Billing error

[Jimgmacfarlane]

Hello Talktalk, I hope you can help. I switched to a talktalk full fibre 500 package with the first 3 months free as part of the switch offer. The engineers installed the fibre connection box on 6.2.23 and the go live date should have been 7.2.23. This is the date that the bill you have sent me is based on, and the start date of the 3 month free offer. My bill says that I will start to be billed from 7.5.23, 3 months after this date. However as you will see if you check my account progress, there is a very prolonged problem in getting the internet to be switched on that took me over 7 hours on countless phone calls to the talktalk helpline number (useless, no help at all) and hours of posting on this forum, for the problem to be fixed and the internet to finally be switched on by cityfibre. The internet first worked on 24.2.23. However the speed of the internet supply was limited to 100 MB/s download until I contacted talktalk customer support again and Chris from Taltalk support very helpfully identified the error and made some changes yesterday that has boosted the speed to 420 MB/s download and 275 MB/s upload speed as of today, 7.3.23. (please see my separate long forum posting that has finally helped resolve this request). I assume this is as fast as the internet supply may get and I may not achieve the intended 500 MB/s. So essentially, a whole 1 month after my contract 'started' according to the bill, I have actually been provided with the service I have asked for and will be paying for when the 3 month introductory free period ends.

When I queried this on countless phone calls and online forums I was assured by technical support that the billing dept would be alert to the issues I had been having and would adjust my bill to start from the date when my service was actually working. This does not appear to have been done.

Please can you therefore adjust my bill to set the go live date as 7.3 23, not 7.2.23, as the start of the 3 month introductory free offer, in which case I will start being charged from 7.6.23, not 7.5.23. This is only reasonable as the service I signed up for has only been working from today.

Thank you in advance

Jim Macfarlane

[Arne-TalkTalk]

The credit for the next month has now been applied after that you direct debits will begin. 

Regards.

[Jimgmacfarlane]

Thanks Arne

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Hi @Jimgmacfarlane 

Its as Gliwmaeden2 has explained the original discount ends in 18 days so you have been charged the period after that, Ill take care of it as promised. 

Sorry for any confusion. 

[Gliwmaeden2]

@Jimgmacfarlane, in your first post had you been issued with an actual bill, or was it the contract confirming the intended start date of the service and 3 months free from the supposed start date of 7th February?

A bill issued today is likely to cover the period from 2 or 3 days ago, say 15th or 16th April to about the same time mid May, so more than a week beyond the original promise of 3 free months. That's why they would be expecting to take the Direct Debit to cover the week from 7th May.

A bill would always have come in ahead of 7th May as Talktalk always bills for any catch up (eg phone calls etc, or date of installation up to the first bill in other scenarios) and then the full month ahead. The bills then continue on that date cycle, which won't match the start / end date of the contract, so it's always a bit raggy and takes a couple of months to sort out for a new customer or leaving  etc.

So Arne simply needs to intervene sooner than had been expected to credit the account.

Next month's bill will come in c mid May and it would take you to mid June - again beyond the end of the free period, so there's going to be one partial DD payment, and then regular billing on the same cycle thereafter. 

Arne will be able to sort out the extra month's-worth one way or another as promised. 

[Jimgmacfarlane]

Hi Arne,

I have just received a bill for £13.18 due by 25.4.23. This does not make sense as the contract should be free for the first 3 months, and that is not taking into account the extra free month I am due after it took a month for me to be connected (ie billing should commence 7.6.23 ) as detailed in the thread above. Please could you advise?

Thanks

Jim Macfarlane

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Hi Jimgmacfarlane

Thanks for your post, sorry to read of the problems you had. 

We cant alter the contract start date to align to when the fault was fixed, however we can extend the free discount for the extra month, If you post on this thread after 07.05.23 I can arrange for the extra month discount to be applied. 

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.