Richard Hart

Head of Something @ Somewhere
Kent, UK

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I’ve had enough of TalkTalk

My TalkTalk broadband hasn’t been working for the past three days and it looks like it’s never going to work as technical support refuse to believe that there is a fault.

Of all the years I’ve spent calling various company’s technical support numbers, I can honestly say that TalkTalk’s is the most appalling one of the lot. I’m completely livid with their so-called “support”. I’ve spent more than five hours on the phone with their “technical” team since yesterday, all while having to listen to nothing but lies and apologies for being unable to help me. Today I was on a single call that lasted three hours, which had me bounced to-and-from the same departments only to be hung up on. And I don’t mean disconnected, but actually put through to the end of call customer satisfaction survey with a cheerful “Thanks for your call”. One person even said I would have to upgrade my account to get technical support. I don’t think so.

“Oh, there’s no problem with your line”. Yes, I know there’s no problem with the line, I just can’t authenticate with the exchange.

“Oh, your router is not supported”. Yes, it’s worked fine for the past 6 years, so explain that.

If I even dare mention I’m on a Mac, that opens a whole other can of worms.

The only way I’ll be able to get any sense out of them is to have them send me a new router which I guess I have no choice but to do. Either way, I’ve had enough. I’ve already got a reconnection date from BT to move my line back to them and a Virgin Media engineer is coming round next week to get me on their internet service. I’ve heard some bad things about VM, but I really want to take advantage of the high speeds when it does work. I still have a backup broadband connection in the house I can use if it goes down at least.

Whoever thought offshoring technical support/call centres was a good idea should be shot. Has anyone ever had a good offshore call experience? Everyone I’ve mentioned this too has their own horror stories. Yeah, great, it cuts costs, but at what expense? Offshoring wouldn’t be so bad if it meant I could speak to someone who was actually technical. But what’s the point if I’m going to speak to someone who just reads a script to me.

Avoid TalkTalk at all costs.

Update 6/1/12: Inexplicably my broadband has now started working again, a full six days after it first broke. So much for “I can assure you sir there is no problem at our end”. A new router will be arriving soon, which I had to threaten I would cancel my account over to get for free (They wanted me to renew for 12 months). Honestly, I wish I could shove the thing up someone at TalkTalk’s arse.