yesterday morning, bearing 2 bills from TT for around £30, one shown as "minus", one as "plus" - a half hour wasted on the line to Tiscali/TalkTalk had some bodly informing me that the account was now closed, that they would be taking no further monies from us, and for some inexplicable reason would be refunding a further £6.50 direct to our account..... I had the presence of mind to say to him "after all we've been through, probably wise to cancel the direct debits....." - with which he concurred........... So the direct debits were cancelled last night............. (around £65 up on the deal, minus dongle cost, still £30 odd up)
(I'm beginning to feel like Gerard Hoffnung relating the tale of the barrels here)
This morning the telephone "goes off" and I'm greeted by a strong Afrikaans accented woman who claims to be with TT, needing to speak urgently to the "account holder" - ('er indoors) about our account - I gently explain that although the account is in my wife's name, I had received dispensation to speak to either company on her behalf as I had been doing for several weeks, and was brandishing dates of birth, post codes, addresses, passwords, and favourite brand of loo paper favoured by paternal grandfather.......... she continued to decline to speak to me on the matter, so I demanded a supervisor, at which point she cut me off...............
Based on the "I've had enough of this, lets get it sorted", I call the TT number, and after hanging on for ages (at 5p minute) get through to someone who decides they're from Tiscali today, and can find nothing on her screen (after I've had to relate the entire sorry tale)- but decides to put me through to TalkTalk - after another interminable wait I get through to their  Seth Afrikaan call centre who can also find no reason for us being called except "they may have been trying to persuade the account holder back to TalkTalk" - yet again I recount the sorry tale, mutter about "snowballs from hell" and demand that they don't call us again, if they needed to contact us to use the post........
Whooopeee, I'm free of the blithering incompetents, now I can get on sorting some car insurance........... just about to lift the 'phone to my broker, and the post arrives.......
Bloody Hoffnungs barrel swipes me in the face!
"Important info about your TT account"...........
which notes we're going elsewhere, and telling us how to get a "MAC" code (which they'd told me it was "too late" to supply a fortnight ago)
..........and amongst other gubbins (in red) announces that they may charge £70 termination fee due to early termination of contract, and listing (a new) telephone no. to call to check if it was applicable...............
Get fairly amiable English call centre bod, explain entire tale of woe (for the umpteenth time today), and basically say "termination charge, don't even think about it - your company clearly and blatantly in breach of any agreement".................at which point, clueless eejit announces "no problem sir, your broadband will betaken over by TT on the 10th.................", at which point it was a case of "You'd better not", and had to recount the whole tale again, and underline loudly that we'd transferred to a competent company..........(But I still doubt he "got it", so I'm just about to 'phone Plus Net to tell them to repel pirates if need be.............)
What's the betting the barrel bearing the Tiscali/TalkTalk logo will do an earth orbit or two, and then come crashing down out of a clear blue sky.............?

For reference -
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/zZUJLO6lMhI&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1&amp;" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/zZUJLO6lMhI&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1&amp;</a>

[martin]

sure enough - out of a clear blue sky!, a missive arrives from TalkTalk muttering about calling them to reinstate our direct debit so they can help themselves to the final bill, and they will hit us with extra "non direct debit" charges if we don't.
Following a "Meldrew moment", primal scream therapy and a dose of the willies I pick up the phone and call the number on the letter (which is repeated twice, in capitals in the body of the letter), am subjected to "let's induce suicide by the listener muzak" for several minutes I get through to a bloke who listens to the tale of woe (I'm getting good, only takes about ten minutes now!)..... who informs me that "it's nothing to do with him, wrong number in the company" - I point out through gritted teeth that the number I am calling him on is writ large three times on the relevant letter, and I really am not "going elsewhere" until I've got the matter sorted - I actually did use the words "crass incompetence", at which point he "told me off" for "language" (I let it pass, or I'd still be on the 'phone)........ and he grudgingly put me through to the Seth Afrikaans call centre
(after more "fingernails down a blackboard" muzak) where I spoke to a barely understandable Afrikaans accented lady who was fairly cheerful and listened sympathetically to my tale of woe (again!) - offered loads of sympathy, and then asked the stupid question "what do you want me to do about it?", I replied with as much politeness as I could muster that I just wanted her companies to stop chasing me, to leave me alone, get off my back, go away, and could I please speak to a supervisor to make sure they got the message..........after several minutes of more dreadful muzak "are you still holding?" - "yes" - cut me off!
SO, I called the number on todays letter, got someone who sounded vaguely corpus mentis, explained the whole thing again, and he said he would sort it, cancel all demands for money etc......(I've taken his name, and will use it if necessary) This was on the number that today's "bod number one" had told me was the wrong one, and that he couldn't help me.........
What's the betting that about tuesday next week the postman will deliver more joy?

[Antman]

Time to get the negotiators in 

Can http://www.otelo.org.uk/pages/1home.php   help ?

Antman

[martin]

I'm thankfully in rather a good mood, I've just collected my email, amongst which was the following, which has nearly caused cracked ribs from the hilarity it induced................

How did we do?

 "Dear TalkTalk Customer,

Our records show that you recently contacted us. We’d like to know what you thought of the service we gave you, and would really appreciate some feedback on your experience.

We will then use your feedback to improve the experience next time you have the need to contact us.

The survey should take no longer than 5 minutes.
Please click here to answer a few questions about your experience.

If the link above is not clickable, please copy and paste the following link into the Address bar of your web browser:
https://ecollector.responsetek.com/collection/Greeting.aspx?iguid=810-56AE263621EC&LangID=1&rt=1

Thank you in advance for your time and feedback.

Kind regards,

TalkTalk

Customer Service Contact / Information


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Later on, when I've walked the dogs, they will get it, chapter, verse and a large broadside!

[martin]

Gosh I do feel better for that - both barrels, point-blank range, SSG shot....
 I've pointed them to this thread with the suggestion that they "read it and weep", also mentioning the fact that I started the thread to act as a dire warning to anyone sufficiently misguided to do business with them, and to also act as an excellent "aide memoir" to point my MP and "Otelo" to (thanks Antman), as I have written each post about their further nincompoopery as it has happened, lest any tiny detail slip my mind................

[martin]

another missive from TalkTalk.............. approached it with usual sinking "not again!" feeling, and with some trepidation read the contents- this is a new one!- They're promising a direct refund of £23.46 to our account......... doesn't say how the figure was arrived at, or what it's actually FOR, it also doesn't confirm we're now free of them, nor did it it contain the MD's "ancient greeks*" mounted on a tasteful wooden trophy base.........
Wonder what the post will bring over the next couple of days........

*Aristophanes, Socrates, Androcles, Damocles.......... Testicles!