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This is yet another gripe about Talk Talk I'm afraid. Last September a 98 year old friend complained to me about his Talk Talk telephone bills and said they seemed to be excessive and increasing.
When I looked at one bill for him I could see that he was making calls in the daytime, whereas he was on the 'Evening and Weekend' tariff. In the previous month he had racked up a bill of over £87, having made many calls to hospitals following a cataract operation. Had he been on Talk Talk's 'Anytime' tariff his bill would have been under £20 according to my calculations. The friend decided to call Talk Talk and request a change to the Talk UK Anytime plan. That is where six months of heartache began.
He seems to have succumbed to some form of 'hard sell' during a call to the India based call centre, as he then received a letter welcoming him to broadband! He has no computer and no plan to acquire one. He cancelled immediately over the telephone and we have written four letters to confirm the cancellation and to request that he be placed on a straightforward telephone service which includes daytime calls in the plan.
He also made many other calls to Talk Talk to try and find out what was happening as we heard nothing about the requested service and, inevitably was passed from one person to another. No replies were received to any of our letters, despite being sent recorded delivery.
I finally succeeded in getting a reply from the Chief Executive's office and have now engaged in a protracted exchange of emails with one of their staff. Talk Talk have accepted their mistake but state categorically that they cannot switch my friend back to a basic telephone service. My friend may be frail and elderly but he is not stupid and his assessment is that Talk Talk are only too happy to upgrade you but not to place you on a plan which will bring in less income for them.
Talk Talk have now offered a refund for the daytime calls made over the last 3 months and suggested a discount of £5+ each month for duration of the 18 month contract. As we think this is an inadequate response we have referred the complaint to Otelo for independent dispute resolution. We also want to know more about the technical aspect of broadband tags on a line because the friend has been told that if he switches to BT he will lose his line for a period.
By: MazMaz
