Being screwed by Talk Talk!

[#1]

Talk Talk are really upsetting me.  Not only have I had to pay a cancellation fee of £70 even though I was informed this wasn't the case by the people on the members forum but they have kept billing me monthly for a service I no longer use!  After a horrible phone call to some hard nosed woman about billing I was reassured that my contract was cancelled.  Low and behold my bank statement shows that a further month's money was taken from my account on Dec 22nd!  What can I do to get reimbursed for all the monies I have paid them - or they have taken from my account - since I moved to plusnet?  I have been with Plusnet for a few months now.

[#2]

Having had the same problem a few years ago (only I never actually had the service) I reckon that the only thing to do is to find out the number of the high level complaints department.
I have some numbers but as some time has passed, they may well be different now so the only way to get them is to try CS again.
I got onto this by sending an email to Mr Dunstone, which was then passed on to it.
Once you have got through to someone, record their name, email address and direct telephone number and hopefully it will be sorted.
Good luck.

[#3]

Two thoughts:
Being charged for a service you are not receiving must be illegal - I wonder if Trading Standards would take an interest?
Have you stopped the DD mandate and asked the bank for the money back under the DD guarantee?

[#4]

Indeed, having read several horror stories the first thing I did before leaving Tiscali (a while ago now) was switch to DD well in advance and make sure all other payment methods were "erased". Then I stopped the DD before asking for my MAC code.
I might add I was already in dispute with them over truly appalling service and did actually end up getting a little bit of compensation (few months rental refunded) though that didn't stop other parts of Tiscali chasing me for over a year for money I didn't owe. At one point they were even chasing me to pay back the compensation as they had applied the value of the cheques to my account as a debt owing to them, as if it was a loan! Had to get the mediators involved formally in the end - followed the complaint process to the letter - that finally shut them up.
Given what I've experienced and seen happen to others I absolutely DO NOT recommend Tiscali and will take a very circumspect view of TalkTalk until the integration is over and the evidence of how they behave is public.

[#5]

Quote

Have you stopped the DD mandate and asked the bank for the money back under the DD guarantee?

Will ask about that.  I should have stopped the direct debit straight away.  Not used to dealing with such companies as Talk Talk and have been far too lax with them.

[#6]

I had problems with them a few years ago when I terminated my contract with them , was before MAC codes were freely available.
I had so much trouble trying to get the tag removed from my line and similar to you I kept getting sent bills by them , but I had cancelled the direct debit.
I wrote to OFFCOM with copies of what I had previosuly sent, I then received a cheque with £50 compensation for the trouble they had caused and my line was then cleared, took me about 6 wekes though to sort it out.
Good luck and for me the first thing I do when I end any service is cancel the direct debit, then you have the choice to pay  them what you want and agree to, and are taking away the chance of them taking any amount of money from your bank on any day, which is what a direct debit actually alows them to do. There is the direct debit guarantee but it is never that straight forward in my experience.

[#7]

Quote from: Bluesplayer

I should have stopped the direct debit straight away.

I do this as a matter of course when changing any supplier. Only takes few seconds with internet banking and I also regularly check direct debit list for my account, just in case someone tries to resurrect anything I've cancelled.
First thing I did when my Plusnet account was activated was to cancel DD to Pipex and tell them what I'd done. I then gave them a choice as to how I'd pay balance of 30 day notice - they wanted card but no way so they accepted internet transfer.
Over the years I've found that the most accurate, and trustworthy, accounting system is my own

[#8]

Stopping the DD is good but what happens with TT is that they send you threatening letters. I got one and didn't owe them a penny - in fact they owed me as they had taken money for a service that I never had or started.

[#9]

May just be me but I certainly would not be concerned receiving threatening letters if I knew I was in the right.
Would be happy to let them continue and then if they take me to court, let them face the wrath of the court when presented with the facts.
dick:quote

[#10]

As has been said, if you paid by direct debit you are covered by the guarantee.  Work out which date you joined PlusNet as the day you joined them is the date you want to get your money back from.  Phone up your bank and tell them you want to recover money from (the date you worked out) from direct debits taken by TalkTalk, your bank will then recover all the money from Talk Talk and put it in your bank, also ask them to cancel the direct debit with Talk Talk (unless you're with them for phone).
This £70 cancellation charge, what was it for?  Leaving the contract early?  Did you have hardware supplied by Talk Talk?  How long were you with Talk Talk for?
If you were on a 12 or 18 month contract and left after 12 or 18 months then you didn't owe them £70, if however you left before your contract was up then yeah, they can claim the fee for the hardware.  If you are sure you were out of contract, I'd try asking the bank to recover that fee from the DD guarantee also.
When you get the threatening letters, don't ignore them, but also don't phone.  Write a letter (keeping a copy for yourself) explaining that you left Talk Talk and were switched to Plus Net on (the date you were switched), state that Talk Talk continued to take monies from your bank account (photo copy a bank statement, covering up non-pertinent bits) whilst not providing a service, also if possible, print out the details from PlusNet which includes your activation date (the date you were on PlusNet).  Post that off to them, recorded delivery (keep the recorded delivery slip too).  If they continue to press you for money, write a letter to OFCOM, include the copy of the letter you wrote to Talk Talk, a copy of your bank statement, a copy of your PlusNet activation details (should be available from the member centre) and also your recorded delivery slip (which is proof you send the letter to Talk Talk).  With that you would have shown OFCOM that you took all reasonable steps to explain to Talk Talk who continue to harass you, so OFCOM should step in and fix it (in theory).

[#11]

More to the point: if you do all that and it ends up in court you will be able to prove that you took all reasonable steps. There would be a very high probability that the court would award you compensation for the time spent and the harassment.
Have a read of http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,81880.msg678778.html#msg678778 for another users experience in court when money was being claimed which wasn't owed.

[#12]

I left Tiscali /Talk Talk at the end of December 2009 when they sent me a letter telling me I was going have to start either a new contract or pay an extra fiver a month to keep what I already had.I applied for a Mac and when i received this I used it to join plusnet (activated on the 29th december 2009)and have bee happy with the service so far.
My problem is I have started receiving bills from talk Talk for January and February with threatening letters.When I asked them to stop as I was no longer with them they said Plusnet had not used the Mac so my account is still active.I understood it was not possible to migrate from one provider to another without obtaining and using a MAC. Plusnet certainly asked me for it when I signed up and I definitely gave it to them.
Anyone else had this problem?

[#13]

I hope you have cancelled your Tiscali Direct Debit!

[#14]

BTW Welcome to the forum ddfddf

[#15]

Quote from: ddfddf

they said Plusnet had not used the Mac so my account is still active.

Oh boy - is there no end to the spurious reasons TT will come out with to scam more money from ex customers?
As I've said in another thread when I switched from TT to plusnet I went through the T&Cs with a fine tooth comb and NOWHERE is there a definitive guide as to what procedure you should follow to make a switch.
They IMPLY that once another ISP uses your mac code - your account will close. BUT there are countless cases where this doesn't happen (me included).
I only found out because I contacted them to make sure they'd closed my account. They hadn't and still havn't.
They said I need to call their cancellations line. NOWHERE does it say this in any of their blurb. Try getting through to their cancellations line (0871 at 10p/min) no chance - (Hmmm a bit like trying to ring plusnet's customer care line - BTW is that thing still saying 15min queue???)
Folks here and elsewhere tell you BT are supposed to inform your old ISP of a switch. I've not found this documented ANYWHERE. Personally I think it's up to the man in the moon to close your old account.
WHY - WHY - WHY is this not a clearly defined procedure??? - well why do we think? - scam scam scam...