Help me talk my folks out of going with TalkTalk.

Megahurtz400 said:
I work for Openreach (*hides*), and officially, TalkTalk are the most complained about ISP in the UK :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16266531 Source
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They are also by far the cheapest.

Everybody posting on these forums should be technically competent enough to use the TT forums/ know how to diagnose and fix minor faults (reboot your router, change your dns servers, etc).

Therefore most people here can avoid the most complained about aspect of TT - the phone support.

Given that your average punter on the street is going to phone their ISP for all sorts of crap like "i can't find my email" or "xxx website is down" or "I think my internet has a virus", then LOL yes they are going to have a rough time on the phone to someone in a call centre they can barely understand. Someone who is reading from a script and will probably tell them to try turning the PC off and on again ;)

As a service, with forum support if you need it, TT is excellent here. Just don't phone them! :p
 
voorhees1979 said:
Ah customer service I know of the best ISP for that. o2, they really do have great support.

I have tried lots of ISP's, for my area BT has been the best for me. It all depends where you are and what lines you have I guess.

EDIT: I see you have o2 down as being a little bad, hmmmmm. I always thought they were pretty good on the support side. Least they speak English, I can never understand those Indian call centers for some reason. I am always Sorry?? What?? Can you repeat that??? I have bad ears I think
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Good point, I was on the "access" package here with 02 which is probablly why it was dire. I was having trouble downloading emails/general web browsing at one point, so I complained, tried to sort it out but to no avail. In the end I had enough and said I was leaving and they tried to charge me the remainder of the contract and messed me around big time for my mac code. Can't remember the site but I got them to send an "Ofcom" style email and within about a week, I had my mac code and no further charges.
 
We have talk talk never had a single problem in the 2 years or so we have had it and constantly get around 11meg on an 8 meg line. although the telephone substation been around the corner may help a bit :D
 
Had talk talk for 3 years now. Had a problem a few months ago, they immidetaly sent openreach out to fix said problem, they knocked off a months bill for the inconvenience, internet was only down for a day! Recently came to the end of a contract period, they offered us another 2 year contract, 1st year half price...
No problems here really.
 
Iirc, first it was called Nildram, then it became Opal, now it's Talk Talk (for some time I know), oh dear this thread doesn't give me confidence.

Out of interest, does anyone who are with Talk Talk find that over the last couple of days their internet has been slow and unreliable? Strangely Overclockers seems to be fine, Youtube has been very poor and unreliable as has Play.com amongst others. No icon pops up to say 'no internet access'.
 
arc@css said:
Iirc, first it was called Nildram, then it became Opal, now it's Talk Talk (for some time I know), oh dear this thread doesn't give me confidence.

Out of interest, does anyone who are with Talk Talk find that over the last couple of days their internet has been slow and unreliable? Strangely Overclockers seems to be fine, Youtube has been very poor and unreliable as has Play.com amongst others. No icon pops up to say 'no internet access'.
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I'm with talktalk and my internet keeps cutting off every so often. Usually for 10-20 mins. Wasn't sure if it was my old router or not. I get the red light on it too to say there isn't an internet connection.
 
QuackPot said:
I'm with talktalk and my internet keeps cutting off every so often. Usually for 10-20 mins. Wasn't sure if it was my old router or not. I get the red light on it too to say there isn't an internet connection.
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Thanks for the reply. :)

I must confess that normally my connection is excellent, very fast and reliable. I just hope that it sorts itself out soon for us!
 
Reaper 392 said:
i was at a friends house a little while ago who had AOL (who are run by talktalk) when they were having problems on the internet. his dad phoned up customer service and this is roughly what happened with the call:

friends dad: hey, we're having problems with the internet. we cant even connect to the internet right now. ive tried resetting the router several times and that clearly doesnt solve the problem
support guy: ok, have you tried resetting the router
friends day: yes, ive tried it several times over the past half hour and that doesnt help
support guy: i see. in that case can you try resetting the router
friends dad: no, ive reset the router several times, the last time being just before i called you. resetting the router doesnt solve the problem
support guy: yes, but can you just try resetting the router please
friends dad: no, ive told you already ive tried this and it doesnt help
...
about 1 hour later
...
friends dad: for the last time, i have tried resetting the router, it clearly does not solve the problem. can you please tell me what the problem is
support guy: well... the servers havent been working for the past two hours, so that might be the problem
friends dad: so you've spend the last hour asking me to reset my router knowing full well it wont do anything to help because the servers are down, wasting my time and giving me an extortionate phone bill. will you please refund me the cost of this frankly useless phone call before i hang up and change internet providers
support guy: do you use talktalk for your phone?
friends dad: no, thank goodness
support guy: in that case we cant refund you
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In this situation I always just go along with it, he wouldn't have been on the phone if he went "Ok I've reset it just now, still not working"

When I worked at Sky people used to do it to me, and it made my job a lot easier. I knew, and they knew what was happening. I never had to argue with the customer and never lost any marks on my calls.

Just play the game and save money on your phone bill arguing.
 
grudas said:
virgin media ***.
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ehhh.... I rarely have problems with Virgin Media but when I do their support is pretty atrocious! General Customer Service is fine, they lowered my bills by 40% when i called and complained that new customers got a better service for half the price, but i still had one of the most cringeworthy conversations of my life with Virgin support!

Virgin: And what operating system are you using?
Me: Linux
Virgin: I mean are you using Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7...
Me: I'm using Linux
Virgin: Sir I need for you to look on the case for your computer for a sticker that should tell you what version of Windows you have
Me: I need for you to look in your office for somebody else i can speak to.
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Probs a bit late to say but my parents are with talktalk and the speed has dropped dramatically, even 3g on phone is faster. Phoned talktalk and they said it'll cost 130 quid for an engineer to check it out. Told my parents not to bother and consider sky, since they have sky tv. Shame they can only get ADSL though :[
 
No problems with Talk Talk here, or at my old flat or my parents house.

Their Support Forum is the best way of getting results, put up a thread there when I lost my static IP and it was back within hours and I didn't have to sit on the phone for 20 minutes.
 
I went with Talk Talk in January. The router they sent me was lost in the post and after 23 calls 8 of which I was hung up on! 4 of which were by managers I have finally received it. I spent a total of 6 hours on the phone. Worst service I have ever received. I'm waiting for a resolution to all this at the moment.
 
No problems here, been with them for nearly 5 years. Was originally a Tiscali customer who was gobbled up when they took over as just a broadband customer & with BT for phone line etc. Told BT to sod off once TalkTalks 24mbps service went live because BT can't compete for price, speed or unlimited download allowance. Only had one major service drop out & that was when they were carrying out work on the exchange (gained an extra 4mbps when it came back).

I think the key to getting hassle free service from them is being able to get their LLU service which is still hit and miss.
 
Hades said:
I am desperately trying to get my mac code from Talk Talk after a catalogue of issues since they took over the provider I signed up with. They are a truly awful company and the favourite trick for their offshore HelpDesk at the slightest sign of a difficult question is to be transfer you or put you on hold until you're cut off.

My issues have got so bad that I've written them a letter advising them that I will be escalating the matter to the regulator unless they address the issues in the next couple of weeks.
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Just email the CEO of Talk Talk I did and I bet my house on it you WILL get a response within 24 hrs [email protected]
 
I remember working at CPW when they had us all over to Nottingham one evening to tell us about this exciting proposition they were going to launch.

It was TalkTalk.

Maureen Lipman was on board to be the face of TalkTalk, oh how excited all the management were.

It was fun to sell lines and calls to people, then in 2006 they mentioned a UK first FREE Broadband, this is when it all went wrong. Customers were in our shop for 2 hours plus as we phoned customer service to chase install/live dates/modems, all hell broke loose.
 
TalkTalk is the only ISP that could sort out a stable 1MB Internet connection for my folks and they have had no problems so far. They live in a Village far from the exchange so 1MB is the best they can get and far better than BT could provide.

Guess they're in the minority when it comes to good experiences with TalkTalk!
 
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