Victims of TalkTalk go to the courts

Victims of TalkTalk go to the courts

Almost a year on from the launch of its 'free broadband forever' deal, TalkTalk has started writing cheques to frustrated customers who are still without a service and have taken their complaint to the small claims court.

Responding to our 'Why Are We Waiting?' campaign, dozens of customers have written to us in the past month telling us of their problems with TalkTalk, which launched its £21 a month broadband and landline service to much fanfare last April. Problems include customers not receiving a broadband connection, or receiving and then losing a connection, but being billed continuously in either case.

Charles Dunstone, chief executive of TalkTalk's parent company, Carphone Warehouse, said in January that after almost stopping signing up anyone else to the deal in December, it was now making a fresh push for new customers. He said the company had made 'good progress in recent months' in improving customer service.

Yet some customers, such as David Wheatley, signed up when the offer launched 11 months ago and are still waiting for a connection. 'It's currently costing me £21 for TalkTalk and £15 for my current dial-up provider, so you can see I am out of pocket,' he says. 'Various phone calls to their customer services department hasn't achieved anything. You are either waiting ages or get cut off.'

Another Cash reader signed up to the TalkTalk package last May but has never had a connection. After writing to Dunstone.....continued below

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five times without getting a reply he issued proceedings in Portsmouth County Court last month.

'I have been paying TalkTalk since May for a service I have never received. After starting up a case in the small claims court I had a telephone call from TalkTalk asking me not to proceed and offering me £100 compensation and a resolution to my problem,' he says. He has declined TalkTalk's offer.

Writer Jon Henderson has also suffered at the hands of TalkTalk when he was left without an internet connection for three months. While his broadband was inactive, TalkTalk offered him £25 in compensation but Mr Henderson asked for a revised offer and his account was credited with £50.

'We recognise that we were not prepared last year but we now have over 3,000 fully trained customer service providers,' says a TalkTalk spokesperson. 'There are people who signed up last year who are still not connected but we can only really judge the reasons for those cases on an individual basis. If you sign up now you will be live in five weeks.'

But some customers who have given up waiting and have cancelled their direct debit have then received letters from either TalkTalk or directly from debt collection agencies pursuing them for payment of their outstanding balance. Worried readers have contacted us saying they feel threatened and are worried about damage to their credit rating.

This didn't put Andre Harvard off. Unable to receive TalkTalk's service at his address, he contacted the company by letter and email 15 times, repeatedly being told they had cancelled his service when they had not. He resorted to cancelling his direct debit with them.