I have been with Talk Talk for over 5 years and had no problem with the basis broadband service with a downloading speed of around 10 mbs. Through continued advertising and with a need to improve the service – four adults using the broadband at the same time, I took up their offer to upgrade to Fibre with a downloading speed up to 40mbs.
I sign up around the 18th of January 2018 – with a live date for the 1st February 2018. It is sold on the basis you don't even need an engineer.
This is what has happened to me.
Thursday 1st February 2018. Go live date. Internet lost around 1.30pm
Friday 2nd February 2018. Red light still on router – no internet. Spoke to technical support. Router needs to be activated (should be automatically done when switch on), engineer would need to do it. Appointment – Openreach - made for following Tuesday the 6th (8am-1pm) . 4 days without internet.
Tuesday 6th February 2018 Stayed in for 5 hours plus. No engineer came. Phone technical support. Appointment made but not confirmed ? Talk Talk error. Appointment made for following day.(8am -1pm). - 5 days without internet.
Wednesday 7th February 2018. Engineer called - Openreach. (I was not their – access given by 28 year old son ). Engineer conformed Fibre internet working right up to router. Needs authenticating by Talk Talk – Not engineers job. That afternoon – I phoned technical support. Advised engineer should have done it ? Still red light on router. They made appointment for Openreach to call again the following day to sort out. I'm not sure how ? . 6 days no internet
Thursday 8th February 2018. Openreach Engineer called. Was here for 2 and half hours ! Tested line, went down to cabinet, spoke to his Openreach technical support – who have better contacts with Talk Talk technical servers. Also spoke to Openreach Dept who deal directly with with Talk Talk to get report back to them ASAP. Would be escalated to level two complaint. He had to leave for another appointment but offer to come back later to try and set up an Openreach internet connection, to prove its not the fibre to the router, which was over and above his duty. He did come back, but too late in the day. He re-confirmed there is nothing wrong with my connection its a PPP , a point to point protocol issue. Before his return at 3.30 Dolly - line Manager phone re my complaint , but as I said engineer was to return they would await his report. At 4.00 o'clock Internet went green on router, but no internet to laptop. On for 30 minutes, but no internet. Switch off for 1 minute and after switching it on – IT WENT RED AGAIN. Engineer sent further report after his return, confirming it is a problem the talk talk server is having linking to the router. NO INTERNET FOR 7 DAYS
Friday 9th February 2018. Red light still on ! I phoned technical support and spoke to a Carl – line Manager/complaints. After further tests on line, which confirmed the same, he decided I need a new router, which, due to weekend could not be with me until Monday – NO INTERNET FOR 8 DAYS
Monday the 12th February 2018. New router set up. Red light still on. Phoned talk talk. Jessica at complaints. As it has not been resolved it would be escalated to the Service Management team. They would take 48 to 72 hours to come back. Why so long ? NO INTERNET FOR 11 DAYS
Thursday 15th February 2018. No phone call. NO INTERNET FOR 14 DAYS. NO HELP WHATSO EVER. Phone talk talk around 4 o'clock. Spoke to Risa. Nearly lost my temper. No record of it being escalated to SERVICE MANAGEMET TEAM on Monday. Only a call back from complaints 3 to 5 days later. Insisted to speak to a manager. Spoke to Jobert - Fault Manager. Express my concern to him and mention the possibility that as my account was with AOL before Talk Talk took their UK accounts over some 5/10 years ago and could this be a factor. He said “YES THAT IS THE PROBLEM”. I said “WHAT ? - THAT IS THE PROBLEM ?” “Yes” he said. I requested he tell me the day, on the screen, Talk Talk knew this was the problem. He said Sunday the 11th of February. WHAT??????. what have they done since then ? He could not say. i.e. NOTHING. So because I had phoned, he would try to resolve it now. I Switched off the router for half an hour, he would then try to make some changes to link to AOL server to the talk talk server and allow data down to my router. I was in shock. 45 minutes later he phoned back. No change to router – Red light still there. Then he somehow open my ip address - http://192.168.1.1 on my laptop via the router after opening Admin and password and tried to make some changes by giving me some instructions over the phone. (I thought “I'm not a bloody engineer !”). This did not help, so he spoke to the Network team, as it would be necessary for them to make the necessary changes their end. Initially they has told Jobert it would take up to72 hours , but as this was an urgent case, they agreed it would be done within 48 hours i.e. by Saturday night. I would also get a phone call. They would phone me !. ( Don't believe them) - Over 55 minutes on the phone! - NO INTERNET FOR 14 DAYS
Saturday the 17th February 2018. 48 hours later. NO INTERNET for 16 days – NO PHONE CALL. My turn to phone again. Took 20 minutes to get through to a fault Manager FRITZ ! And was told the case has been transferred that afternoon to Manchester to resolve. It needs to be rebuilt ?. It will take another 72 hours for them to look at it. UNNACCEPABLE !! and I told Fritz this. They keep passing the buck. Nobody takes responsibility at Talk Talk. You NEVER SPEAK TO THE SAME PERSON TWICE. On Thursday the case was urgent. I insisted she contact Manchester now, while on the phone to mark it urgent i.e. 48 max. booked a phone call back between 4-6 on Monday for update. No faith whatsoever, that I will have internet on Monday.
Monday the 19th February 2018. No phone call as promised. No internet for 18 days.
Tuesday the 20th February. I rang Talk Talk. Spoke to a Freddy. He would try to get update from Manchester. He was only able to direct me to Jan a Fault Manager. He would need to speed to their network, who are the only ones allow to speak to Manchester for an update. THEY WILL NOT PUT YOU THROUGH TO MANCHESTER WHO ARE NOW LOOKING AT IT !!!! After 1 hour 10 minutes. Jan said there was good news, bad news. Good news, they would look at it in next 48 hours. Bad news it would not be fixed within that timescale. Unbelievable !.If you heard this from a third part, you would not believe it. Not only are Manchester now dealing with it, but as they don't have to speak to the customer, there is no urgency to get it done. NO INERTNET FOR 19 DAYS.
Thursday the 22nd February 2018. Phoned Talk Talk and went straight through to Manchester. I could not believe it. Fantastic. Spoke to Abu Shueb, who after reviewing the case, said he should be able to sort in in 15 minutes. He would need to make a few adjustments and ring me back. I was in shock. Green light come on and when Abu rang back, I had access to the internet. He said there was still a line fault showing and would need to send an engineer out tomorrow to sort it out. (downloading only 1-2 Mbps). But after 3 weeks, I didn't care. He promised to ring me after the engineer had been out to ensure everything was working. He also said the case would stay with them for 7 days and I could ring him again if I had any further concerns. REAL CUSTOMER SERVICE !!! Final figure - NO INTERNET FOR 21 DAYS . In the afternoon the Ookla speed test showed a download speed of 33/34mbs, so somehow the fault was not showing. Again Marvellous.
Friday 23rd February 2018. Openreach engineer called 8 am. He check line, nothing obvious, but he did notice the Router was not plugged directly into Master socket (i.e. it was via a junction box install by Sky many years ago), so he set a new Master Socket directly behind the router. He said the downloading speed is fine. Again very happy. I thought I was almost there.
By Tuesday 27th February 2018. Two issues. 1. The downloading speed had been slowing down daily since Thursday. Averaging now 25/26/27mbps. 2. The red light for the internet would come on 2/3 times a day for only 30 seconds each, but would interrupt whatever I was doing. Thought I would phone Abu and get a quick sensible answer for the issues. Guess what ? Straight through to the Philippines. I could not speak to Abu ! Reluctantly, I explained my concerns and after, some line checks, some messing about with the new Master socket, I decided to call it a day. It was not worth it. The female assistant named Christian, also tried to explain the line had a maximum download speed of 30 mbs and allowing for a maximum of 70% being acceptable, a speed of 26 Mbps was OK. I gave up. Since Tuesday the Internet has got better. Downloading has fluctuating between 26 Mbps and 33 Mbps. Turning the router off for 2 minutes has stopped the red light coming on. But why it happens at all is questionable.
I had 4 engineers appointments, one no show, two routers and in excess of 10 hours of phone calls with Talk Talk – never with the same operator. The stress it caused the four members of my household was exhausting.
I hope my case can help Talk Talk in improving their customer service . If a case is not resolved after a set number of days, one person, should be allocated to resolve it from start to finish.
For any others Talk Talk customers who were with AOL, be careful before you upgrade to Fibre. It can be a nightmare.
