Suffering and problems with TalkTalk broadband signup

[centaur]

I'd like to reiterate that my brother joined TT early last month and apart from an initial problem with his email address, it seems to be working fine for him.

[Zer02004]

I've seen that from reading various threads on this site and other similar sites, people who have complained to the top man and been released from the contract. I'm sticking with it for the time being as I've read just as many horror stories about other ISP's so I may as well stick with the cheap option until a virtually flawless ISP comes along.(I won't hold my breath!!!)
This is my first time on broadband, as I told you before Zero i'm stuck in the dark ages lol. It may not be perfect but it's a definite improvement from dial up and I'm still keeping my dial up provider as back up, but its horrendously slow in comparison.

Just for the record though I'll keep a note of all the problems and if it gets too bad I'll do something about it.

Stu

Originally Posted by scr

I'm not having a dig at you in particular scr and please don't think I am. But, you have just illustrated why we get the shoddy service that we do. The great British public just rolls over and takes it in the backside rather than taking action to claim what is rightfully theirs.

[scr]

I couldn't agree with you more Zero, the british public do usually allow big organisations to continually shaft us with poor service and high prices, I always complain to the highest authority possible if I feel it is warranted and the product or service has fell way short of my expectations but there are still many thousands of consumers who are not willing or not confident enough to do so.
As many people will know, if you have ever complained about poor service and a smart arse customer service agent with a very sharp tongue has answered your call they can make you feel like the problem is yours in the first place if you are not fully prepared, as many people are not. It is this sort of attitude that makes the consumer reluctant to complain in the first place. I once had an experience with such an agent who was very rude to me, I had heard on a recorded message before I spoke to the agent that calls MAY be recorded, I asked if I could have a copy of the recorded conversation so I could take it to his superiors, his attitude changed dramatically but he also told me that the conversation was not being recorded.

Stu

[Zer02004]

Personally, I take no nonsense from anyone! I don't care if I'm speaking to the office cleaner, the CEO or the queen. They're no better than any of us as far as I'm concerned and I have the right to receive exactly what I pay for - No more and certainly no less! I unequivocally demand that!

Yes, these companies use scare tactics and yes they try to belittle customers. The great British public must learn to turn the tables and use these tactics against companies who do not supply the agreed goods or services.
They must learn to use the law - That's what it's there for. If the boot were on the other foot and the customer was in default, no company would be afraid to use the law against the customer.

[Guy]

Thank you SCR and Zero for your helpful advice. I hope that I have now largely resolved my problem.

I was none to optimistic about using the drivers you suggested because I had already tried downloading and installing the drivers from speedtouch.com without success. However, on closer inspection the drivers that SCR links to above at speedtouch.co.uk appear to be different and specific to the UK region. This, regardless of the fact that both of these drivers, as well as Talk Talk’s own drivers all unhelpfully have the same version number.

So, I gave them a go, selecting the full install rather than the upgrade option to clean out all of Talk Talk’s customised drivers. To my great satisfaction I was then able to connect immediately. Since then I have had no trouble connecting except on two occasions when I received a no dial tone message. The first of these was easily explicable since the phone line was being used for a voice call at the time. Being new to broadband I assume it is necessary to have a dial tone to establish an ADSL connection and so this can’t be achieved when a voice call is in progress. (Is this correct?) The second occasion when this occurred the phone was not in use and there was no apparent reason. The problem resolved itself with a reboot.

Apart from this I have, so far, had no further problems, and the connection speed has been very satisfactory. I have not experienced the problem that SCR described of the modem dropping the connection. I did however, in the course of my research, come across comments from various people to the effect that the speedtouch 330 is something of a power hog and has a tendency to drop a connection if it is sharing a hub with other peripherals. I don’t know if this is pertinent.

It is perhaps worth noting, that now six days after e-mailing Talk Talk for advice I have still received no reply. This is beyond abysmal customer service. And it is certainly not comforting to know that if you do have problems you are basically on your own. So thank you once again for your advice, which is very much appreciated.

Regards, Guy

[Zer02004]

I'm glad that your problem seems to be sorted out!
However, you seem to misunderstand the nature of broadband. There is no dialup as such and the broadband and voice signals are two entirely seperate entities. This is why filters are necessary to keep the two seperate.

The "dialup" ideal is a throwback to ISDN days where a special modem was used to connect and a number was dialled. For ease of installation and use, the software designers let Windows treat an ADSL modem as an ISDN modem but no dialup actually takes place. You don't even need to enter a number although the VC/VP codes of 0/38 are usually entered.

[scr]

Glad to be of assistance.

I found that there are a couple of different drivers, one very similar to the driver that talk talk supplies which did not improve things at all, the other does improve things dramatically.
I can offer no advice on the rest of your problems as I do not have the technical expertise that the other guys on here like Zero have. Basically I know naff all about how computers or the internet work, I just know the basics which keeps me going most of the time and when I get really stuck I yell for HELP!

Stu

[scr]

OK I've had enough now, I've been putting up with losing my connection every hour or two for the last couple of months but now it getting ridiculous.
My connection died again this morning and I have only managed to reconnect for 2 to 3 minutes at a time, I can't connect at all at the moment. I haven't bothered calling the customer "don't care" line because they are useless anyway.
I've just emailed Dunstone and told him what I thought of the company, I just want out now as I seem to be spending more time back on dial up than anything.


Get me away from this company!!!

[scr]

This seems familiar, I've read this somewhere before I think!!!!!

Dear Mr Rose

Many thanks for your email, I am very sorry that you have had to contact me to get this issue resolved. I have got someone investigating for me and we will be back to you shortly. In the meantime please accept my sincere apologies.

Regards

Charles Dunstone

I suppose I'll just have to wait and see now.

I too made a complaint about the service to Charles Dunstone <DunstoC@cpwplc.com>, I got the following response too.
--------------------------------
Dear Mr Txxxxxx

Many thanks for your email, I am very sorry that you have had to contact me to get this issue resolved. I have got someone investigating for me and we will be back to you shortly. In the meantime please accept my sincere apologies.

Regards

Charles Dunstone
------------------------------------
I complaint about the customer and technical support lines (no responses) and broadband service dropped out last night. I cannot connect anymore as I get the error 0721 Remote Computer did not respond.... I've been without internet for 2 days now.

Did anyone else have a problem last night?

[Guy]

After experiencing no problems for the last week, I was unable to get a connection for about three hours this morning.

I variously got error=0, error=650 and error=718.

I reinstalled the drivers (three times) and eventually got a connection. But I suspect it was a fault in the service, I don't think anything had changed on my system.

It seems to be working again now.

Very frustrating

[wolfstar]

Unfortunatlly i signed up for this pile of S**T in febuary and when the new offer came out with the higher speed's i thought great How wrong i was now i've got problems

1 multiple attempt's at connection verification

2 constant disconect's while gaming or browsing

3 Still havent had speed upgraded yet

I have emailed Dunstone twice the second one telling them they have 7 days to resolve my problems or termiate the contract as they have breached it on at least 2 point's

1 service quality

2 Mis-Advertising

i'll post in 7 day's to let everyone know what happen's

I had frequent line drops after installing the TT modem (2.3Mbps). Reverting back to the old SpeedTouch (2.2Mbps) seems to have fixed the problem for me - line drops number 2 or 3 / day.

I don't get the 8M until december, so I settle for 2.2 for now. From my experience, I would suggest using an old modem rather than TalkTalks unless you need to - at least until they sort out their problems.

I have also had an email from the CEO agreeing to cancel my account if I wish -for the 1st month it has been working - the customer support part is without doubt the worst I've ever come across.

It would appear that Talk Talk cannot deliver what they say they will deliver

Originally Posted by scyl

I'm glad i'm not the only one having trouble with talk talk.
Apart from sending the cd and modem a week late,i have had trouble every day.
From not being able to connect because it does not recognise user id and password to dropping the connection more times in 2 weeks than it ever did when i was on dialup. Plus i've only got 2.3Mbps,where Pipex said i could have 5. Pile of crap!! Wish i'd never left Pipex-no trouble in 18 months with them.
I've told talk talk about the problems i get,but i've yet to receive a reply...but most times i can't get on to my talktalk e-mail.

[nessietots]

My daughter has just signed up with "The Devil" too!
Wants to get out of it....as she cant even connect!

I phoned Consumer Direct today.....they advised a letter to be sent stating that the company is in BREACH OF CONTRACT if it can't deliver the service it promised.

I said that I didn't have any confidence in the Company responding to this and told him about all the people on this and other Forums ripping their hair out because of TalkTalk!

Was then told that we must follow the correct procedures.
Registered letter first...giving them 7-10 days to respond.

If this fails...then contact Consumer Direct again for more advice.

Watch this space!

[Reallymad]

Hi all

I was having problems with TalkTalk and could never get in touch with them so I emailed Charles Dunstone DunstoC@cpwplc.com and kept emailing him (500 times) and also emailed every other dept I could find whether it was the carphone warehous or talktalk as each complaint gets a number so it wont look good when they look at the stats for the shareholders. Here is what I kept sending:

For the attention of Charles Dunstone or any other clown employed by
TalkTalk that cares to read this!
Today's update: I called yourselves again last night and was put on hold for
1 hour 17 minutes then someone decided to hang up, is that a record, do you
give prizes to your minions for this?
I then called your help desk again this morning and was put through to
cancellations. I was told that if I made a further payment of £72 the
suspension on my line would be lifted, so, I have paid my bills over the
counter at the bank because you never took the money from my account so you
suspend my line and then because of your mistake I now have to pay another
£72, I am sure there is a logic in this but I must be to thick to understand
it, that's probably why I signed up with TalkTalk! I was then told that if I
did not cancel I would be sent another modem as I had not received the first
one and it was more than 8 days since it was sent. Now we both know that the
likelihood of me getting this modem in the next 7 days is a joke if you
could not get the first out in that time so I declined this offer. I was
then told that you are providing the cheapest package and I agree you are, I
don't think any other telecommunications company charge £21 a month for
nothing, no broadband and now no phone, so yeah, I think you should be
really proud of that Charlie! I am now going back to BT and will be telling
them all about your scam in the hope that they can use my story in
advertising why people go back to BT. I would rather pay more for a service
than pay less to you and get nothing in return.

Dear sir
Please could you advise me when I will be receiving my broadband equipment
from your company. I have tried calling your helpdesk if that's what you can
call it and each time I am told something different so I thought I would cut
out all the clowns you employ and ask you seen as your supposed to be the
brains behind your scamming company! I don't expect a reply as that seems to
be the normal with Talktalk (ha ha) but hey, feel free to prove me wrong. I
no longer have an order number as I gave up looking at your website to track
it so you can maybe use my home number 0191 3982106.
You may be free but god how I wish I had stopped with my other ISP who
charged £24 per month and after 2 years I never had any problems with them
at all.
Now I find that whilst I was writing this email you have suspended my phone
line for none payment. I made a payment on Monday although I had set-up a
Direct Debit twice with you clowns. This surely has to be a record for
incompetence on your behalf, do you actually care what your doing to your
customers? I now want to cancel my account with you and go back to BT and I
will be taking out a small claims prosecution against you for not providing
the service I have paid for. I am also posting all this onto the NHS website
and hope that this will deter the honest people in this country to stay well
clear of Talktalk and carphone warehouse and as the NHS employs roughly 1.2
million people I reckon that could be a big loss to you.
Totally unhappy with you and your dodgy firm and I am sending a copy of this
email to Oftel, Watchdog and my local MP to see if they can help.

I then got an email from Chaz:

Dear Mr Lynch

Many thanks for your email, I am very sorry that you have had to contact me to get this issue resolved. I have got someone investigating for me and we will be back to you shortly. In the meantime please accept my sincere apologies.

Regards

Charles Dunstone

I then got a call a couple of hours later and they offered me a refund and cancelled my account without any charge so i reckon thats a result. So my advice is to bulk email this clown and dont take any rubbish from his agents, deal with the top dog and get what you want.

Hope this helps

Originally Posted by chopperRus

I am mega mega P----d off!!! I joined talktalk in April and I'm still not getting the package I ordered ONLINE, from their own website as I've been told it doesn't exist. I have sent numerous e mails, tried to make telephone calls but couldn't get through, then found out they set my DD up with another bank and in someone elses name!!! They then bulldozed me into paying a bill (which I don't have a bloody clue) what I'm being charged for or they were suspending my service!!!! I sent a letter to CD on 3.8.06 and have still not received the courtesy of a reply!!! These are only a few issues, the list goes on!!!!
Many thanks for the e mail address. I'll give it a try and hope to get this shambolic fiasco fixed for once and for all!!!

[scr]

For all you guys out there who are experiencing the same problem I've had (constant disconnections while browsing/downloading etc) I may have a solution.
After searching on google I think I found the solution here on TS.
The speedtouch 330 uses the maximum power from the USB port, 500mA apparently, this can cause problems in some PC's i'm led to believe. Solution, a powered USB hub, cost approx £10-£15, or less on ebay, got mine for 6 quid including postage and i've been connected for the last 13 or 14 hours and no disconnections.
So if the problem is being disconnected constantly, try a powered hub.

PS. The customer service at talktalk is still shite, your better off looking on a site like TS for support, at least they offer help. I've had two emails over the last week telling me I need to call their 10p per minute ripoff (sorry, tech help) line to find a solution to a service that never worked properly from the start and could quite easily have been sorted with an email.
Might still call tech help to see if they're any use, should be good for a laugh!!!!

Stu

[Zer02004]

The SpeedTouch 330 is one of the better USB modems and rarely presents power problems. I am using one at this very moment off a non powered hub with printer, scanner, pen drive and USB hard drive powered up.

I believe that these Google reports stem from the fact that the power consumption shown within the Windows Device manager is rounded up rather than an accurate reflection.

[scr]

The SpeedTouch 330 is one of the better USB modems and rarely presents power problems. I am using one at this very moment off a non powered hub with printer, scanner, pen drive and USB hard drive powered up.

I believe that these Google reports stem from the fact that the power consumption shown within the Windows Device manager is rounded up rather than an accurate reflection.

Originally Posted by Zer02004

I'm not disputing your expertise and experience zero but the fact that yesterday and every previous day I could not stay connected for more than 1 to 2 hours and today after connecting a powered hub I can now connect more or less permanantly proves that there must be a power issue with this modem or at least with my pc. Many other people are also reporting this, so there must be a problem, maybe with older PC's as you already know I have.
It may not be such a problem with newer computers but there is obviously an issue here as mentioned on this site and many other sites!

stu

[Zer02004]

Have you installed the relevant chipset drivers for your machine? These are often overlooked by the user and generic drivers can cause problems.
As for the older machine, I know of SpeedTouch modems happilly chugging away on P233 vintages.

[scr]

Well I don't know about chipset drivers etc, the main thing is my solution has worked for me. I've now remained connected almost constantly for the last 24 hours apart from when I have disconnected myself. Other people are reporting similar problems to mine and for the sake of a tenner which will also give additional USB ports, they may as well buy a powered hub.
There are other sites suggesting this as a solution to disconnection problems with this modem, the other suggested solution is to buy a router but the powered hub is the cheaper option to test the theory.

[Reallymad]

I contacted CD by e mail last night and today I received a response from him saying they were looking into the matter and would be in touch shortly.

I'll keep you posted.

IMO, it's worth jumping straight to the top now rather than using the helpless desk!!!!

[summerboy]

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum, just to say I've just sent this email to Dunstone, head/owner of Carphone Warehouse, you might be interested to read:

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dear Mr Dunstone

I have no doubt that you are very well aware of the abysmal service your company is providing to some customers who have signed up, or are still waiting for, your free broadband package.

I have had a very frustrating and lengthy battle dealing with the inefficiency of your staff in accepting my MAC number, which I had to send three times before the last one was accepted. Even so, I had received a letter from TalkTalk saying, after I'd sent the third MAC number, that they were still waiting for it! Then out of the blue, I was connected yesterday, without any warning, and after I had sent a cancellation notice via email a couple of days previously. As I said, your service and staff appears to be a real shambles.

Now I am connected, I have set up my email program (Thunderbird on Mac OS X 10.3.9) and find that I can SEND emails but cannot RECEIVE them.

I have sent various messages via the TalkTalk website and have no reply yet.

Using email is crucial to me in my day-to-day activities and it is causing me huge inconvenience by not being able to respond to emails received. I will not tolerate poor service from your company any longer. Just as a side issue, I have publicised via a website I built the unacceptable behaviour of a multi-million dollar web trading company and my work to expose this company's behaviour resulted in it being closed down by the US authorities (company: www.mydv.co.uk). I tell you this, not as a warning that I will attempt to do the same to TalkTalk or Carphone Warehouse, but as an indicator that, as a web designer and ardent consumer champion (articles about my work have appeared in The Guardian, Reader's Digest, and other publications) I shall not tolerate this unacceptably shabby service from your company.

Failing your company's ability to get my email service functioning properly, as it should, by Monday next 11 September, I shall register a new domain (something like 'www.talktalk-ripoff.co.uk) and will then proceed to build a website to publicise the appalling experience I have had, and encourage others to contribute to the site, thus guaranteeing a lot of adverse publicity for your company. I shall also post on my website legal advice about getting compensation from TalkTalk for aggrieved customers and will develop the site as visitors contribute information and experiences and helpful advice and whatever comes along.

Please note: I do not mince my words nor make idle boasts; I am extremely angry with you and your company and I would remind you of my words above that, failing proper and full functioning of my email service at TalkTalk by next Monday, I shall immediately commence my campaign to broadcast the shameful story of this service.

Yours sincerely

[widdow]

I feel for all you people I really do, I resolved my issue by having a second line put to my house and finding another ISP on the new line.
Extreme I know but I had a gut feeling my mac/code wouldent be here any time soon in fact it took from 29/4/2006 TO 16/8/2006 yep that long then they tried the billing pressures court threats and such. I sent them a recorded delivery explaining that I will be seeking compensation for the other line and new ISP connection charge as I felt my origional line had been hijacked by CPW (TalkTalk) They then sent me another bill reduced by around 80% Just to get rid of these people I paid it and good ridence.

I wish you all luck trying to resolve any issues you have with CPW but my guess is the people you talk to just carnt. I assume this because Ive spent around 20 hours listening to music which made more sense than the lies and BS the people on the other end off the line speewed out, that was when they didnt just put the phone down after me or the wife waited to be connected for 40 minites.

[summerboy]

Well guys, you won't believe this but it is true–an hour after publishing my (first) comment above, I received a phone call from one Charles Dunstone who spent time talking me through my email issue. He said his email servers are not at fault (?!) and that it is something in my email account settings which is preventing me reading my received mail. He promised to get a senior technical guy at TT to phone me, if I can't resolve the matter...

Not bad as far as personal service goes, but surely this is a one-off, he can't be calling every person who is suffering this appalling service?

I am keeping my 'threat' of building a website next week as an option, if my email does not start working properly by start of next week.

Watch this space..!

Peter

[wolfstar]

Well if all goes well i'm off TT monday ( FREE ) and glad of it,If you do need to put up a website against TT and need help or just posts letting ppl know what a shower of s**t they are let me know.
I have also been in touch with trading standards and supplied evidance to them on the grounds of possible " Mis-selling/advertising " i'll let everyone know about any results i get.

[summerboy]

Know how you feel, wolfstar! I've got the main man (Dunstone) getting me sorted so I guess if he can get me up and running, I'll stick with them (their tech bloke is ringing me today to go through everything). But should service deteriorate, such as repeated connection dropping and any other semi-major problems, then I will review my stance. Don't care if I'm supposed to be in an 18-month contract, if he doesn't deliver what I want (a dependable, quality service) I will cancel with TalkTalk and do my website, including serious consideration of suing the company for compensation, aggravation, inconvenience, costs, etc. Will even consider starting a class action as I bet there are hundreds, if not thousands, of UK people angry at not getting what they have paid for and deserve.

However, would rather avoid this as have more important things in my life than waging war against inefficient corporates; my fight against mydv.co.uk (my site at www.mydv-ripoff.co.uk) took a ton of time from my life (thousands of visitors to the site weekly and often dozens of emails to me from similarly aggrieved customers daily!) and don't want to repeat that if possible, although I was hugely pleased that my website was instrumental in getting the US authorities to close down this multi-million dollar company masquerading as a UK firm and I stuck a finger up at their multinational legal company which threatened to sue me.

I do think a site dedicated to highlighting the farce of TT free broadband would attract a huge number of visitors and would go some way to being an effective tool to get TT to sort out its problems more quickly. We'll see... Good luck with your new provider!

[LeeA]

Have carphone managed to resolve your problems ?

[summerboy]

Yes, LeeA, a very competent technician phoned me and spent half an hour logged into my computer and sorted the problem – it was a simple matter of adding the last part of my email address ie @talktalk.net to my username (which I'd only written as peter44) in my Thunderbird settings. I'd thought 'user name' was just any name I wanted to use to identify this email account, but no, apparently this field is sent to the server and has to be accurate.
So, I am more than happy with the result and both the technician (a freelance guy not employed by TT and who speaks very highly of Charles Dunstone and his hands-on approach to try and sort customers' problems out) and CD's rapid intervertion in getting me email working properly.
However, this doesn't dispel the frustration I experienced with the appalling quality of their staff's dealing with my application, I originally applied in May and only a few days ago did I receive broadband–this after repeated requests for a MAC number which I dutifully sent each time and which TT received (using the same email address each time, so they HAD to have received them: customerservices@talktalk.co.uk). Another address from which I received more comprehensive replies was cstalktalk@cpw.co.uk.
Anyway, we'll see. Logging into webmail is still not instant, have to keep reloading the browser to get the page I want and get repeated system errors displayed, which are a function of their server.
I'm not giving a definitive thumbs-up for the service yet, will give it a few months use before coming to a more informed decision.

[centaur]

Have to say that this problem (the email address NOT being input correctly) isn't the fault of TT, but of the user.
One can undestand the frustration caused by non-existent 'customer service' and lack of communication, but this also applies to many other BB ISP's.

TT may well deserve a 'kicking' for many things, but this issue wasn't one of them !