TalkTalk and AOL Broadband billing rant!!!!

[Elaine]

What a bloody evening I have had at my parents.
They signed up with AOL broadband, oh well over two years ago or so.
My father pays via his card. At the begining of the year he had no connection and then recieved a letter stating that he was owe them 2 months payment as he had cancelled his card. My father was perplexed by this as he hadnt cancelled his card at all. He called his bank who had informed him that AOL hadnt presented anything to take payment from his card. His card had changed but all the numbers were the same.
I then called TalkTalk/AOL, re-submitted his card details, paid the outstanding balance and that should have been that.
Since then they have been taking, which seems to me, random amounts from his card each month since.
He once again has no internet, so I went out there this evening to help sort it out. I had all his card statements infront of me stating the amounts AOL had taken from the card EACH month and still they say he is in arears.
In April he paid £23.79, May nothing was taken, June £46.75, July £23.79, August £51.50, September £46.75 and they say they are waiting for payments for Sep/Oct which is why he has no connection, they say they havent taken the £51.50 and that the card has been cancelled again.
I have called them 6 times this evening, twice they hung up on me coz they said I wasnt listening to them and twice they gave me other numbers to call which are nothing to do with billing complaints. they even disputed the £23.79 payment saying it was £23.75 which was paid. But I had the statements infront of me.....
They said they "couldnt" tell me who I can complain to about all of this and that they wont give me the MAC code until the arears have been paid.
HORRLICKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lynz85]

I HATE TALK TALK!!!

they are a terrible company, i hope you get this mess sorted soon!

[dandysmom]

Dear God! Unbelievable. :shock:

Contact your member of Parliament for help? Do you have a lawyer friend who'd write them a testy letter (free)?

[Elaine]

Have since spoken to a guy from BT who said that they are legally obliged to give me the MAC code and to complain to Ofcom. He also told me that TalkTalk were recently fined by Ofcom due to their shoddy standards.

[Velvet]

Talk talk bought Tiscali over - need i say more.... :(

Hope you dad gets sorted, that is appalling way to treat customers

[Elaine]

Update, after another 4 phone calls, 2 transfered to god knows where but no one answered. The Mac Code is being sent out by post. What a hassle, now they tell us that we are like family and they dont want to lose our business, I said ofcourse you dont that's why you treat people in such an appalling manner and charge them double each month. The last guy I spoke to, Denver, said that we MUST pay our bills, I said absolutely not, would he pay for a service he wasnt getting, I was put on hold then he came back and told me that the Mac code was being posted out to us.

[angieh]

What a horrendous hassle. Years ago when we got our first PC we had a free sign up to Tiscali. Still have it ........ not sure when or if TalkTalk will cut the threads .......... Luckily not with them as ISP.

[Elaine]

I had a similar problem with Tiscali years ago, ended up I wrote to the JUDGE in the sunday post and he sorted it all out for me.

[Velvet]

I had a similar problem with Tiscali years ago, ended up I wrote to the JUDGE in the sunday post and he sorted it all out for me.

I was going to suggest your dad did that. Sunday Post are excellent

[TalkTalkSupport]

HI Elaine,

Im sorry to hear about the problems you have experienced. I am an Online Community Executive with TalkTalk. We provide online support and assistance to customers who post online regarding issues with their TalkTalk Services.


With respect to your issues the reason for differing amounts each month is reflective of different usage. The DD will vary depending how many or few calls are made outside of the tariff.


We will need to look into this in more detail. We operate an Online forum to provide account support should you wish to use this as an alternative to telephony support that we offer to customers whom we engage with online. Your free to join the TalkTalk Members Forum and post the details fo your issue should you wish and our dedicated OCE will assist in any way we can.



Regards

Mark
TalkTalk Online Community Executive
TalkTalk Online Community Department
TalkTalkplc

[paulinef2]

Elaine, I would put a complaint in to ofcom as talk talk have been fined a large amount recently for overcharging their customers being warned and then failing to sort the issue. I wouldn't put yourself through anymore stress and probably expense calling them.

[Elaine]

HI Elaine,

Im sorry to hear about the problems you have experienced. I am an Online Community Executive with TalkTalk. We provide online support and assistance to customers who post online regarding issues with their TalkTalk Services.


With respect to your issues the reason for differing amounts each month is reflective of different usage. The DD will vary depending how many or few calls are made outside of the tariff.


We will need to look into this in more detail. We operate an Online forum to provide account support should you wish to use this as an alternative to telephony support that we offer to customers whom we engage with online. Your free to join the TalkTalk Members Forum and post the details fo your issue should you wish and our dedicated OCE will assist in any way we can.



Regards

Mark
TalkTalk Online Community Executive
TalkTalk Online Community Department
TalkTalkplc

Thankyou for your response but the issue is with the AOL Broadband, which I am pretty sure when my father signed up it was £19 per month and not £23 and certainly not £49 or £51 every other month.
I have discussed the issue 10 times now with your telephony "support" (a word which is used loosly as there was no support) and am utterly apalled at the way it wasnt dealt with and am even more angered by the persistence of the chap on the second last call to try to get us to stay with TalkTalk, didnt offer anything just kept insisting that we were like family to him. Crazy behaviour.
Anyway, we ARE putting all of this in writting complete with copies of the bank statements to Ofcom as the whole thing was an absolute disgrace.

[truthisouthere]

Elaine Talk Talk are AWFUL!! And I give credit where credit's due, but this company are so far up their own a****, they treated me really badly when I was with them.

I also had a problem with them taking an unusually large amount from my account one month by DD. They just couldn't and wouldn't explain it. I eventually received the usual standard wordplay from them in a similar correspondance to yours when I took it higher, and ONLY when I took it higher, but it still was never sorted, they just totally blanked the whole scenario like it never happened after the initial correspondance. I have never dealt with a company so arrogant. They really don't care, Talk Talk Talk Talk is just that, all talk! Needless to say I left them for a better provider.

[Stephan]

I used to be with AOHell-nobody would recognise my account or phone number even though they took the money every month.

They even set the debt collectors on us after I had cancelled the account. As Jenny was not long out of hospital and undergoing radiotherapy 5 days a week we just paid up to be rid of them.

[JMPARK]

Ho Elaine!
Go Straight To Offcom Anyway! These People , As Bt , Have Already Said, Have Been Find, And The More People Who Complain About Them The Better.
If You Don't Get The Mac Number Within The Next Few Days, Then You Really Should Go To Them (ofcom)
They Should Also Refund You The Money Already Paid To Them, As You Havn't Received Your Broadband To Start With!
Ime With Sky And athough Not The Fastest They Have Always Helped Me Whenever I Have Had A Problem.
Good Luck

[truthisouthere]

Elaine this has all the makings of a valid warning to all to be aired on BBC's Watchdog..AOL are acting above the law on several counts and they need to be exposed. I'm PM'ing you..

[TalkTalkSupport]

HI Elaine,


I can certainly appreciate the frustration this issue may have caused. The TT Members Forum are actually equipped to handle both AOL and TalkTalk queries (the OCE are multi-brand skilled in order to provide as much support to TalkTalk Group customers as possible) via the forum so we are still able to help.

With regards errorneous bills you should always be presented a bill breaking down the charges and the reasons for this. Your entitled to dispute any bills you wish and these will be investigated.


If you regster on the TalkTalk Members Forum we can look into this in more depth and provide you assistance and support. We can also provide feedback to any telephony support teams you may have experienced issues with.

Regards

Mark
TalKTalk Online Community Executive
TalkTalk Online Community Department

[lynz85]

:shock: eh???:shock:

[truthisouthere]

Lynz what Talk Talk are basically saying is get in touch with us again but you must get in touch with us the way WE ask you in order to get things sorted (classic stalling technique) which they have no intention of sorting anyway because they would have done this when Elaine tried countless times to have a reasonable and constructive conversation with them and then they'll take her round in circles again. In a nutshell.

[Elaine]

Which is why I will just be going to Ofcom with all of this instead.

[truthisouthere]

I used to be with AOHell-nobody would recognise my account or phone number even though they took the money every month.

They even set the debt collectors on us after I had cancelled the account. As Jenny was not long out of hospital and undergoing radiotherapy 5 days a week we just paid up to be rid of them.

Stephen that's awful, sorry to hear that.

[Elaine]

Mac code came through today.;) Goodbye TalkTalk/AOL.

[Elaine]

Back on this rubbish again.

Installed my dads bt hub today and still cannt get online, it keeps coming up with AOL and some rubbish about being behind in payments. I have un-installed AOL and still this rubbish keeps popping up and we cannt get connected. Cannt get any help from BT as they are not open to phone enquiries till tomorrow. It seems that the 24-7 help from BT is online help, this is all well and good if you can actually get online!
I am not sure if this is an AOL issue but am assuming that it is as they are an absolute nightmare.

[dandysmom]

Honestly, Elaine, this is just too much! Will you ever get it straightened out???

[Elaine]

Honestly, Elaine, this is just too much! Will you ever get it straightened out???

I dont know Eileen but I'll keep you posted xx

[Velvet]

Hair pulling out time. My brother keeps telling me to go to BT but I've changed before and it's a nightmare.

[Elaine]

Sorted, found a programe to remove all, had a few probs getting the bt to work, called them and they were extremely helpful, and polite.

[Kirsty88]

I was with Tiscali and Talk Talk bought over and the speeds to my internet dropped badly, so i tryed to cancel and said i was in contract so i would have to pay £200 but never did and never heard from them so obv they lied.

Glad you got it sorted. :)

[Elaine]

My father still gets letters from debt collection agencies, threatening him with court action over it.

[EmmaG]

We had terrible problems with talk talk after they bought out Tiscalli who were fantastic, decided to change providers, then they started to try and chase for money when they weren't even our providers, after about 10 calls to them we wrote to them and invoiced THEM for our time trying to deal with (they hadn't entered an end date on our account) gave them 14 days to pay otherwise I would take it straight to the court and let a judge decided who was in the right. Well they soon sorted themselves out AND paid the money and we got a letter of apology.

sometime I think this is the only way to deal with these muppets.!!! Also Elaine I would do a quick letter to the collection agency telling them it is in dispute, legally I believe they cannot then chase for the money or it looks bad if it ever went to court.

Don't let these companies get away with it and don't be frightened about having to go to court and explain what has happened, judges are normal everyday people and a lot of these companies would lose if it ever went that far x if you need any help I am happy to construct a very strongly worded letter.. X

[Velvet]

Their service is absolute rubbish. I got better service on dial up.