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TalkTalk connection problems driving me mad

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I have been on TalkTalk for about a year.  I did experience a few problems every so often and even changed my modem on three occasions.  However none of those were a patch on the recent problems I have been encountering with this outfit for the past three and half weeks.  I am generally a very placid person, but I found myself being increasingly irate having become so helpless and frustrated by their service.

My Internet connection has been down so much for extended periods and the telephone too has been either dead or extremely crackly, so much so you can barely have a conversation.

I have called TalkTalks technical support team, based in Delhi, about a dozen times a day.  It is extremely infuriating as you first have to go through the routine security checks.  You then have to explain all over again the difficulties that you are experiencing.  Having to do this several times a day, daily for three weeks has been intolerable.  Also when you dial their 0870 087 8777 number, (even with a poor memory I have now memorised it), the internet connection stays connected but stops again soon after you end the call!

TalkTalk - "technical issues" or "quality issues" at our local exchange

All I have been told by TalkTalk is that there are "technical issues" or "quality issues" at our local exchange and the engineers are working on it.  They say it will last for one, then two, then four days etc. depending on who you speak to.

I had a sick child at home and was totally incensed when they even cut my telephone line for two whole days without any warning.  I could not telephone them to complain either without a phone line!  Also I could not phone them from my pay-as-you-go mobile as often it could take 20 minutes before they answer.  They have in the past kept me waiting for over an hour when directed to call the "higher technical team" or "escalation team".

Each time you call TalkTalk, they make you go through the whole routine of "please check your connections", disconnect each item, switch off, switch on etc etc.  and ask you the same questions, whether you have any other connections, wires, fax, printers, telephone extensions etc.  etc.  as if its the first time.  None of these apply to me.  It's as if they have no customer records!

As I type this gripe my Internet has been disconnecting frequently today and Ive called TalkTalk of course.  The connection may then come back for a minute or so and then disconnect again.  I have called TalkTalk literally about 93 times today, just to get a brief connection.  I will probably develop RSI at this rate and I have spoken to those poor chaps in India at least 5 times, the last call being an hour ago and lasting about 90minutes (including hold time).  Still no joy in resolving the issue by the way!

Phone on a desk, TalkTalk problems have never been more ready to change provider and dont mind paying a little more now just to save myself a lot of grief!  No one knows how long this will take to resolve or even what the problem is.  TalkTalk does not warn you in advance if they wish to cut you off for a few days.  Nor do they apologise to you.  They always make it look as if the fault is at your end.  So much so I was advised to change my modem yet again and even to change three micro filters, all in the last two weeks.  They keep assuring me that they will resolve it.  Yet they do not have the courtesy to send an engineer, even though I have offered to pay for this myself.

My reason for writing this gripe is to provide others with an insight into what level of service they may receive should they consider signing up with TalkTalk.  At least this was my experience and it has been a complete nightmare that has practically reduced me to tears.

By: Gerrald


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Annie

Annie

I so agree. Because I'm a silver surfer I assume it is my ignorance but.......
18/06 Annie
-1
Doleck

Doleck

Talk talk don't talk. Just diagnosis. Should be called don't don't
12/12 Doleck
0
Lesels

Lesels

It's driving me crazy - no WiFi between 11pm and 9am every day
24/05/21 Lesels
1
Jeffus

Jeffus

Totally agree.
We went through the same stupid rigmarole. Pulling things out of sockets when we knew that the problem wasn't with us.
They made us wait for a week for a so called engineer.He said he was going to check the internal sockets and then said "they are all OK, we will have to call out a BT engineer".
BT engineer turns up says "the outside connection was wired up wrong". HELLO its been working fine for 9 years.
Recently Talk Talk came again and changed the router. My wife tested the down load speed when he was here. He said it was a lot faster than it actually was. When my wife mentioned this to him he said "oh we don't us that app".
Signal dropping in and out every few seconds now.Driving us bonkers.
We have to change but who's any better. Our signal is via the phone line no cable connection available.
01/12/17 Jeffus
1
Mikafreak

Mikafreak

I have been with Talktalk for 3 years now. Having to use ADSL where I live, there isn't much choice. I was on Virgin Media, but their connection wqas really bad and slow. TT offered 3 x the speed at a much lower cost. So I change. However, this last 12 months have been horrendous. Constant disconnections, happening every 2 mins after reconnecting for hours up to days on end. I phone to report that, and the first thing I get after going through all the security bumf is "you need an engineer to call, that will be £65".. Not going to happen. It is a problem at their end not mine. I have told them tonight after spending yet, many more hours on the phone to them to resolve this issue, that I am reporting them to trading standards. I am paying for a service I am not receiving. Therefore they are in breach of our contract. And I will be looking for a new provider, that can hopefully supply ADSL to the top of the Pennines, at a reasonable cost.
19/11/15 Mikafreak
0
talktalk all talk zero service

talktalk all talk zero service

Let me add my bit to his page. I'm sure it will be continued !!
On the 30th August 2014 I made the mistake of ordering a phone & broadband diservice from talktalk !! After a 2 week wait and receiving a confirmation of the order, I'm told that as a stupid customer I haven't place my order correctly !! Than it transpired that there was a phone line problem and it was blamed on BT. Talktalk great customer service employees on one occassion went as far as to tell me that if I don't like it I can go elsewhere (in those exact words) !! When I explained that I need the phone line ASAP as I have a child with a disability and the area I'm living in has a very poor mobile reception, there answer was a sympatatic one but that's how it is. So another ordered gets processed and I have to wait for another 2 weeks. Close to the date I receive another text telling me that there is a problem once more !!! After kicking up a fuss about it I get connected with Michael Moran from their CEO office. THings started to move so I hoped. Eventually I got broadband and a couple of days later a phone line. I thought things were finally over. Compensation three months service, when I said that this wasn't enough for the amount of calls I had to make on my mobile and while travelling on business to sort this out the answer from the CEO office was that I should be thankful as it wasn't their problem !!

A week and a half into using the service I start experiencing problems getting into various websites. So I call Talktalk and am told that I have a temporary service and have not got fibre broadband yet !! Why I ask ?? Oh silly me again I did something wrong in the order again !! Forget all the phone calls and the email confirmations I received !! So I call Michael Moran from the CEO office again and he doesn't answer me for two days. Than my phone line goes dead !! Since I am now totally annoyed I go on twitter and tweet about this - Suddenly Michael Moran calls me !!! WOW amazing !! He than proceeded to tell me that he had told me that it would be a temporary service to which I replied he had not and that this was not correct and I asked for a recording of this conversation ! As a customer, what do I get ? Thsi guy starts yelling at me and treating me like I'm some idiot and when I remind him that I'm the customer he said that he cannot deal with me and is going to ask for my case to be assigned to another person in the CEO office. Well two weeks later and no one calls from the CEO office not even to apologise. I finally get my phone line back after two days ! And my much promised Fibre broadband is due on the 26 October !! So the 26 October arrives and now my internet is completely dead !! Not only do I not have fibre optic but no internet at all. Call talktalk and they tell me to wait 48 hours until an engineer comes over and if it is found that it is my fault (once again) I will be billed 50 GBP !! Amazing customer service at it's finest !! No wonder ofcom has stated that this is one of the worst serviced providers ! Now I know where they got this reputation from !! It's all true !! To be continued ...........
27/10/14 talktalk all talk zero service
0
Diane

Diane

I can;t believe I have been charged £50 for fixing a router fault, which belongs to Talk Talk!. If they couldn't repair it and given me a new one, that would have been free, but to charge for THERE faulty goods is unbelievable. If I bought an electrical appliance and it went wrong in a year, it would have been repaired or replaced free of charge. I will never deal with these people again.
24/09/14 Diane
0
Lunden

Lunden

I am having similar problems. Ranting now! I have TalkTalk to my house (my second line) for alarm purposes. I stupidly disconnected it before because I use another provider for work and internet purposes. The alarm engineer told me to have the phone line reconnected. So I contacted TT to ask them to reconnect the line, which was not a problem, so long as I took the broadband services as well (I thought, fine a back up broadband service, great!). This was in July 2013. We are now almost in November. Since July, the TalkTalk phone line nor broadband hasn't worked. I have spent hours and hours on the phone trying to sort this out with them and have had various escallations as well. We have a crossed line, where the phone line coming into the house is not on the number that we have been given (issue 1). Issue 2 is when I called up, they said there were issues with the local exchange. So I checked with my neighbour who is less than 20ft away from my house to see if they are experiencing any problems with their TalkTalk line (they are not and never have, you'd think we would be on the same exchange!) and also online (through my other service provider) to check the status of the main exchange where they are claiming there are issues. None found! I then phoned TT back and they stated it was on another exchange (interesting an exchange that doesn't exist (I work in communications and have some aptitude) via online check. Now I have been told that the issue will be fixed by tomorrow evening 22nd October. Well lets see. If not, I am paying for a private engineer from my end to see if there is anything I have done wrong (I haven't moved anything or changed anything to the house internally from a communications perspective, apart from that line being disconnected and reconnected, nothing has change) but just to cover my back before I take this officially and write a "Deadlock Letter" and go to the Ombusman. Utterly utterly fed up with TT. They are one of the cheapest service providers and there is a saying "you get for what you pay for", so frustrating. I am going to be moving back to BT for this second line and I will TRY to get the past 4 months of money paid to TalkTalk, plus the hours spent on the phone trying to sort it out reimbursed. Extremely disattisfied TalkTalk customer.
21/10/13 Lunden
1
Ray

Ray

alk Talk should be shut down as their service is abysmal. In the beginning we could not connect, after hours of trying to speak to someone we end speaking to someone outside the UK, spending a fortune on my mobile whilst abroad to try and solve the problem over a week. Eventually after a lengthy expensive conversation they told me I could have an engineer attend in 5-6 weeks time and I had to pay for him. I was livid. Eventually a friend sorted out the problem. Now I have been without a phone and internet for three days. They say it is a line fault and would contact me within 48 hours but no luck. It may be a bank holiday in UK but its is not for me in business. I cannot find a person to talk to and I found a phone number that requires 8 minutes to answer at 14p per minute. I am sick of them and will report them to the trading standards and I am willing to gather together information on everyone who has had such sick problems and approach the media and anyone who can get the message out as to how useless they are so as to oust them out of business as this is nothing short of severe misrepresentation of a public service.
09/09/13 Ray
-1
Bob

Bob

how do i get away from talktalk in december i had to cancel my contract as i was moving and they could not suply broadband where i live now but they would not do it and now are trying to get money from me for a service i have not used they are not going to get anything and now they say they will cancel my contract in 3 weeks but they still expect me to pay them they are liars and are decietfull they will stop at nothing to get money DONT GO NEAR THEM AT ANY COST
20/02/13 Bob
-2
TT2013NUTS

TT2013NUTS

Talk Talk RUBBISH

Before 27th Jan 2013 my download speeds are fast now......

I have very slow download speeds and upload speeds that are such a pain that I have been asking Talk Talk what is wrong with my phone exchange I also get cracking noise on my phone and sometimes cuts of calls the new phone can someone fix it the exchange for me the man one of the Managers of the company said yes it should take up to 72 hours for a text but no luck I been waitting since 27th Jan 2013 when the problems started I lost 40% of my speed but the Managers said I put you on the large speeds and it costing me more money and this is odd the speed is alot slower when it should be two times the speed.

1 - I cheesed of with Talk Talk
2 - Don't care about customer just take there money
3 - Lots of phone called over 30 no luck :-(
4 - Download/Upload speeds very slow

3 out of 10
20/02/13 TT2013NUTS
-5
decading talktalk  internet service

decading talktalk internet service

HORRIBLE CONNECTION PROBLEMS WITH TALKTALK
I've been with Talktalk since their early launch or start as internet providers signing with them for an initial 18 moths... that time expired but I continued with them for many further years on free basis but when I got a new Pc running on Windows 7 their old modem was obsolete and when I rang them they said I have to sign again a contract with them for 18 mths in order to get another modem windowsw 7 compatible ...I found that annoying as I was not leaving them I just wanted to keep connected and stay with them despite their poor broadband speed which has never ever ever been more them 6.5 stuffbites in my case .. I told them that I was with them since early 2000s and why treat me like this. They wouldn'y bother ...I signed anyway with them a new contract for 18 mths about a year or so ago and since then I get disconected each time and every time I get to my pc.. I got my pc 3 times now completely cleaned up by proceding to a FULL recovery which means to destroy every piece of software and files which didn't come with it when purchased ...but I am still stuck ...I couldn't even put my PC back on line or able to use it and send an e mail to complain as I got disconnected again and again ....The only reply I received (when I got connected for few mins ) is "Oh you didn't provide your account number " while my complaint was sent on my account in their own secure site...sad isn't it
03/01/13 decading talktalk internet service
-3
shirley

shirley

Hi All.
I too have had ongoing problems with TalkTalk since Carphone Warehouse too over. Our internet connection is erratic and I have spoken to countless numbers of customer service technical dept "experts". This has been going on for 5 months now and each time I have been told to check my cables, plug the reuter into a different 'phone socket. One guy told me there were problems in our area and that in a few hours all would be fine. I called again after 10 minutes and spoke to somebody else who said there was NO problem in our area. Yesterday, I called again and spent 1hr and 15 on the 'phone and was GUARANTEED that all would function correctly. The guy said he was going to use a different "channel" and give us a better speed. What a load of HUMBUG!!

I am changing provider going with BT and getting a better deal.

Good Luck to you all. There are so many options out there. Once just has to sit down and do the research and speak to other providers.

At least customer service is UK based.
27/11/12 shirley
-5
jeebs

jeebs

We are having the same problems as everyone else on here, we were on tiscalli before and there was never any fault with the service, as soon as TTBB took over s**thit the fan, also to top it off, my dad died over 4 months ago and they are still charging him for this crap service, i have cancelled it once already , and yet they still take the money.
my advice is to stay away from this outfit.
18/11/12 jeebs
-5
bluecat

bluecat

I am experiencing very similar problems with internet speed dropping. Had chosen Fibre Optic but the speeds drops down to what it used to be before. This has been going on for over 2 months now. I have spent hours and hours repeating myself and was so angry!! I still have not got anywhere with the technical problems. I have filed a complaint and had a refund for the months without service or lack of service. The person from complaints give me her direct number to call back if there was another problem. The problems remains and I have left 3 messages on her phone. No one phones back. Their call centres are all over the world. There is such a lack of communication between departments and sometimes you just get broken off and have to start again. Also the landline went dead for 8 days. I had so many contradicting messages sitting home waiting for an engineer. When I rang to find out if the engineer was coming or not; I was told they never come out on saturday. BUt someone promised yesterday: we have escalated etc after 12.30 tomorrow, you will have an engineer etc. etc. Sick of it !!! After a long battle I had the mobile phone expenses refunded as it costed me £ 30.- to ring TalkTalk from my mobile. Why on earth do they not ring you back on your mobile? some say they cannot ring back, but some do ! I only spoke to one engineer whom I could have a normal conversation with. All other people are reading lines from a screen and do not listen to what you are saying. It is so repetitive, it is driving me insane. My next step will be to get out of this contract and sign up with a different supplier. Shame.
20/04/12 bluecat
-4

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