Its not good to talk to TalkTalk (Talk Talk)

Member Name: dbarcl10

Product:	Talk Talk
Date:	11/08/08 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap

Disadvantages: Bad service, awful customer service, you get what you pay for, lack of management

TalkTalk - cheap, poor quality of service, many mistakes made by managers, awful customer service.

TalkTalk is one of the first companies I have had the misfortune of dealing with. I first went with them about 4 years ago as they were cheaper than the competition, and I soon realised why as I had nothing but problems for about 3 months. I was on the phone to their Customer Service on a near daily basis trying to get the problems fixed, but despite them acknowledging the problem they seemed to do little to solve the problems, and continued to charge me for the 'service'.

Once my complaint was finally passed to managers the fault was soon rectified, and I got refunded for the time that I was without a phone and internet.

Soon after I moved, and contacted the same manager about 5 weeks in advance to let them know I was moving and was assured that everything would be set up for the day I moved. Until this date, I assumed that everything was going to plan, until I found out that the manager forgot to complete a home movers form, so I was again without service.

When they finally provided me with a phone line, there was a problem. The phone line was crackling, broadband was intermittent. BT, the owners of the line couldn't help as TalkTalk had taken over the rental of the line. TalkTalk referred me to BT. Doing my own research on the internet I found that BT were correct, they could only fix any line fault if instructed by TalkTalk. So I was back to TalkTalk, who finally agreed to arrange a BT engineer to visit.

One problem. I took the day off for the engineer, but no engineer turned up. Back on the phone to TalkTalk I was asked why I assumed an engineer would come when no appointment was booked on the system. They forgot to book it.

After that I did not trust TalkTalk, and communicated with a senior manager by email only. Despite the emails, the manager continued to lie and backtrack. This continued for several weeks until the fault was finally rectified. The fault the whole time was with TalkTalk, a fact that the BT engineer diagnosed on his first visit, but TalkTalk denied even after the fourth BT engineer had been out.

In the end I reported TalkTalk to Otelo and the Information Commisioner.

When I finally had enough of TalkTalk and switched back to BT, despite being with them for over 3 years, and having therefore exceeded the minimum contract, I was charged a £70 cessation fee. Customer Service stated this was normal and nothing to do with the contract, but was quickly refunded when I again raised a complaint to Senior Management.

Getting through to Customer Service is a nightmare, despite the number of call centres they have throughout Britain and India call waiting times can be up to 40 minutes before you get through to an agent, and then they are rude, unhelpful and the Indian agents often hang up on you if they can't help or don't understand your query. This may be as TalkTalk no longer record Customer Service calls.

TalkTalk is the worst company that I have ever dealt with, and I am glad to have left them. Yes, so BT is a bit more expensive, but I have never had any problems with their service, and after all, you get what you pay for.

p.s. I've gave TalkTalk a rating of one star, this is only because the system does not allow a no star rating.

Summary: Stay away