Talk Talk has a rather lengthy pdf on their website talking about their ‘complaints procedure.’ From what I’ve read here, it seems like a lot of you guys have gone past the ‘deadlock letter’ point and can now go on to the Ombudsman for resolution.
14. If you are dissatisfied with TalkTalk’s service We are committed to providing you with the best-value residential telecommunications service in the UK. We understand that faults can occur and, when they do, we want to correct them quickly. We offer a comprehensive complainthandling process to solve your problem as soon as possible. You should also use our complaint-handling process if you want to complain about any aspect of how we marketed or sold the service to you. When you call us, a customer service adviser will note the details of the problem and agree a course of action with you. Complex queries may take a little longer to resolve.
If you are unhappy with the response you receive, you may ask for the matter to be referred to a senior manager for further investigation. If we cannot resolve your problem, we will write to say so. This is sometimes called the ‘deadlock’ letter. When you receive this letter you have the right to refer your case to the Ombudsman (see ‘Resolving disputes’ below). Any unresolved complaints can be referred to the Ombudsman 12 weeks after being raised with us. You can find the Ombudsman’s contact details in section 10. The Ombudsman will want to ensure that you have followed our complaints process before contacting him. If this is not evident, he is likely to refer the matter back to us for resolution. If you receive the deadlock letter as described above, you must decide within six months whether you wish to refer the issue to the Ombudsman. Please note that the deadline for referring an issue is nine months after first making your complaint to us.
Even if you apply to the Ombudsman, you must still pay any amounts not in dispute. We are happy to work with other independent bodies, such as Icstis, Citizens Advice, Consumer Advice Centres and Trading Standards Departments.
The full document is here on their site (Beware, it’s a pdf)
39 responses so far ↓
Roger // August 1, 2006 at 8:27 am |
Talk Talk are bunch of muppets…… They have taken money from my account when I cancelled my broardband subscription months ago!
After waiting for two hours on hold wanting to talk to someone about it they said they woul credit my account.
Six weeks later and another two hours on hold I get to speak to someone in India who doesn’t understand what I’m talking about?
Is there a complaints line anywhere? No, not that I can see!!!
Talk Talk? NEVER AGAIN!!!
Roger
Gash Bhullar // August 12, 2006 at 10:19 am |
Looks like I’m gonna go through the same experience!!
I cancelled my order within the 10 days that they allow you to have.
I noticed they had already set up the direct debit!!! so i cancelled it.
I then received a bill this morning (12th August 2006) for £21.15
I have been trying to get hold of the cancellation department but I can’t see me getting through!!
Where the hell is the Ombudsman!!!!!!
Stay clear of Carphone Warehouse!!!!
Less Talk Talk: More Service » Gash is gouged // August 19, 2006 at 9:05 am |
[...] Talk to Gash [...]
rembahn // August 24, 2006 at 10:30 pm |
TalkTalk are a bunch of rip-off merchants. Indian call centres promising MAC codes that never arrive. I want my MAC code so as I can go to a decent ISP. TalkTalk broadband is not only hopelessly slow but it frequently cannot serve pages asked for.
Dunstone needs shooting!!!
Wilco // January 9, 2007 at 10:59 am |
Thank you very much for your post, you gave me some missing info i needed for my study
I have bookmarked your site and hope to see more great stuff coming
Bye
Wilco Breek
talktalkhell // February 10, 2007 at 11:12 am |
Hi Wilco,
Glad we could be of service
Alex Bacura // February 19, 2007 at 7:08 pm |
Talk Talk are a company that promises but doesn’t deliver.. After weeks of phone calls I made and promises of a final bill of the correct amount.. I recieve a final demand from the Roxburgh debt collection agency for twice the money I owe them… They wont catch me out next time!! The B…..rds!!
Alex // February 19, 2007 at 7:17 pm |
Talk Talk are a company that promises but doesn’t deliver.. After weeks of phone calls I made and promises of a final bill of the correct amount.. I recieve a final demand from the Roxburgh debt collection agency for twice the money I owe them… They wont catch me out next time!! The B…..rds!!
Tim // February 20, 2007 at 11:36 am |
talktalk do not talk. I have been shuffled from one ‘helpline’ to the next after an by talktalk ‘upgrade’ meant my phone line cuts out suddenly and broadband no longer works.
The support service is beyond appalling, its non existent. Pathetic.
Robert // February 23, 2007 at 11:22 am |
Since last 3 months, which I joined taltalk I had experiencing, all sort of problem
no incoming call no outgoing call no Broadband.. In total 7 to 8 days dead phone line,
Rubbish costumer service and amount of time I have spend to call them from outside to report the fault ….I find this totally unacceptable,
My Phone is still dead I cannot to talk to any one who can give me an answer except passing around to deferent departments and end up to India or somewhere hopeless.
I wish never switch from BT to Talktalk,
Gill // February 23, 2007 at 1:54 pm |
There is someone there at Talk Talk after all, I only waited 2 days for the following response to my lack of email but what amazed me more than anything was their acknowledgement of the problem! This was the reply:
I am sorry to hear of your recent difficulties regarding email.
TalkTalk are aware of an intermittent fault on the webmail server
affecting our customers. Our network engineers are working towards a
resolution and normal service will be resumed on Monday 26th February.
Please accept my apologies on behalf of TalkTalk for any inconvenience
caused by the outage and maintenance.
Yours sincerely
Carina Robinson
TalkTalk Correspondence
Joanna // February 23, 2007 at 4:48 pm |
I’ve had problems with my e-mail since before Christmas. I never know if it’s going to work on any given day. In fact in the last two weeks I’ve had ten days when I have been able to send but not receive. Nor can I access my mail through WebMail. I’ve rung TT a million times and there’s always some reason why they can’t help me…..wrong router, I’m using IE7 etc etc. No-one ever accepts responsibility for my particular problem nor the service as a whole.
I’ve written twice (recorded delivery) but have had no reply. I rang again and got lucky last week (!?). They put me through to First Line Technical Assistance who acknowledged that they had received my letters and that I should have had a call from High Level Complaints (as if..). On the basis that no-one had called me they put me through to Second Line Technical Assistance where an English guy really tried to help me. He could understand why he couldn’t access my e-mail. He went off to get some advice and actually rang me back as promised (how rare is that with TT ?). He simply said TT were having problems with their servers and he didn’t know when it would be resolved. Poor guy was mortified.
So here I am, no technical assistance, no reply to my letters and no e-mail. What can do I do next? And do you believe the problems will be resolved come 26th February ?
Emma // March 26, 2007 at 12:20 pm |
I joined up to talktalk early this year, thinking i would be online within 2 wks, BIG MISTAKE!!!! 3 months later and I still have no internet and now my phone lines been disconnected.
After waiting on hold for most of the wkend i finally got through to a human being who could hardly speak english, who then decided i was in the wrong department so put me on hold for another hour. Final get thru 2 some 1 who tells me that BT disconnected me…
…phone BT, guess what they say they have nothing to do with it it talktalk.
now my only choice is 2 get reconnected either thru BT or talktalk both of whom want to tie me in2 a 3 month contract that I dont bloody want!! All for a mistake made by talktalk.
NEVER EVER EVEN CONSIDER TALKTALK!!!!
Tony Giblin // March 29, 2007 at 2:04 pm |
After being cut off yet again by somebody in some far away land why the hell dont OFFCOM geta grip of Charlie Dunstone and his cowboy outfit?
Nukey Pearce // April 10, 2007 at 11:29 am |
Hi there,
I completely agree with you on the whole TalkTalk thing. As a previous employee of The Carphone Warehouse head office in North Acton, London, I can tell you that the way the business is conducted is a pure profit scheme.
There have been numerous complaints about TalkTalk while I were working there, including Direct Debits that customers are aware of, landline “hijacking” and no service.
It goes to show why the company can afford to give their employees all the benefits – on site gym, incentive schemes, beer busts – you name it – and its all paid for by the profit of conning innocent people like you.
Right now I am on the phone to Rox debt collection as I took out the broadband service when I was working for them. Not only did I have a very poor service on the broadband they know all about it and still charge me.
I moved away from my ex back a year ago and they are still harrasing him for money, I think its absolutely disgusting. Not only do they have the wrong guy they are very persistant too!
When you write a letter to head office to complain there is a system it goes through, in the logistics centre in Wednesbury. It can take anything up to 40 days to reply to a letter, by whych time they could be sending out bailiffs and all sorts. And what is worse is their correspondance team are offline, so if you want to complain you need to send a letter – they have no phone numbers.
You should never even think of Carphone Warehouse. When I was working there their HR department were stupid enough to get my surname wrong for the entire time I was living there. It’s an organised chaos, inside and out. Just think of all the team managers and directors pockets you are fattening just by giving into their scare tactics.
Oh and something else, for their billing system they are still using a computer system dating back to the mid 1980s. It’s called Hades and is very unreliable. If you find strange charges on your bill, that is to blame. They don’t seem to think of their business one bit. It’s just 100% profit all round.
Peter // April 17, 2007 at 6:13 pm |
I ordered talktalk in Nov 06, got phone line in Dec 06 and finally got broadband March 18 07. I have had no problems with set up and only a couple of down times.
I am suspicious about emails. I no longer get any spam, so they must have a filter. But I suspect they may filter out good emails too.
My phone line was with Opal before, which is part of carphone warehouse. They never replied ot any of my emails or snailmail letters, tell me one thing on the phone but still send me bills for phone calls and line rental that I have never had. I just ignore them.
Peter // April 17, 2007 at 6:15 pm |
I ordered talktalk in Nov 06, got phone line in Dec 06 and finally got broadband March 18 07. I have had no problems with set up and only a couple of down times.
I am suspicious about emails. I no longer get any spam, so they must have a filter. I don’t have a filter, don’t want one as I prefer Choicemail, so it’s a bit much imposing one on me. I suspect they may filter out good emails too.
My phone line was with Opal before, which is part of carphone warehouse. They never replied ot any of my emails or snailmail letters, tell me one thing on the phone but still send me bills for phone calls and line rental that I have never had. I just ignore them.
Chris // May 4, 2007 at 3:36 pm |
I am having the same experience as Roger. ( Roger // Aug 1st 2006 at 8:27 am )
The broadband contract has been canceled but they still charge me. Have called the customer service for 4 times, and still unsolved. Every time you have to wait and talk to them for 2 hours. The Indian guy seems to know nothing about what he is doing and keeps on asking me to wait and he is going to ask his supervisor and then pass his supervisor’s words to me. You see they even could not train someone properly for the service!!!
Never talk to talktalk, who talks bullsh*t!
Rob // May 14, 2007 at 1:54 pm |
I’ve spent a total of 19 hours trying to resolve my broadband problem. Every time I’m passed to the Indian call centre I am put on hold for upto 30 mins each time they go away to ask a supervisor. They have no idea what they are talking about, have told me complete lies on most occassions and to make things worse they have cut me off without warning on EVERY call!!! I have constantly asked for referal to esscalations and insisted that they log my problem as a complaint. At no time has this been done. I’ve tried ringing the UK customer services and sales just so that I can speak to a British worker and ask for their advice due to the appalling level of service this Indian call centre is giving. Each time they put me on hold and I eventually end up back talking with the very people who 1. can not and will not help me 2. Eventually cut me off with no warning after putting me on hold for very lengthly periods of time. They don’t even adhere to Talk Talks code of practice. What on earth does one do in this situation? Apart from the obvious.
Billy Dobson // July 5, 2007 at 4:19 pm |
Frustrated or What?
Not quite into Ombudsman territory just yet, but finding someone to Talk Talk to who’s not in South Africa or the likes, not to be kept waiting for in excess of 38 minutes overall from four separate phone calls, twice being fobbed off with two bogus numbers, my problem was that I had messages on my message retrieval service that I wasn’t able to access, this is a bad time for me as over the last two weeks I’ve been driving between Plymouth and Taunton visiting a very poorly friend of mine, I’d left messages with friends the length and breadth of Britain and in Australia, to the affect that he was unlikely to make it, sadly he didn’t, he was cremated on Tues 03rd of July, I was waiting for responses to my calls, that particular service is now ceased while someone looks into the problem, I want to be able to inform people and receive confirmation of attendees for the scattering of his ashes, this I can’t do, EXTRACT THE DIGIT please.
Abbi B. // July 25, 2007 at 4:47 pm |
Talk Talk are a bunch of crooks. I cannot believe how they operate. I was an existing landline and broadband customer when they ‘upgraded’ me to free broadband last november. My landline went dead for ten days, and the promise of diverting to my mobile was a complete farce! And I was never able to use my wireless router ever again. And, apparently I was signed onto an 18 month contract without even being aware of it. I have tried cancelling them several times but they keep sending South African engineers to test my line, which seems to be problem free. Tried to cancel on June 17th, but was told that if I had an engineer look at the line and confirm the problem, they would cancel my £70 cancellation fee. Just called now and spoke to Neil in the cancellation department, and even though my line is still fautly, he said it wasn’t their problem and that I would be charged the fee anyway. What a bunch of crooks! I cannot believe that after weeks and months of being put on hold, speaking to their call centre in India and not understanding a word, and wanting to send them a message that I am cancelling because their service is so appalling, that I’m being charged £70. Why is this allowed to go on? Who does one turn to? This is possibly the most frustrating thing ever.
Eddie // July 29, 2007 at 2:15 pm |
Hi,
A friend of mine has recently signed for TalkTalk and all I can say is that its a nightmare. She previously had a working connection with AOL, but TalkTalk cancelled that without so much as a ‘by your leave’. (She only wanted the phone calls not BB).
But oh dear the technical problems. Although we got it to work originally, it keeps dropping the line, sometimes for days.
The help service has been atrocious.
In response to Abigail have a look at this url which might give some help?
http://money.guardian.co.uk/internetcosts/story/0,,2031948,00.html
shakey // August 1, 2007 at 9:08 am |
Oh,yes,we’re all quite terrible at talktalk,aren’t we?vent it all out on the ones who are treated like ruddy bonded labour,without consideration that deep down,even us folk in India and South africa are somewhat human.Why don’t you loet ever go through this site and look up alternate contact numbers or visit “saynoto0870.com”?
jesus please us,this is so not funny anymore.
Suzanne // August 1, 2007 at 11:16 am |
We have entered Ombudsman territory and so far that has proven to be unsatsifactory. We provided the few written correspondence from TalkTalk, as they have been very clever not to have written any of their deadline promises etc when we were having similar experience as many on this blog.
The final offer from TalkTalk was £100 ‘goodwill’ gesture, which is laughable & we had stated the £1000 offer advertised when we signed up in October 2006t was the minimum we would accept. Just the recently the Ombudsman (Otelo) who is handling the case came back with the same ‘goodwill’ amount with a couple of other lame gestures from TalkTalk.
TalkTalk also had the audacity to say Orange & myself were to ‘blame’ for the situation & the reason we weren’t able to use the BB service. What a joke!!!!!!!!!!!
Needless to say the offer was categorically rejected & requested the maximum amount the Ombudsman can award. After a phone call with Otelo this morning, I don’t think we will experience much joy from the next result.
What happened to the civil law suit discussion? We would be very happy to join other unsatisfied/frustrated customers in a law suit, it may be the only way we get any satisfaction for the distress caused by TalkTalk.
j // August 3, 2007 at 11:58 am |
Hi, after working in a call centre enviroment for a while now i’ve learnt that customers who are generally calm, collected, polite and speak to you like a human being, normally get issues resolved fairly quicky…
christine // August 21, 2007 at 9:34 am |
thank god we are not alone,
have been having numerous calls with talktalk over a number of months regarding the lack of decent service.
like many of you, we have been met by a lot of people that have no idea what they are talking about,
i was told it was a modem issue! ahem..i have three modems and four micro filters and it happens on all of them so i politly told them it was NOt a modem issue.to then be told they don’t support wireless ahem again!! it WORKS just so slowwwwwwww.
web pages not opening to the point i want to put my fist through my monitor,so again i call and told they need to modify my”profile” this been done three or four times now and it STILL is no better.
i decided to go back to BT only to be told i have to re-instate my phoneline to the BT exchange which will take up to two weeks and then a further possible three weeks to get BB from sky
GRRR why did we change in the first place!!!
monty radcliffe // September 15, 2007 at 8:52 pm |
i agree with shakey……too much racist inuendo about indian call centres….the staff there are far better educated than their british counterparts,far more polite….and get paid less….just so that you can have cheap internet and phone access…..the technical problems are not the fault of the people answering the phones….show a bit more respect…please…..
monty radcliffe // September 15, 2007 at 8:57 pm |
i dont like the tone of ms. abigail boisot’s comment….what is wrong with south african engineers….??? it that really relevant to her complaint..and with the kind of racist language she uses , she deserves to have her phone and internet cut off!!!
BILL // September 24, 2007 at 8:36 am |
HEARD TALK-TALK STILL HAVING MANY PROBLEM’S ,READ ALL THE REVIEWS ON THE INTERNET,,,,,,NOT GOOD FR TALK-TALK,,,,SO UNLESS THEY SORT ALL THOSE PROBLEMS AND COMPLAINTS OUT I’M STICKING WITH VIRGIN ,,
Pete Loud // October 20, 2007 at 9:18 am |
For the past 5-6 weeks my Talktalk service has been unbelievably bad. Most of the time the speed of their “Up to 8Mbps” broadband is below 512 Kbps. Much of the time it is below 100Kbps. I have been testing the speed using a free broadband speed test from http://www.thinkbroadband.com I have a chart of the speed readings that I have recorded at, http://www.peteloud.co.uk/talktalk/ .
I suggest more people should use this free test and make their results public.
Apart from the broadband problems my telephone line loses connection part way through calls and people trying to ring me find my line dead.
I have contacted Customer Support several times and they have been ineffective. When I said that their service was inadequate and wanted to cancel my talktalk account they said that I must pay £70 cancellation fee.
My conclusion is simple, don’t touch talktalk with a barge-pole.
Phil Day // October 21, 2007 at 11:29 pm |
Worst company I have ever come across.
I have not had 3 solid days of being able to connect since March.Everytime I phone they say give us 72 hours to sought out the problem.I hear nothing from them so I call again and they have no idea what I am talking about and ask me to wait a further 72 hours. Every time I say I want to cancel they say I will recieve a penalty and to wait until they sort the problem themselves. They also said if I do not pay the penalty they will leave a marker on my line so I cannot go with any other company.
I have just written to them to say I want to cancel and I have also taken my complaint to the communication ombudsman.
P.S I am still waiting for them to call me yet again.
shakey // October 25, 2007 at 4:39 pm |
customers of talktalk,(gamers,mailers,so on and so forth),I’d like to clarify a few things.
1)gamers:I’m so sorry about our crappy modems and routers which have a lot of features locked out by the “custom” firmware.You’re all doomed even if you switch to any other unbranded modem/router.Reason being that apart from the modems we send out,our routers block ports as well.If they’re not blocking ports,they’re blocking UDP traffic.We haven’t received any training whatsoever on consoles apart from a few agents who take the initiative to google like crazy and find a solution.Our networks team is inaccessible since we’re allowed to call them ONLY for appointments.Any actual “technical” requirements get disconnected.OPAL’s team don’t like talking to agents in a fix.Port forwarding doesn’t help.2nd line support CLEARLY advises 1st line to say “we don’t support that,contact manufacturer”.
2)mailers:please,please,please for the love of god,sign up for googlemail.talktalk email servers cannot handle anything more than 5000 users accessing their mail at the same time.We haven’t upgraded any of the old onetel servers as yet.Probably not happening any time soon either.
3)home alarm users.not going to work.It’s in the T’s and C’s.Don’t bother askng why.I had to deal with a Lady Wolfson and her PA(quaking in shoes) and out of sheer compassion(call it terror) kept on making follow up calls and even conferenced once with her alarm supplier.She eventually made the right choice( i didn’t help in the least,apart from starting with,”Madam would you like the bad news or the worse news for starters?”).She finally moved back to BT.
4)if you’re expecting a callback without a complaints ticket number,forget it.since it hasn’t been documented,what’s the proof,mister?Next time you guys call in and are told you’ll get a callback,insist on a “Complaints Database Ticket Number”…that way they’ll have no choice whatsoever.Every call center has an onsite escalations team,it’s their job to sort out the problem or redirect.Oh,and always call at around lunch time.dial 01925554949( got that one from saynoto0870.com).
Happy Hunting!
claire // April 11, 2008 at 1:58 pm |
Talk talk, my fav company
I cancelled my contract with them over a year ago now, even got a letter to say so
yet every month I get a bill from them, even had debt collectors after me for money
I ring them every month and they assure me the account will be disconnected……was and should of been over a year ago now..
Surely there is someone at that company with a bit of brain, cause even a monkey could disconnect a phone line quicker than they can…Is there anyway to get hold of them instead of via there 0845 number, pref the phone no of the boss would be a very good one
help me out here guys
Jo // June 20, 2008 at 6:58 pm |
Talk talk are the most incompetent company I ever had the displeasure to deal with. It took me 9 days to connect through my wireless router, and now that it works I am disconnected from the net on average once every 5 minutes, and all I can do is wait for it to reconnect which is incredibly infuriating. I tried to complain through the website with some customer survey and was abruptly disconnected before I could submit my complaint, when calling them it is impossible to sort out any problem because their call centers are in India or somewhere equally as useless. I was so angry at the poor service that I resorted to a good old fashioned handwritten letter to their correspondence department, fully aware that they’re just gonna throw it in the bin (they must seriously get about a million complaints a day) but I am so mad that I am stuck with this service and they’re just not bothered about the terrible job they’re doing. The head of talk talk is clearly a money grabbing tool who should’ve known how many customers they could provide for. If more people keep joining talk talk then no one is ever going to be able to get online
Angered // July 16, 2008 at 4:15 pm |
I would NEVER recommend Talktalk, they are shocking. I had a dead line last week, it was reconnected but my line was very crackley and I had static on the line. I called up again to report this issue. The staff were based in a forgeign call centre and proven to be rude and incompetant. I wanted to make a complaint but they all refused to transfer my call to complaints department.
Absolutely shocking!!!!!
My phone line is still not working correctly. I want to cancel my service and go back to BT.
If you want to take my advice – dont use Talktalk!!!!!
GILLIAN RUTH // July 27, 2008 at 7:23 pm |
YES TALKTALK IS SHOCKING .BROADBAND YOUR LUCKY IF YOU GET IT AT ALL IN ONE HOUR I LOST IT 6 TIMES THIS IS A REGULAR OCCURANCE . HOW I WISH I HAD STAYED WITH AOL .IVE SIGNED 18 MONTH CONTRACT WHAT CAN I DO
Frustrated // November 18, 2008 at 3:22 pm |
Talk Talk are without doubt the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. They are truly, truly appalling whichever way you look at it – product quality, customer service, the lot.
Have cancelled after three weeks – DO NOT USE TALK TALK.
diane west // February 11, 2009 at 6:14 pm |
talk talk are a nightmare. weve been with them just over 2 years. why u ask? i dont no . In those 2 years we have paid for a new phone line and we have had 2 new`routers. All because yes you guessed it we have had nothing but trouble trying to get on line and actualy staying on line . Help lines what a joke . So we finaly decided 2 move. Monday 9/2/09 i rang them to check if i was under any contract ,no was the answer . After deciding who to go with i rang talktalk back on 10/02/09 to confirm i was going and i would accure no charges . this was confirmed. then 11/02/09 i had a phone call from talk talk telling me i will be charged £70 for comeing out my contract. Iinformed them i did ring up twice to and was told differently. they said the to asians you talked to got it wrong . my advice to any one is stay away from TALKTALK.
SHOCKING // March 18, 2009 at 5:13 pm |
One of the worse companys ive come across,no idea about customer relations,wont resolve anything, asolute crap, i get put through to india, cant understand english,an forever cutting you mid call, so you have to ring again.
terrible.