Talk Talk any good?

[shaun24]

Hello,

Not sure if this is in the right topic, if not then please accept my apology.

On Friday 5th of this month I switched over to talk talk for (tv, Phone and Broadband) and my phone line and broadband goes live on 19th of April however just wondering is talk talk a good company?

Also anyone got Youview from them? is it any good? a advicer said I will get youview box shortly as I am installing it myself.

Reason why I decided to switch as at the moment I am with bt and its to expensive, I tried getting youview from bt but they charging me £45.00 for youview box and £100 deposit which I can't afford right now.

But with talk talk I get the youview box for free

Just want your opinions on Talk Talk

Cheers

Regards

 

[BomoLad]

They have a lot of complaints. Their manager or someone was on Radio 4 a few weeks ago defending their customer service record.

 

[pandemic]

The last time I read the annual Ofcom report, they came up as the most complained about service.

 

[Deleted member 51156]

We have the talk talk top tier broadband and have had zero problems, so far an excellent service...

 

[Shared]

I've been with them for about 9/10 years now for internet access, with only 2 minor issues in all that time, both sorted out reasonably quickly, left BT to go with them for phone as well about 5 years ago and not had a problem with that, I have Sky for TV.

They do have, or did have a really bad record for customer service but my own experience has been pretty good.

 

[Artie Fufkin]

We've had talktalk for calls and internet for a year now and also have the youview box. No problems here.

 

[k17chy]

Been with them for 3 years. No problems so far.

 

[wilbanat]

Had them for 4 years only had one problem with broadband and they wanted me to borrow someone else router to see if that was the problem....Which went down well ....apart from that they were great...Only went over to Sky to get all on one bill and get a shiny new router.

 

[Rawschach]

was on BT and switched to talk talk - numerous problems with broadband cutting out which they were unable to do anything about. When we cancelled our contract with them we noticed during the 1m notice period that amazingly the broadband worked perfectly. Almost like they had fixed it to try and get us to stay (that can't be right though or they would have fixed it whilst we were paying for their service surely...)

also had problems with BT and their customer service was pretty lame. I suspect most companies in this area are very similar - make the choice that suits you best and cross your fingers!!!

 

[Eric]

I have been thinking of these also. We pay almost £30 for broadband and calls right now and they seem to have good deals.

Complaints are putting me off though :/

 

[Goooner]

Was on Pipex that got switched to Talk Talk, absolute nightmare, couldn't get away quick enough.

 

[Eric]

I remember Pipex! I think it was my first provider or very very close to!

Cheers for that though. Might be worth trying localized reviews of the service?

 

[figoagogo]

Hi. We have been with talk talk for 3 years now, we get a good speed of about 14mbs (it was estimated to be around 16 to 17, obviously exchange and location specific). No billing issues etc.

They have a forum and if you use it as they ask you to its very effective for technical help and the guys seem to know their stuff.

We recently got you view, not bad but like many stbs the navigation and menus are slow and cumbersome, however its reliable and it works.

 

[aVdub]

We was with AOL for a while and then they were bought out by Talk Talk. The service has been great for us for years.
When we were thinking of moving we ended up staying because they gave us unlimited net, free all day calls and line rental for £21 a month. It might even be slightly less than that....

Obviously the free calls are not all numbers and unlimited is within reason, but what we get can't be faulted.

 

[hyperfish]

I have been thinking of these also. We pay almost £30 for broadband and calls right now and they seem to have good deals.

Complaints are putting me off though :/

Its easy the blame the ISP but an issue could be in the exchange or elsewhere.

I have been with them about four years and have almost sacked them several times. I stopped short as switching the line back to BT seems to be a ball-ache.

The issue was lack of speed and the conection dropping occasionally. I'll give credit where due, they have always tried to sort my issues and even sent an engineer to change my master socket free of charge.

I got a call a few weeks ago talking about special offers and the usual guff which I went along with as there was nothing on TV. Anyway with nothing to loose I took a free TV box, unlimited data and I asked for an updated router which they agreed to.

I ran the new router over the cooling off period and the issues are gone. But this also coincides with work at the local exchange. So I cant say for certain what the fix was.

 

[shaun24]

Thanks for your feedback guys but I want to learn more about Youview, I read on talk talk forums that people having problems with the recording freeview channels as they recordings keep coming back failed.

 

[Goooner]

Hi. We have been with talk talk for 3 years now, we get a good speed of about 14mbs (it was estimated to be around 16 to 17, obviously exchange and location specific). No billing issues etc.

They have a forum and if you use it as they ask you to its very effective for technical help and the guys seem to know their stuff.

We recently got you view, not bad but like many stbs the navigation and menus are slow and cumbersome, however its reliable and it works.

When I got switched to them, my already poor 1.3mb speed dropped to 750kb overnight, the upspeed had doubled to 500kb or something, then the down speed dropped further to around 400k!

I had numerous phone calls over a two month period, basically given the run around. Several times when on the phone they got my account mixed up with somebody else's. They lied about phoning my mobile when there were no missed calls or anything. They told me they were sending an engineer on three separate occasions, never turned up on any if them.

You may be able to get good support from the forum, but I couldn't, having been migrated from Pipex when they were taking over, I still had a Pipex email address, so I couldn't register in the TT customer forums and nobody on the Pipex forum could or would do anything because it was a TT problem.

Like I said, couldn't get away quick enough.

 

[jasonf01]

When I moved out to a small town near wakefield a couple of years ago they were the only LLU provider in the area.

I read the reviews and made my choice, which wasnt TalkTalk. Instead I chose Orange over BT. 4-9Mb promised, I got 0.5Mb for the year, with Orange and BT pointing the finger at each other saying it was the other persons fault.

Checked after a year and found a few other companies providing LLU services, I went with Sky. They claimed 4-9Mb, I got 2Mb but they managed to fix the issue that BT and Orange couldnt, and I got a steady 3.5-4.5Mb from that point on until I moved back to civilisation (and a lovely 15Mb connection).

Granted, this isnt much about TalkTalk, but there was an article on The Register not long ago saying that TalkTalk were bottom for the last 3 years, but this year theyve lost the bottom place to...Orange. To be frank, im not surprised. I cant imagine that another company could have gotten any worse than my experience of Orange, and its nice to see theres some kind of correlation between my experience and the results of this particular broadband survey.

With Regards To TalkTalk, boy, did I ever wish Id gone with them. Why not go with TalkTalk and share the experience? You could always switch at any time, though if youre on a long contract like I was, you may have to pay some to get out of it. I paid Orange something like £40 to get out of my 18 month contract after 13 months, which was probably the best investment I ever made in Orange.

Jas.

 

[Fishgold]

Over 4 years with TalkTalk broadband with no problems that I can remember or can currently moan about.

 

[w3dal]

We have the talk talk top tier broadband and have had zero problems, so far an excellent service...

Likewise.

 

[FishDUDE]

Unsure

 

[Piscauk]

They offer great value deals, but I could never go back to them.

Cut and pasted from a previous TalkTalk discussion, my story:

A series of letters, phone calls etc took place in the summer of 2009. It was an ongoing issue; as we had ordered, and been paying for phone line/broadband since April, but had yet to receive the service by June, they agreed to termintate our contract; based on them having never actually provided the service I was paying for! Thought no more of it, switched our provider. Then got a bill the following month; I phoned TalkTalk, who were very apologetic, assured me it would never happen again. Except for the following 3 months!

Every month I had the same call, the same apologies, the same offer of crediting my bank account. Every month, the same cycle of take money, TalkTalk admit freely to the problem.

Around 6 months down the line, TalkTalk offered me a credit of around £180 in terms of money taken without authorisation. I accepted, the credit was never refunded. HSBC then stepped in, to look at recovering the money.

Move on to around September 2010, some 9 months or so later, a bailiff letter arrives. From our old friends TalkTalk. Of course, the usual apology came, stating they hadnt got round to cancelling our account, although fortunately no further money had been taken.

Honestly, it was like being stalked. I could not shake them off, and by their own admission, despite paying however much to them, they had never even provided the service we had paid for at any point.

Sadly, mine is a tale I have heard repeated both within the online community and some other friends who lived together and fell for the same trap

Strangest thing really, was there was no dispute here. TalkTalk customer services admitted throughout no charges should have been made, which I certainly agreed with, yet still continued bothering me.

 

[Stuey1]

They offer great value deals, but I could never go back to them.

Cut and pasted from a previous TalkTalk discussion, my story:

A series of letters, phone calls etc took place in the summer of 2009. It was an ongoing issue; as we had ordered, and been paying for phone line/broadband since April, but had yet to receive the service by June, they agreed to termintate our contract; based on them having never actually provided the service I was paying for! Thought no more of it, switched our provider. Then got a bill the following month; I phoned TalkTalk, who were very apologetic, assured me it would never happen again. Except for the following 3 months!

Every month I had the same call, the same apologies, the same offer of crediting my bank account. Every month, the same cycle of take money, TalkTalk admit freely to the problem.

Around 6 months down the line, TalkTalk offered me a credit of around £180 in terms of money taken without authorisation. I accepted, the credit was never refunded. HSBC then stepped in, to look at recovering the money.

Move on to around September 2010, some 9 months or so later, a bailiff letter arrives. From our old friends TalkTalk. Of course, the usual apology came, stating they hadnt got round to cancelling our account, although fortunately no further money had been taken.

Honestly, it was like being stalked. I could not shake them off, and by their own admission, despite paying however much to them, they had never even provided the service we had paid for at any point.

Sadly, mine is a tale I have heard repeated both within the online community and some other friends who lived together and fell for the same trap

Strangest thing really, was there was no dispute here. TalkTalk customer services admitted throughout no charges should have been made, which I certainly agreed with, yet still continued bothering me.

That was recognised by ofcom and talk talk were fined between 2-3 millions pounds and I believe the problem has been rectified...

It also needs to be understood that if a fault occurs with the actual broadband/phone and an engineer is sent out that is usually a bt openreach engineer rather than an isp's own engineer, so the service you get in this regard "should" be equal from all isps...

 

[Rorifett]

Throttled speeds, constant buffering on iPlayer etc come evening time, **** poor customer service. Leaving to see if BT are any worse... Only got 3 choices here, sky the last one when BT turn out crap

 

[Veni Vidi Vici]

The problem with asking advice with any company is you will always get good and bad opinions, normally bad ones on forums like this. A member of my family has Talk Talk and they have been good for them, I wouldn't worry unduly.