Office of Fair Trade: Distance selling

I keep hearing and receiving complaints regarding Talk Talk’s billing practises. Here’s what Ofcom has to say about distance selling.

Where a contract is cancelled, the consumer must ensure that reasonable care is taken of any goods received and ‘restore’ them to you. This does not mean that they have to return them – unless you stipulate this in the contract – only that they make them available for you to collect. You must refund the consumer’s money as soon as possible and, at the latest, within 30 days of receiving the written notice of cancellation. The consumer may, at your discretion, be charged the direct cost of returning the goods, but you must tell them about this in the written information you give them. If payment for the goods or services is under a related credit agreement, the consumer’s cancellation notice also has the effect of cancelling the credit agreement.

If a refund has been agreed and it’s been more than 30 days since you received confirmation, or you’re still being billed, Talk Talk are in violation of the Distance Selling Act.

Whole thing here.

Mark hasn’t been marked.

Again, the big let down with Talk Talk is their apparent lack of ability to produce even the basic services. Mark writes that though Talk Talk thinks he’s up and running, they haven’t bothered to send him the kit. He’s also got the same tale of woe about being hung up on, refused second level customer support . You have 14 days, presumably, to disconnect the service without being charged the 70 pounds. Remind their customer ’service’ advisors of this since many don’t seem to know what a cooling off period is.

I have the worst customer experience of my life with talk talk. I have rang 3 times their customer service department, the first 2 times i had to wait over 20 mins each time to be answered and the third time over 1 hour, yes 1 hour. I got through 2 times only to get the phone disconnected straight away so i had to ring back. I asked for a manager and their head office telephone number but was refused both. I am now thinking of disconnecting their service and going back to bt. I received a letter last week saying my broadband was now up and working but i have not received the cd or the modem and dread having to speak to their customer service department again. I sent an email to them last Wednesday and have still not had a reply.

Any assistance? Respond to Mark here

Fed up with lack of fundamentals

Back in the day when I was first using ISPs, there were basic assumptions about what would be provided. It was generally assumed that you would get an e-mail account with a username, plus access to an SMTP/POP3 server. In addition, you would connect via dial up and later routers to a service that would keep you online. Talk Talk’s customer service nightmare (in the words of the CEO) seems to also extend to ignoring those basic services. I’m not even sure they could class themselves as an ISP at this rate.

I’m having the same problem, can not read my emails. Also can not use desk top talk talk icon, does not connect. I,m begining to have second thoughts about talk talk as I also have to keep reconecting to the internet every couple of minutes. Sorry I don’t have any answers as talk talk help line are always busy, they tell me to call back later. This speaks volumes!

Again, I plead with any employees of Talk Talk’s ’service’ to assist. How do we get them to create and authenticate simple user details? Two of these so far!

Roger has been…

You get the idea. Now, when you cancel an account, presumably that means that the company you had the account with doesn’t take money from you anymore. Right? Not if you’re Talk Talk.

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!!!

I just hope we start turning up in search engine results for Talk Talk. Hopefully it will keep others the hell away from our pain.
Any tips for Roger?

Watch out AOL users!

I’ve always thought of AOL as being the worst of all possible ISPs. Not only do you have to venture through their maze of blocks to get out onto the actual Internet (instead of that watered down BS they have on their welcome page) they also attempt to retain you if it all goes horribly wrong. But AOL users may want to fall to their knees and thank whatever deity is relevant that they can actually speak to people while they still have time.

According to The Guardian, BSkyB, Orange and Carphone Warehouse are the only remaining bidders for the business – BT having pulled out – but may baulk at paying the £560 million asking price if it means they cannot direct their new customers to their own online offerings, where the real money is to be made through advertising and ecommerce links, phone services and, in the case of Sky, satellite TV subscriptions.

Oh NOES! On PC Pro

How good of a deal really is Talk Talk?

ZD Net has a good run down of why Talk Talk’s services aren’t free and how the quality of service is effected by the gimmick associated with the product.

Of course, getting Carphone Warehouse’s “free broadband” relies on having a fixed line and voice package with the company. As Disruptive Analysis’s Dean Bubley puts it: “I’m looking forward to Kelloggs bringing out a free broadband offer saying it’s the only one where you don’t have to get a mobile phone contract, you just have to buy 98,000 boxes of cornflakes.”

And if you’ve run across this blog and are thinking of signing up to Talk Talk’s service as a small business user, think again.

The biggest reason for this is quality of service. Internet service providers (ISPs) who offer free broadband are likely to try to put as many customers as possible onto the same network, to keep costs down. This makes for variable speeds — something the home user might put up with, but hardly suitable for a business trying to send or receive large amounts of time-sensitive data. The usage limits imposed by most domestic ISPs are equally unwelcome in the world of business, but one of the strongest cases for business customers paying a premium is based on customer service.

ZD Net article here.