TalkTalk are fuckin' useless

[SteveHopwood]

TalkTalk are fuckin' useless.

Actually, that isn't quite true. Theirs is an excellent service until anything goes wrong.

Then they are fuckin' useless. Last week, my tv box lost contact with my router. No big deal as I can watch Netflix and Amazon Prime on my lappy instead.

It did mean that I could not watch any cricket from New Zealand on my cricket channel boost - now cancelled. No great heartache there either as this does happen when I am asleep, but I decided to try to sort this out this evening.

Several hours spent wasted on T's so-called 'help' resulted in them ordering a new tv box for me. Fine, why should I argue? 'Help' involved vast eons of time waiting for someone to answer on 'live chat'. Best not to go there. Eventually, someone concluded that I needed a new TV box and ordered one for me. Excellent service.

Only to be followed a few minutes later by an email cancelling my tv box order and suggesting that TT were about to cancel my internet subscription as well.

Followed another couple of hours chasing this up. It finally emerged - and I promise that I swore at no intermediate employee because I do not do that - that I had to pay for said box (£200) because my initial sub was taken out in 1915 and so was, "Out of contract."

The stupid bastards could have mentioned this without causing me another couple of hours of pain.

Am I happy to pay £200 for a new box?

Yes. Stuff goes wrong.

Except that the plug that goes into the electrical socket that connects the tv box to the router and that had a lead from the router once had three lights glowing. And that now has the middle light not glowing any more.

And that I told the first contact at TalkTalkSillyBastards.

So, I will get in a telly man before I pay £200 for a new tv box, when I will have to pay a telly man to connect up because the mess of scart/etc leads merely confuses me.

I will keep you informed as everyone loves a laugh at my expense.

In the meantime re TalkTalk. Excellent service until anything goes wrong. Move to another provider once your contract ends if you can stand a few days without your internet.

Give it some thought folks, when looking for your next internet provider.

[eRIKb81]

Aren't those boxes rented/leased? When hardware breaks with my provider they'll send me a new one and I have to return the old one, all for free. Because they are the owner of the hardware and they can't make me pay for something I will not own.

Hope it works out.

[SteveHopwood]

I enjoyed a really lazy day today, watching Test cricket from South Africa.

The import of this entirely irrelevant piece of information is that I finally got around to sorting out the tv box thingy.

I made a second attempt to get TalkTalk to send me a replacement TV box a couple of weeks after the first one; a box I had been told originally I would have to pay for and that I was prepared to pay for until it was promised to me without payment - details in post 1. I was assured again that I need not pay for it. After describing what happened the first time around I was assured that the box would definitely arrive in three days time.

The email cancelling the delivery took a little longer to arrive the second time - about two hours.

This was way before Christmas. I resolved to go back to Sky tv but couldn't be arsed for the time being. The only reason I want this stuff is so I can watch cricket but I am as happy to listen to radio commentary as I am to watch it. Netflix and Amazon Prime I can view on the desktop and lappy.

Come last Tuesday and I decided to do something about rejoining Sky TV, so I booked in. The box/dish-toting techie will not arrive for a fortnight but there is an app that allows me to access Sky tv on the lappy, which is how I came to spend today watching cricket from South Africa.

It did mean that I did nothing useful today though. Hey ho.

So, TalkTalk tv is great when it works. The company is useless when there is a problem, so bear this in mind if you consider signing up.

I only subscribed originally because I discovered that Sky were screwing me on price. I suspect the thing to do is to flip flop from one to the other at the end of each contract. Both companies are run by morons so we are probably best off taking up the latest introductory offer every couple of years.

So far as I can see, the only thingy being run worse than TalkTalk TV is South African cricket, but there really is bugger all I can do about that.

[SteveHopwood]

A finale to this tale.

A charming Sky engineer fitted my dish and box today. I will give him 100% when their customer service questionnaire arrives in my inbox.

A part of the process involved removing all the Talk:Talk connector stuff. He pointed to the connecter from the mains to the TV box and said, "You didn't need a new box. That connector should have a light showing. It isn't. It is dud. Your TV box could not connect to your router."

So, all that TT needed to do was provide me with a working connector. They couldn't be arsed to do so and so have lost a subscriber.

Along with any of you otherwise considering signing up to TT. Unless you are insane.

Having said that, I moved from Sky to TT in about 2013 because Sky were screwing me on price. Something for me to consider in two years time.

Like all computers, my latest Sky box is working like lightening. I am currently viewing the first episode of the much publicised and previously unavailable, Game of Thrones. Initial impact is: it is bollocks. I will give it three episodes before abandoning it.

[stimpy]

fyi - virgin media customer are appalling.

internet works, but man, absolutely nothing of virgin media customer service works - nothing.

Website crashes / loops you in and out of the help section
live chat crashes and no one gets back to you
complaint form failed when sending a complaint

virgin media twitter team tell you they cannot call you/get a call arranged.

They are appalling.


Notice how 99% of UK companies are absolutely appalling? Zero customer service, everyones a jobsworth, no one wants to do anything to help...

All on 15k and couldnt give a monkeys about you, you are just a number to them...

All the 'senior managers' are wideboys/girls that have been promoted to their level of incomptence with the operation beneath them total carnage day in day out.

They only keep going because british people dont complain and put up with it by staying put. With regards to services they know this and the circle of incompetence continues...

Name any service I have bought or used in the last 36 months and I think I am over 50 formal complaints now.

[SteveHopwood]

I am guessing that me and stimpy are not alone.

I turn this thread into a rant-about-anything thread. Post what you want folks.