Suffering and problems with TalkTalk broadband signup

[kingdom]

Well I got a reply to my complaint from Talktalk today. A pretty good response all in all....although I have now decided to use AOL for my broadband anyway, I use them for dial up and I am pretty happy with them so why change huh!

I still might try talktalk for my phoneline though...might have to think about it

Here is the email they sent me:

Dear Mr Paczko,


Thank you for your taking the time to write to our Chief Executive, Charles Dunstone, who has asked that I reply to you on his behalf.



I am sorry to hear that you have been unhappy with so many aspects of our service recently. We aim to provide an exceptional standard of service for all our customers so it is disappointing to hear that this has not been the case for you.



On liasing with our Web Team, I regret that your order was not uploaded to our system from the website in its entirety. Although we do have a record of the transaction, only details of the ordered product were received. This meant that a transaction number was generated, though regrettably, your personal and bank details were not available to process your order. I can appreciate the inconvenience this will have caused and I was extremely concerned to learn of the further problems you encountered in rectifying this issue.



TalkTalk endeavour to respond to all e-mail enquiries in a prompt and efficient manner and place a great emphasis on the importance of exceeding customer expectations in this respect. I can assure you that we will be seeking to establish where our process has broken down in this instance with a view to ensuring that your experience is not repeated.



Having reviewed your call into our Contact Centre on 18 April, I agree that it was not necessary for you to speak to the number of departments to which your call was transferred. The first Broadband Support Advisor you spoke with should have taken on the responsibility of investigating your enquiry for you. If he was unable to respond within a reasonable period of time, he should then have offered to call you back with an explanation and a recommended remedy.



I am so sorry that, when it had been finally established that your order could not be retrieved, you were advised that you were no longer eligible for our March offer. It should certainly have been evident to the Direct Sales Consultant you were transferred to that, as you had a confirmation e-mail from us, the offer would still apply.



At The Carphone Warehouse, we pride ourselves on the standard of customer care we deliver and our Five Fundamental Rules are central in everything we do. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to offer my most sincere apologies that we have fallen short of your expectations on this occasion.



I do note your comment that you are not now prepared to wait a further 28 days for your application for TalkTalk and TalkTalk Broadband to be processed. However, I would like to leave open for you the March offer you originally requested. Should you decide to reconsider your decision to seek an alternative supplier, your Broadband service will be activated within 14 days and your calls will be transferred to TalkTalk no more than 14 days later.



Furthermore, should you wish to apply for TalkTalk, I would like to offer the amount of £15.00 to cover your first month’s Broadband service. Although I know this is not the reason you wrote to Charles, I wanted to make a gesture to show you how sorry we are for letting you down.



I do hope that you will still feel able to continue your relationship with The Carphone Warehouse and that we will have the pleasure of being of service to you in the future. If you would like to take advantage of the above offer, or should you require any further information or assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me directly on 01925 55 4686 or via e-mail at danieln@cpwservices.com.



Kind regards,



Nick Daniels

Customer Liaison Executive
From the Office of Charles Dunstone, Chief Executive

[The_Bear]

I went with talktalk 17th April, and to say dsl providers are petty is an under-estimation. First I was with Demon who happily gave me a mac for migration to talktalk. Then they phone me and say the mac is no good as it wasn't a migrate of like-to-like i.e. 512K to 512K. But talktalk sent me a letter saying I would be activated on 17th April which I was. Telephone companies are the same. They all break the rules of protocol and decency by lieing or giving false infornmation in order to keep you tied to their service. I had to get OFCOM involved.

[DoomKingUK]

Hello & yes talktalk are CRAP with their p2p throttling!

I was on Freeserve which was fine until..... American Wanadoo took
them over. Since then they had more interest in keeping to STRICT
restrictions hence i got a warning letter that i'm using over 40gb per month.
This is due to my p2p useage.

Anyway i migrated from Wanadoo to Talktalk thinking HEY TWICE as FAST!
But i should've checked this site first ! ANyhow i entered my MAC code
online to sign up for their Talktalk 1.1mb talk1 option.
I only had 2 days offline & all was smooth BUT it was SLOOOOOoooww!
But about 5-ish days into my new service had started i suddenly noticed AMAZING p2p speeds BUT... It happened on a day i needed my pc's tv card
so had to disconnect to ger an even recording. The next day i connected
thinking this is DAMN GOOD! but it crawled along @ about dial-up speed .

My p2p seems to struggle with Winmx faring the best, thought that has
reduced somewhat. BUT the BIGGEST DISSAPOINTMENT YET IS.....

My online gaming on " http://www.zdaemon.org/news/ " where i play
doom & i'm DAMN GOOD till it stopped working EXACTLY when i swapped to Talktalk! I hope this is not being throttled too!

P.S. Don't Talktalk realise that the heart of the net these days is P2P & online gaming? Why else do ppl want 1.1bm lines or faster? Isn't it OBVIOUS to Talktalk that offering a 1.1mb line will attract ppl who NEED HIGH SPEED P2P??? I want to jump isp's again but am still considering which isp next?

[swainston]

roll on november when my year is up :-)

[Beat_Alliance]

Talk Talk Are Truely Shite, Been with them for 5-6 days now and there service is abismal ... Copy of the email ive sent them below .....

Dear Sir/Madame

Ive been with talktalk for 4 days since the 1mb line activated (3 weeks after the activation date ) and 2-3 days after the line was activated ive had nothing but problems. The first 2 days were perfect, not a problem in sight, good speeds, connected to the work servers fine and not a hitch in sight. I work from home and use work based ftp servers to download projects to work upon. This projects vary in size ... some very big files some very small files and have very specific deadlines. Today i tried using the servers to slow connections and it now just seems to hang on connection. These use SSL connections as where i work (Computer Organisation) we are very tight on security due to a security breach a few months ago costing the company a fair few!!

I e-mailed your sales consultants about my issue while i was in the process of signing up for TalkTalk ... they informed me that this would be fine and it should all work accordingly, after discovering the issue with the servers, other programs failed to work accordingly. Slow connections and then hangs!!

This lead me to forums to find out if other people share my problem ... what i found was very disturbing ... MANY customers/previous customers have complained about talktalks overall service and quality. Time restrictions are in place?? Customers have wrote letters to the Chairman of TalkTalk about issues that im also suffering from?

I rang up today and asked about this problem, after waiting on customer services for 20 mins. I was then told to ring technical help, which i did. The respose was that talktalk prioritize web browsing and e-mail by restricting ports (which was also stated on many forums), so i told the technical help expert the ports which needed to be opened, which he is currently looking into for me he also dealt with me in a fair and reasonable fashion, thank you. After thinking about the ports needing to be opened .... do i really have to ring up each time i want to use the internet that i have been acustomed to?? Im paying for a service that is "Unlimited" with no restrictions ?? Well so far after 5-6 days of using talktalk i have run into problems that should not have come up if you were running the service you have published to your customers??

As i work from home i need access to work servers which i have allready stated, i had enough grief from the technicians with my last ISP due to dynamic IP addresses and being able to login without my IP changing every time i connected, this i emailed talktalk about and to find out they only have one IP range ... this was a god send to me!! Now to find out that talktalk ristrict the ports at specific times of the day and weekends ... to "prioritize" users browsing the web!! What about business individuals like myself who can't do there job due to people "Browsing" the web?? How am i suposed to earn a living if i cant work from home using your service?? Quit my job ?? This is my livelihood !!

So i am asking you to please remove any restrictions or port blocks or time restrictions on my account and allow me to do my job which i have been doing for 5 years, its not nice having managers jumping down your neck due to projects missing deadlines!!! To which i must add, i have missed this deadline due to your service!! So please remove any restrictions on this account!! I know this may seem very selfish to just remove it for my account, but i am not losing my job so people get priority for "Browsing" the internet, other people use it for business purposes aswell, not just for pleasure!! Im paying for this service so please give me a decent one!!

Sorry if this letter comes across angry, this is a very touchy subject... my job basically!!

Please sort the restrictions for evrything!!

Thank You


I am not pleased in there service as they are stopping me doing my job... This is un acceptable, why offer a "Unlimited & Unrestricted" service when they are clearly restricting it all ?? This pathetic !!

Do Not Use TalkTalk Broadband :-(

[cheeky2004]

Extremely poor service from TalkTalk.

I do not have my broadband with them as they do not give any extras, only 15mb of free web space and the service has been reported as poor.

I do have my landline with them and have free evening and weekend calls. This is very good but there isn't really anything they can get wrong with that is there?

I will warn however, do NOT use TalkTalk for international calls. They claim to be lower than BT BUT BUT BUT only marginally.You save pennies. What you can do is use another service, such as instant dial or 18866 or phonecards when calling abroad.

I never recommend to anyone to use the same supplier for everything as all suppliers have to make their money somewhere.

TalkTalk really need to get their act together in the broadband department, they are starting to act like Tesco broadband did!

[BexTech]

I use a mix of TalkTalk, 18866 and 1899 for my calls. I am no longer with TalkTalk for their broadband, they let me migrate at no cost a few months back.

[Mannakin]

I joined TalkTalk in December last year for phone and broadband and the service has mostly been good. Although the line speed is better than the 512k service I had from BT, the latency times weren't so good.

That was until 4 or 5 weeks ago when they applied a blanket "port throttling" to their service.

I work from home and also play one online game (EvE). I wouldn't say I'm a very heavy user as most of my work is Telnet sessions and EvE is designed to work ok on a dial-up connection.

For the last 4 weeks I have intermittent DNS issues, I can't play EvE and I have difficulty accessing services on my office network.

I can understand the desire to not have the network crash under what may be a small number of heavy users using P2P software, but the way that they have tackled the problem is a blanket ban on anything that isn't web or e-mail after 16:00.

I have been talking to the technical people for over 3 weeks now trying to get a single port opened and nothing has been done yet depite assurances that it would be.

Last week I asked them to supply me with a MAC code to move my service (for which I was charged!) and I'm still waiting 8 days later. Tomorrow I will also be writing to the chairman to express my disappointment with the way that the company has acted.

I would definitely not recommend TalkTalk broadband.

[cheeky2004]

I would definately write to the chairman and complain. Someone in another post above received a call from a senior member of staff after writing to him.

You should also try and take a look at any terms and cond that came with your service, do they say anything about blocking ports and did they advise you before doing this? If not, mention this in your email and really have a go at them, as if you express enough disappointment you may just be reimbursed with the charge you had to pay to leave.

Say that you shouldn't be jeopodised because of the way they decide to tackle higher bandwidth users and if they change the way they supply their service, so that it becomes unsatisfactory to you, you should be able to leave free of charge....etc.

Don't go soft on them, go for it, you have nothing to lose. It needs people to complain otherwise companies just keep on walking over us

[Mannakin]

It took the 9 days to get me a MAC code, despite daily phone calls.

These guys are f.ing useless.

Only problem is, I was going to sign up with UKOnline and they are waiting for the exchange to be upgraded by BT!

Now I know why this web-site is called The Scream!!!!

[manu666]

We have talktalk broadband and have recently learned that a bandwith restriction is imposed everyday including weekends between the hours of 1600 and 00:00 GMT. This was only found out by us after experiencing several days of slow downloads and not only while using p2p programes.
When we phoned to find out what was going on we were told that because we are "heavy" broadband users these restrictions have been imposed. First we would have liked to have been told that they were actually being imposed because we thought there was a fault with our systems adware e.t.c

As far as we were concerned we signed up for an "unlimited" service although it was mentioned in there terms and conditions that restrictions MAY
be imposed during times of heavy use to insure network integrity.

The questions we have just wrote and asked them is what is classed as a heavy user?
If youre now imposing a restriction between set hours this has nothing to do with network integrity because you wouldn't know weather the network was likely to be busy or not until it actually happened therfore we have said that they have now imposed a set limit each day at the same time it is now a restricted service and therfore they are in breach of there contract. Gary

[Mannakin]

I checked my usage using the free DUmeter program.

I use my broadband a fair amount:

I play one online game
download a little music occasionally
work from home maybe 3 days a week, which involves being online to the office and our clients
Browse the web
E-mail
I was using around 1-2Gb a week of bandwidth.

They are offering a crap excuse and I hope they lose a lot of business over it. I've moved to BT Broadband. 8 days to swap over when it took TalkTalk 9 days to even get me a MAC code. I have a 2mb line with a 30Gb a month cap.

Seriously, I wouldn't take TalkTalk broadband if they were offering it to me for free.

[cheeky2004]

On unlimited broadband 30gb is usually regarded as the average cap rate. Over that, your useage can be classed as high to excessive.

If TalkTalk are not giving you at least this amount, then as Manakin says, leave then and transfer to someone else.

Its those who stand no nonsense and are not afraid to get up and go who get the best deals.

[manu666]

I took TalkTalk to the Trading standards One simple argument they advertise a unlimited broadband service it is not. Have been told I can leave without a charge. TalkTalk are a RUBBISH COMPANY.

[cheeky2004]

Well Done, it needs people like you to take action when a company does not supply what you pay for, so we all receive a better standard of service in the future. I hope you get fixed up.

[devonjason]

i have been told by them that they are going to charge me £70 if i want to disconnect from there broadband and there are no ways around this charge
any tips of getting around this would be of great help
and any good statements to the answers they give to my questions regarding unrestricted broadband
thanks

[Mannakin]

I had the same thing. I ended up paying the charge just to get out of the contract and to get shot of them.

I also cancelled the landline service and will never buy from Carphone Warehouse ever again even if it is the only option for 100 miles! (That goes for my company too!).

[cheeky2004]

When you embark on any contract it is equally between you and the supplier to meet that contract, they supply the service, you pay and abide by the rules of using that service. As far as I know the only times you can escape free is if the service is not supplied as stated in the contract.

However, bear in mind that there is no service level agreement with broadband suppliers, and if they **** on you they seem to get away with it at the moment.

Firstly, you do have to realise that this is residential broadband and I've read about someone here fighting on business grounds. This simply will not stand as the package is not sold as a business package and I'm sure they would be quick to point that out. However, that doesn't mean there is not a problem, it just means you'd be better fighting from another angle.

Alot of unlimited broadband services are not strictly unlimited as such. Best thing to do is find the terms and conditions of the contract you embarked upon and look for 'fair useage policy' or similar wordings. If you are sure that they state nowhere that there is any cap or fair useage policy then by restricting you they are breaking the contract, and so you should be able to get out of it as they have not met the commitments required by them.

Now this isn't legal advice, so please do not take it as such, this is just my understanding of the industry, and I advise you to seek further advice if you find that they have no fair useage policy.

If you want the easy option, you can do as Mnnakin did and just pay and get the hell out of there. However, I am a fighter and if I was in your shoes and knew I had a case I'd fight it, and keep calling calling calling until you get to speak to a supervisor, then hassle haslle if they don't cooperate until you get to speak to someone who does. Companies usually get so ****ed of with you that they just give in and agree to disconnect you free.

Good Luck.

[devonjason]

many thanks for the replys
i have had many email conversations with talktalk which on every occasion they have denied they impose caps or hurt downloading in any way,
i have also got trading standards involved and hopefully they are going to talk to thema and help my cause
i have also got the advertising standards authority involved and they are looking at the information given to customers when signing on to talktalk
they have said they are concerned and have asked for my customer details and are too contacting talktalk.
i will keep you all posted on the replies they give me
for your information they address of the A.S.A.

Advertising Standards Authority
Mid City Place
71 High Holborn
London WC1V 6QT
and the person looking into it is Maria Donde

again many thanks all
jason

[camhmt]

Hi
I too am experiencing problems with TalkTalk and have spent hours phoning and emailing. Could somebody please advise how to get copy of emails to Charles Dunstone?
Thanks

[BexTech]

DunstoneC@cpw.co.uk

[swainston]

hello all,,, sorry i haven't checked this thread for quite a while and i see even more people are having probs with the talk talk lot..

Well my year is up in 11 days time(nov 10th 05) so i'm off,, we'll see if they are better letting you go then setting you up !! we'll see i guess......

I wanted to upgrade to 2mb but they wanted about £28 a month ,,, when if you join now you get 2mb for £24 like i pay now and said i would be tied to another 12month contract !!! so sod em...cheers and good luck




swainston

[cheeky2004]

They are very good at selling mobile phones and should stick to doing what they know best!

I have my landline with them because they were offering free evening and weekend calls for a year, but I never use them for international calls. They are only just barely cheaper than BT.

[swainston]

they wanted me to write to head office for a mac code ,,so i have....seems a bit drawn out to me,,, anyone else had same?
cheers swainston

[cheeky2004]

write to head office? lazy ********! They should just give it to you, after all head office are only going to access the same computer system! They are just making hard work of it so most people don't get round to writing, then don't get round to changing to another supplier, so TalkTalk keep a customer!

Ring them again, put pressure on, and insist you want to speak to a senior person, passing you to head office and making you do the running isn't on.

Everyone is free to leave their supplier by law, unless covered by a signed contract period.

[swainston]

hi all,, well its another 10 days on and i've got No where!! i've written to head office a few weeks ago now as requested,, i've rang talktalk 4 times now and been promised the mac within 48hours to my e.mail inbox,,,,
but nothing !!

I rang them again today and they are now saying i am out of my 12 month contract but have to give 30 days written notice !!

At this point i got a bit rude with the guy and he has now promised a mac
number to my inbox by the 20th nov (8 days time) so guess i'll have to wait a bit longer still !!

Quick to sign you up !! NOT so quick to let you go !!

Swainston

[ross234]

agreeing completely with the poor quality of customer service offered by talk talk! I'm about am month into attempting to get broardband access from them and seemingly no nearer a conclusion. i had an untroubled service from virgin before but cancelled as i am a student and was away for the summer.
after a couple of weeks of waiting to hear from them I called Talk talk and they seemed to have desided theres something abit technical that i dont understand wrong with my line (didnt seem to be a problem for virgin???). they said they would contact bt and sort it out then start the connecting again. more time goes by and i have to call again. the next person i talked to said they there was a not on my file saying that bt needed to be contacted and asked to remove something on the line. i was bluntly told that the last guy who i spoke too 'must have forgotten' to do this!
as i'm in abit of a dodgy area not many isp's offering the services i want work round here so i'm having to stick with the glimmer of hope available from talk talk. so far i've recieved a letter basically saying somethings happening and i should recieve a connection date. not holding my breath! grrrr

[swainston]

hi,, well my mac code finally came,, and i'm now more than happy with eclipse,,, just waiting now for my line to be re-graded to 2mb which is booked for monday...

What a breath of fresh-air after "talk-talk" ...

cheers swainston..

[scyl]

And the problems go on.

I signed up for a 2Mb connection which went live on 21-12-2005 without being told.

Noticing a real drop in speed I did some tests to find out I was only getting around 980 kilo bytes per second.

I have asked Talk Talk about this and they have said there is nothing they can do and this is accpetable. I do not think so at £23.99 per month. They have since offered to down grade me to 1Mb which I presume is all they can really supply anyway.

I have asked for a MAC code but they will only give me that if I pay £70.00.

YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WARNED

[Col25]

I am also having problems with Talk Talk. I even received demands for payment before I was switched over and bills which are inaccurate.
However my biggest problem is the package I signed up for so I am asking if anyone else has signed up for a similar package as they don't seem to know what I am now talking about!

In October I saw an offer of combined 1mb broadband and Talk 1 landline for a total of £20 a month which I signed up for, it was called simply Talk 1.

Did anyone else see this offer and even apply for it or a variation of it as there were 3 different options.

Needless to say when I speak to them I get confusing answers and now they have filled out a compliance form but it can be up to 21 days before I get an answer.

Thanks
Col25