TalkTalk - Avoid

Kona*

Kona*

Kona*

Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2003
Posts
2,039
Location
Newcastle upon Tyne
I've been with TalkTalk for just over two weeks and I've had nothing but trouble from the start, let me explain a little what's happened:

1) Since activation I've had two routers, both can't keep a stable SNR, even on a 15dB profile so my connection keeps dropping - I've replaced them with a BT/2Wire 2700HG which holds 9dB spot on, TalkTalk won't accept it's the routers so I'm out of pocket.

2) TalkTalk's DHCP/IP Assignment is the most unreliable thing you ever have seen. Every two days without fail I will loose the IP address on my router, the line sync is fine and stable (on the 2700HG) and it isn't just a problem with me, my thread on their forum has been replied to by a number of users with the same issue.

3) The icing on the cake. Yesterday snow from my roof fell down and took the telephone cable off the wall, ripping all of the cable ties on the way down and showing bare copper on the telephone cable. I phone TalkTalk to report it so I can get a BTOR engineer out to fix it, the Indian CS says he needs to do a line test to identify where my fault is... I explain to him again that my line is laying on the floor (in the snow) and showing some bare copper cable, he says he still needs to do a line test.

Two minutes later he comes back and tells me there is a fault at my local junction box and a BTOR engineer will come out to fix it - I again explain to him that the cable is laying on the floor and that the junction box has nothing to do with it. He accepts this and updates the case and tells me an engineer will be out tomorrow (now today).

12:15pm rolls around today and my girlfriend gets a phone call from TalkTalk saying exactly this:

TT: Hi, it's the Telephone Engineer here, can I speak to Kona* please?
GF: Sorry, he's at work at the moment, can I take a message or give you his mobile number?
TT: No, it's OK. Your phone line is obviously working. Bye.
*hangs up*

Note: I should explain at this point that my phone line does work, intermittently, but as you would expect it's pretty damn intermittent... laying bare copper in the snow and all.

So I go on to TalkTalk's forum and post a thread up there, telling them what has happened and what the Indian CS have (not) done so far. They tell me the call will be escalated to the Network Services team and then pass it on to BTOR.

4pm comes and I get an update on the TT forums saying a BTOR engineer will visit my property (no date/time given) to check the line - I breath a sigh of relief and think that everything is going ahead now.

6:50pm (ish) comes and I get a call from TalkTalk's Indian CS again asking me if I was happy with the resolution to my line fault. Apparently a BTOR engineer had been to the exchange and fixed my problem! Isn't that quite something considering my exchange is several miles away? I again explain that it's not my exchange, junction box or any other thing causing the problem other than the line laying in the snow on the floor outside. He agrees to put the case back to BTOR.

I've posted this on the TT forums and waiting for a response as I really don't have any hope with the Indian CS.

Moral of the story? Avoid TalkTalk.
 
Complete joke another example why foreign call centres do not work, British company's should stop trying to save money and give the customer the best possible service.
 
Without being able to see what TalkTalk are sending to Openreach, a lot of that sounds like the Openreach engineers being useless rather than the TT call centre drones.
 
tolien said:
Without being able to see what TalkTalk are sending to Openreach, a lot of that sounds like the Openreach engineers being useless rather than the TT call centre drones.
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In my experience (I work in IT and deal with a lot of ADSL/SDSL problems) once the problem has reached BT Openreach engineers (and I use the term "engineer" lightly) the problem gets fixed pretty damn quickly. The guy who installed this line was really good, there was an earth somewhere on the line and he found it using only a multimeter. The same goes for all the other times I've had to meet Openreach guys on site, they get the job done so long as it's reported properly.

I think BT Openreach get a bad rep only because the 1st/2nd line tech support is so poor with BT as that's all the customer really speak to. To be fair to the OCE's on the TalkTalk forums they are very helpful and I'm quickly learning they are the only way to get a problem sorted with TalkTalk as the telephone support are, as you put it, drones.

I've no idea how my internet has just came back up, I've took a look at the cable and one core is sheared straight through (it's 2 core cable, not the new 6/8 core)! It must be touching the other split as there is 100% a cut in it!
 
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Having seen the arse that Openreach/Wholesale can make of dealing with faults (although in fairness, mainly the latter), the poor reputation is deserved. I wasn't referring to Retail at all, they're about on par with TalkTalk (wouldn't be that surprised if it was the same call centre).

There's another thread here with someone who's at four engineer visits and your quote implies the engineer was happy to bugger off and hit up the exchange's biscuit stash if you could receive a phone call without asking anything else, which hardly inspires confidence...
 
teaboy5 said:
One thing i noticed. Why are you calling TT abour your phone cable?

Is it a BT line? Call them!
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Even know BT Openreach own the line I have to contact TalkTalk as they are my telephone provider (they just lease the lines from BTOR) unfortunately.

If this isn't fixed by Wednesday then they have bigger issues on their plate as the bin lorry comes down the lane in the morning and that's a damn sight taller than 8/9ft (the hight the cable is at the moment) - it's going to KO the cable and depending on where it breaks, cause more problems for other users.
 
kmufc77 said:
Complete joke another example why foreign call centres do not work, British company's should stop trying to save money and give the customer the best possible service.
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The government should make companies pay a tax for each foreign worker they employ. British companies are happy to take our money but give the jobs to foreigners.
 
Update:

BT Openreach came out this morning and replaced the line as it had two cuts in the copper cores - they have no idea why it was working intermittently, it should have been totally dead! Unfortunately our telephone line has since went dead and I'm awaiting a response on the TalkTalk forum for another BTOR engineer to come out. It seems that you were right regarding the BTOR standard of work tolien :p
 
To be honest this sounds like a fairly typical incident with almost ANY broadband ISP. OK there are exceptions. But generally, 80-90% of consumer-oriented ISPs in the UK will provide a BT line faults service pretty much on-par with the description in the OP.

Sucks, doesn't it.

I would have probably phoned up BT directly and reported it as a voice-line fault (you can't report broadband faults directly to BT). In this particular case, you would have got a engineer on your doorstep a lot quicker.
 
teaboy5 said:
One thing i noticed. Why are you calling TT abour your phone cable?

Is it a BT line? Call them!
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Depends if he's on LLU or not. BT will absolutely positively *not* help you directly if you're line has been unbundled. They will always require that the company that "owns" your line place a support request with them. Although technically I think BT always own the physical line, the ISP/telco can take over responsibility for it... this is where I admit to having less than a totally clear picture of what happens to LLU lines :p

Anyway, it's long been my understanding that the only way to get reliable support from TT is on their forums. However, I signed up with forewarned with that knowledge, so should anything go wrong, I already know to avoid the call centres :p

And they are cheap. Very, very cheap. I mean, £7 for phone and internet? What can you expect at that price?!
 
Another update :)

The telephone service has since become stable, apparently BT do some line tests after work is carried out on your line which makes it drop a few times.

My broadband has started getting a massive amount of HEC Errors, Uncorrectable Packets and massively fluctuating pings since the new line was put in though. My thread has been moved from the telephone faults section to the broadband speed & stability section - just waiting for a reply from them now...

*sighs*

Craig
 
The major aspect is that one does not have a reasonable first point of contact (which of course in this case must be TT) but with someone from a different culture usually limited language abilities, different environment nesting in a third World call center. Added to which good old BT who have no real incentive to be competent ( Look at the money they spread around lobbying governement - it aint wasted) But call centers I hate em The problem is the so called universality of the English Language. When I have a problem with a certain international company that started selling books I use their German center. Ever heard of a third world country where German is the 2nd language - so I don't get to visit the Philippines/India
 
From the sounds of it, you seem to have had an engineer who doesn't seem to care about the job too much. Most of the time this isn't the case as at the end of the day if a job has to have someone else go onto it after an Openreach engineer has fixed the line then they get into a lot of trouble.

It is the same with any company, especially large ones. You get a few bad fish and the whole company gets a bad name.

I have to completely agree about India call centres. They don't listen and understand what is being said!
 
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