TalkTalk slams slamming charges TalkTalk has denied ISP industry allegations it is stealing thousands of customers from competitors every month. BT-owned outfit PlusNet has led other ISPs in accusing TalkTalk of "slamming" - migrating broadband lines to its network without permission from the subscriber. PlusNet estimated 2,500 broadband customers were being …
It took Talktalk four months to set up our phone services. We had rude emails from them when we complained, and then it took them another two months to disconnect our line when we moved house.
I'm not sure if they're willingly devious or just incompetent, but either way I wouldn't p*** on them if they were on fire.
And companies slam if it makes them more than they get fined. It's as simple as that. I speak as a former expert on compliance in the telecomms arena in the UK, including being in charge of the team monitoring BT Telemarketing's Advisors for 18 months back in the mid-nineties.
Mind you, I also find it somewhat amusing when people fail to work out that it isn't worth risking business-critical services for a saving of a fiver a month, or some similar paltry sum.
Talk Talk have just changed my broadband without my permission and without a Migration Access Code. In fact, my wife specifically told them we already had a broadband provider and we weren't interested in changing immediately and was told they couldn't migrate our broadband until they had an access code anyway, so the ball was in our court.
I noticed that my broadband modem wasn't managing to log in after coming back from a week's holiday in Italy. I'd been sent login details (which I assumed were for my online account but which I knew would work as an ADSL login/password beacause I'd set up my mother-in-law's), so I changed the login details in the modem, and hey presto! I had broadband again.
My former ISP (Force9, owned by PlusNet) were very helpful and didn't complain or try to offer me a special deal that would end up costing me more money (which is what Bulldog tried to do in the past) and have behaved like a paragon of service providers.
If it wasn't for the fact that I'm saving £22 per month, I'd have stayed with Force9. And if Talk Talk provide me with a rubbish service, I might just go back to them.
I speak to at least 10 people per week, in this job and in my last one where TalkTalk/ OPAL Telecom have stolen the broadband line. The customers all DO seem to agree that they have agreed to take on a talktalk landline.
They call wondering why they can no longer authenticate to theyre ISP service. Only to find out that the DSL signal they are recieving, is no longer coming from the ISP they thought it was, but from TalkTalks tag (which turns out be a nightmare for the customer remove).
I read this story, and its a good escuse the PR guy comes off with 'cant say it never happens, but dont know if its down to human, or systems error'.
I call BS on that, happens on far too great of a scale for this to have always went unnoticed. I would say they recieve at least 500 complaints a month about this.
"We don't do that, and even if we do, we didn't mean to, and even if we meant to, it's not all that frequent. Sort of"
In the US we don't have unbundled service in most areas. So the only criminals are the telcos and cable companies. You can get all sorts of attractive rates, but they don't tell you what the rate will be after the teaser expires.
...or at least, that would be my guess.
I'm a TalkTalk customer, and what I get for that is poor service for a ridiculously small price. (For me, £5 / month *is* a deal breaker; this is the only way I can afford broadband at all.)
I've not had much contact with their customer support, but given that their margins must be very small indeed, I'm guessing that it's pretty crap. Fine by me; I get what I pay for. A bit rough on those that didn't want to switch away from another ISP, I agree...
BT are supposed to block any LLU move if PSTN services such as ADSL are still present. It is their system that cocks up and allows the move, resulting in a "slam" the LLU operator is not notified and therefore knows nothing and is blamless. Direct your questions to BT not the LLU operator.
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