ISP Reviews by JohnA

I was getting pretty fed up with broadband constantly dropping out and dreadful customer service. As my prepaid line rental and contract were due to expire I called TalkTalk to see if they would make me a really good offer not to leave. After much haggling they did, including all calls to UK landlines and mobiles, and fibre at 76Mb/s.

After my line rental and contract had expired I called again to see if they were as good as their word. No chance! I was told that phone calls would cost extra, and fibre was only available at 38Mb/s. I said that this was not what I had been promised, so the person I was speaking to said he would check and phone me back the next day.

No phone call was ever received, just an email congratulating me on having signed up to a new 18 month contract. I then spent two hours on the phone, including once being disconnected by an Indian call centre, before I got someone to accept that I had never agreed to a new contract and I wanted it cancelled immediately.

This was the last straw. I immediately took out a contract with another provider. As a result I received another email from TalkTalk saying that I owed nearly £400 in contract breakage fees.

If I detailed everything that happened over the next two months it would be too long for anyone to bother to read it, but sufficient to say that after many hours on the phone, sending emails and writing letters I eventually got TalkTalk to accept that I owed them nothing. Fortunately I'm retired. If I was still working I would never have had the time to sort this mess out.

My advise to anyone thinking of joining TalkTalk is not to be seduced by special offers. They will do anything to get you to sign up, and then make it as difficult as possible to leave. Also the standard of customer service at all levels is utterly abysmal.

My advice to anyone with TalkTalk who wants to leave is to download a phone recording app onto your mobile phone and use it for all calls to TalkTalk. They are remarkably reluctant to put anything in writing, and they don't seem to like it at all if you tell them that you're recording a call. Also, if in desperation you write to the head of complaints at the CEO's office don't think that you're talking to anyone important. There seem to be several people who use this title, and I suspect they're nowhere near the CEO's office.