topic Re: What if we don't agree to cancel? in Full Fibre

What if we don't agree to cancel?

jw0853 — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 17:40:40 GMT

Talk Talk wants UFO customers to take some action before the service stops on 29th May 2023.

I got an email about this with two options: either cancel the service, or agree to a new contract (i.e. City Fibre for £39.95 for 18 months).

But my UFO fixed-term contract continues until September. Why, then, would I agree to a new service at a higher price?

I've talked to customer services a few times about this. Been bounced around between a few different agents, stayed on hold for a while as they talked to their managers, been hung up on by the "customer loyalty" people! I think they don't have any good solutions. They can't reduce the price of the City Fibre contract, they can't extend the UFO service beyond May, and they certainly don't want to offer an equivalent service at the same price for the rest of the fixed term.

But what if I don't agree, either to cancel or to move to City Fibre? The existing contract still exists. They're still obliged to honour it, even though this may be costly or inconvenient to them. Aren't they?

Seems like a bit of a mess, honestly. They should not have offered customers fixed-term contracts that ran beyond the service end date.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

ferguson — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 17:48:42 GMT

A bit of a quandary indeed, but I am pretty sure that if you check the T&Cs you will find that TalkTalk can suspend, or cancel a service at any time by giving you reasonable notice, which they appear to have done.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

jw0853 — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:27:19 GMT

Section 14.1.e of http://www.talktalk.co.uk/legal/terms/talktalk-product-terms.html . Reasons for cancellation, "we’re no longer able to provide a service (or any part of it)" or maybe 14.1.g, "we suspend or restrict a related service".

But I don't think this works, because Talk Talk are not only able to offer fibre service to my house, they're actually offering to do so, for £39.95 for the next 18 months.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

Birchcroft — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:41:45 GMT

@Unfortunately it would appear that @ferguson is correct Para 14.1 (e) of the TS&Cs states they can cancel if: "we’re no longer able to provide a service (or any part of it)". So it looks as if you will have too look for a new provider.

That said if you really want to do battle you could try arguing the contract condition is unfair, and therefore uninforceable. The reason being that it is likely they can't provide the service due to business decisions made by them and not due to factors beyond their control. If you did the same you would have to pay for early termination but if they are not offering compensation then the contract is probably unequal. I suspect, therefore in reality the best you can hope for is compensation for early termination. To get this you would need to go through the complaints procedure and probably to arbitration. You could also try complaining to OFCOM.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

ferguson — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:49:38 GMT

I think that is all accounted for in the T&Cs concerned, no early termination fees will be payable.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

Birchcroft — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:53:42 GMT

@jw0853I was slowly typing my response on my phone while you replied to @ferguson.

If they are still publicly offering 18 Month contracts for the same service you have then I would agree that they don't appear to be justified in unilaterally terminating your contact. I suggest you raise a formal complaint.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

Birchcroft — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 19:04:08 GMT

That may well be the case but I suspect that there might be a case challenging such a condition under the Unfair Contracts Act 1977.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

jw0853 — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 21:12:53 GMT

Thanks. Raising it with Ofcom seems a good idea, though it seems Ofcom supports the right of ISPs to unilaterally change a contract, provided there is one month of notice and the right to cancel without penalty. If only customers enjoyed such privileges.

I can formally complain and then take the issue to CISAS if the situation is not resolved.

I would accept a change of contract and even a change in price, but there would need to be some acknowledgment of the unfairness of the situation and some kind of "meet in the middle" compromise over the cost, and honestly I am rather surprised that this is impossible in this case.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

Arne-TalkTalk — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 07:38:25 GMT

Hi jw0853

Thanks for your post.

The UFO service is stopping, which is why the offer of transferring to city fibre is being made, we are covered in the terms and conditions, should you choose not to stay with us you will need to contact another provider which will most likely be provided by city fibre, there will ne no termination fees for canceling the service.

Im sure if you contact our loyalty team they will be able to help with the cost of the package, Also the promotion does offer the first 3 months free.

Regards

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

jw0853 — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 08:20:42 GMT

Thanks Arne.

> Im sure if you contact our loyalty team they will be able to help with the cost of the package

I'd think so too, and a customer service agent did refer me there, but they hung up on me instead of answering the call (twice). I got nowhere asking the salespeople either (again, twice). They've plainly been told not to offer any discounts. It seems a waste of time to chase this up.

With 3 months free, the service *is* slightly cheaper for the next 5 months (you're actually the first person to point this out) but then there is a commitment at a higher price for more than a year after that, so I would prefer to wait until the end of the fixed-term period and then shop around, which is not an option but should be.

From my side, the service didn't change aside from the price: it's still fibre to my home, at the same speed, provided by Talk Talk. It may be that there are some big internal changes within Talk Talk about how the service is provided but this is not relevant to the customer.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

peteb99 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 09:29:46 GMT

Hi jw0853,

Like you my contract is up in September so I am just waiting for the same message you have received.

Have you looked at the alternative offerings here :

https://cityfibre.com/availability

There are 12 companies available to choose from. The cheapest I've found is £32 for the same deal we have now (900 up and down) with Octaplus.

Whatever you do, don't agree to stay with TalkTalk. They are misleading you (I've seen the message as my neighbours have received them). Have a look and you'll see that they don't tell you how much the upload speed is (the message says "this package is most similar to your current service"). I had to spend a few minutes finding out what the upload speed will be and it is 91Mb/s. Obviously TalkTalk's use of the word similar is significantly different to mine. I found the information about the upload speed here : https://www.choose.co.uk/broadband/talktalk/reviews/full-fibre-900/

Be careful when choosing who to move to that they actually offer the same upload speed as the download speed - Zen for example also only offer 100Mb/s upload. All the others on the page I've linked you to seem to offer 900Mb/s upload and download.

I think think that I might move to Giganet as they offer a 12 month contract with three months for free which makes the effective monthly price £30 which is pretty good. They also offer an Amazon Eero Pro 6e router which seems like a great router (I think TalkTalk now use the same).

I will be sad to leave TalkTalk as I am still very grateful that they took a chance in 2015, installed the network and gave a really great price for it (it was £21.70 a month then which quite frankly was and still is amazing). The only issue I have is the customer service over the last couple of years - it is very hard to get through to someone and even harder to actually get anything fixed (as evidenced by the threads on this forum). However, I would say that the customer service on this forum has been very good it's just that they don't know or aren't given any information on UFO so struggle to help us.

Good luck with whoever you choose to move to.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

jw0853 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 09:25:53 GMT

Thanks @peteb99 for your interesting and useful reply, and the hint about looking at upload speeds. I'd certainly assumed that the new £39.99/month service was "UFO with a price increase", I didn't realise it was a downgrade. I am considering various options, Giganet look very appealing.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

joeyboswell — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 14:17:47 GMT

Pete

Many thanks for explaining the deals, think I will go with Octaplus, as you say, a shame, was great in the early days as testers, but Talktalk support is terrible now.

Regards

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

peteb99 — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 14:41:15 GMT

Hi Joey,

Glad I could help BUT I've found out that Octaplus use CGNAT which is a nightmare for port forwarding as you share an IPv4 address with a lot of people. I've found out so far that Octaplus and Giganet use CGNAT so that rules them out for me (I use a VPN server at home to view CCTV cameras etc).

I'm still looking now and I'm thinking of No One internet now. They seem to get really good reviews and they provide your own static IPv4 address which would be very useful for me - wouldn't need to use a DDNS anymore haha.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

joeyboswell — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 15:35:29 GMT

The other issue is a phone, not many of the providers in the list can include a phone line (VOIP), those that do are unclear on call charges!

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

peteb99 — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 17:12:42 GMT

Must admit that I never use a home phone anyway. The TalkTalk phoneline is not even plugged in.

I just use a VOIP SIP phone and I haven't used that for outgoing calls for years. You also get an email when anyone leaves a voicemail which is useful. When you can get unlimited calls with Smarty for £5 a month with 4GB you can't go wrong.

I've now signed up with No One. They offer 900Mb/s up and down and also give you a static IP address which I've wanted for years.

What's funny is that the CityFibre installation date for me is 22nd May which is the earliest available. Very quickly the installs will end up beyond 29th May and what are TalkTalk going to do then? Just cut everyone off?

I phoned Talktalk and they went through the hard sell but had to admit that the upload speed is a lot slower so I asked to leave. She said she could cut it off on any date I wanted and I just had to tell her which was great. She told me to get the installation date from the new provider and phone them back so that they would crossover on the same date.. I went with No One, got the date and phoned TalkTalk back. As usual, the call handler denied that what the first caller had said and that it "doesn't work like that". I now have to phone back on 22nd April and cancel it to give them the 30 days notice. I queried this as they are breaking the contract, not me. She just repeated that it wasn't policy. I let her know that my policy is not to break contracts and keep to my word.

I'm not looking forward to the handover as no doubt TalkTalk will mess something up, but at least I'll be free of them after all these years.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

joeyboswell — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 17:25:35 GMT

Thanks Pete, more food for thought, I have registered interest with Octoplus who say they will contact myself within 48 hours to confirm, but I do like the idea of a fixed IP for my ESXI server and want to retain the City Fibre connection!

I will have to look into a separate VOIP service again, had one many years ago (with a Siemens Gigaset handset), but would like to retain our landline number which is a unique and very easy to remember number. My wife uses the landline a lot so an important thing to have here.

Regards

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

peteb99 — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 17:28:55 GMT

I managed to get the installation date brought forward to the 14th April which I'm happy about.

I phoned TalkTalk to let them know. They now say that it is impossible to cancel the contract without 30 days notice even though I was told (and I specifically asked) that it could be cancelled in a couple of days. The guy tried to say that I hadn't been told that but I informed him that I had a full recording of the call (I never used to record the calls before dealing with TalkTalk and I let them know I'm recording the call). He changed his tune but still said she was wrong and it was impossible to do. After 30 minutes he transferred me through to customer services who he said would resolve it immediately for me.

I got put through to someone and had to go through all the security again. He informed me that yes, I would have to give 30 days notice and also pay £81 for terminating the contract early. Arrgghh. He confirmed it was impossible to cancel before the 30 days notice. I could hardly tell a word he was saying as he was talking so fast.

He then said I'd need to be put through to retentions. I wasn't happy but let him put this through. I'd been on the call over 50 minutes at this point.

I spoke to retentions, went through security for the third time. Again he said I had to give 30 days notice and would have to pay a £81 early re-demption fee. I explained that TalkTalk were cancelling the contract and not me and I was already pretty annoyed that they had broken their contract and wanted me to pay. He then saw the letter sent to me and said as I was a loyal customer he would waive the £81. Gee thanks for that.

He then said he would offer me a great deal for the same speeds for £39.99 a month. I said it isn't the same speeds, yes it is he said. I asked what the upload speed was, 110Mb/s. I explained I was currently on 900Mb/s but apparently I was mistaken and TalkTalk have never offered upload speeds anything like that. Arrrggghhh. I still said I wanted to leave - no problem he said and I told him when. Yes, no problem he said and has done it so it's cancelled on the 14th (even though everyone else had said that was impossible)

He made a big thing about losing my email address that I could never get back and that I'd lose the phone number which I don't use anyway.

I'll now have to see what happens on the 14th April. I'm pretty confident No One Broadband will get it working (well City Fibre anyway) as they use Username/Password authentication and a VLAN tag to connect through (which they've already given me already).

I really wish that TalkTalk were even slightly good but they have been awful for years to me and I am so glad to be leaving. Something that should be so simple took me over an hour on a phone call.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

jw0853 — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 17:56:58 GMT

I hope the switchover goes well for you @peteb99 . This thread has been very informative.

I have a booking for Giganet which is fortunately more than 30 days in the future, so I will have to call Talk Talk on exactly the correct day to cancel. If it's too soon, they won't schedule a cancellation for a future date. If it's too late, that's a demand for £81 which I will have to argue my way out of, just as you did.

I am expecting further problems - indeed, I expect a shambles - but luckily we can work from home with just 4G if we need to. The various UFO outages over the last few months have been a good preparation for this.

Re: What if we don't agree to cancel?

joeyboswell — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:52:49 GMT

So, I signed up to Octoplus, but found very unclear about home phone and call charges, speaking to them is as hard as speaking to talktalk so already cancelled Octoplus today, best option for me was Vodafone as I really wanted to keep the City Fibre connection.

A bit of a mess, email from Talktalk with a link to change to the new 1gb service, the link then tells me not available here and only 100 meg available??

Is the 29th of May the real cut off date for all current users? I know a few who are not aware at all and had no contact about it.

Regards