Incorrectly Billed for calls to a Talk Talk Phone Number

[inkie]

On my December bill with no prior notice, I  started to be charged for ALL calls to a landline number that has always been free. The number in question is for a customer xfered to Fleur Telecom (by Talk Talk) and has always been designated a Talk Talk phone number.

It proved impossible to speak to anyone in customer services to resolve this issue. Eventually, via chat the £40 call charges were "waved". It was also  confirmed in the chat that the number in question was a "Talk Talk number" and that calls to "other Talk Talk numbers" remain free (for 90 mins).  I have now been charged £7.20 for a 29 min call to the same number again on 30th December.  At NO time have I been told that calls to customers with Fleur Telecom are now chargeable. How do I get somebody at Talk Talk to resolve this issue as it is impossible to speak to anybody in customer services?  Thanks!

[Arne-TalkTalk]

I'll let you know when I know.

[inkie]

@Arne-TalkTalk Hurrah! Thank you. Look forward to a status update on migrated Fluer customers in due course. 

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Hi inkie

The £7.20 has been applied to the balance.

Regards.

[inkie]

@Gliwmaeden2  Yes, that is correct. My account transaction history (just checked it again ) shows NO credit for the £7.20 phone usage charge.

Regardless of the result of  the business teams investigation into landline numbers migrated to Fluer (thank you for the update @Arne-TalkTalk ) the £7.20 needs to be credited back by billing before January's DD is taken because the call was made by myself from my TT landline as a direct result of the billing agent confirming calls to the number would remain free on 16th Dec:  

Extract from the chat transcript:

Dec 16
ok so are you saying that XXXXXXX (residential landline number redacted)  REMAINS a talktalk number and I will NOT be charged for calls to it in the future?
Dec 16
Billing agent : Yes, ZZZZ (my name redacted) 

Hope this now makes sense, thanks

[Arne-TalkTalk]

We are still investigating this, its with the business team at the moment.

[Gliwmaeden2]

Thank you,  @inkie, I lost the plot just then!

So, what you saw in Transaction History was the £40 "waiver":

"Eventually, via chat the £40 call charges were "waved". It was also  confirmed in the chat that the number in question was a "Talk Talk number" and that calls to "other Talk Talk numbers" remain free (for 90 mins).  I have now been charged £7.20 for a 29 min call to the same number again on 30th December".

[inkie]

@Gliwmaeden2  For the avoidance of confusion in this thread : Sadly, the £7.20 has NOT yet been credited back to my account (issue 2 still open)

The transaction history you kindly pointed me to simply confirmed the credit I obtained via chat on 16th Dec  before the  new £7.20 charge landed 😊

[Gliwmaeden2]

So glad that you got back the £7.20, @inkie.

Hope the rest gets resolved for you soon too.

[inkie]

@Gliwmaeden2  Sadly, ringing the customer services number results in an automated “AI chatbot” circle which in my personal experience provides  zero ability to reach a TT member of staff.  Customers are mostly forced to use chat, which eventually allows you to bypass another “ AI chatbot” and deal with a call centre agent via tortuous messaging back and forth. If this route fails to solve your problem then you are left with the online forum which we are in agreement on has no direct link to the call centre or to a TT member of staff responsible for billing issues.

Thank you for the steer on “transaction history” -  not  had need to find this section before  in “my account” . This does  provide  an audit confirmation that the credit adjustment was made to my account so happy to  close  the December bill issue (1) Issue (2) and (3) remain open.  Thanks again.

[Gliwmaeden2]

@inkie, I'll re-escalate this again. 

This is an online only forum, so staff can't ring you nor email you.

For phone support you ring in on 03451 720088 etc. 

These are totally separate teams.

I can't comment on (2) and (3) above, but re (1):

Talktalk never "reissues" a bill.

Once it is issued, that version is set in stone  - fixed like getting a paper bill in the post. They stick rigidly to the billing cycle, so the next bill covers changes made SINCE the last bill was issued, calls made etc, plus Broadband and line and any boosts for the forthcoming month. 

If the £7.20 is reimbursed, it will show in transaction history in My Account. It will still be accounted for in the calls list. Check all in the details of the bill.

[inkie]

It would be good to have an update on this thread as it has gone quiet for almost a week? 

 1. December Bill (paid)

December's  bill has not been reissued to reflect the  phone usage charges TalkTalk removed on 16th December. I need a re-issued bill that reflects the DD amount actually taken from my bank account for Dec's bill.

2. January Bill (current billing period)

A charge of £7.20 is still showing as due for the call made on 30th December after a billing agent told me on 16th December that calls to the number would remain type TalkTalk. 

3. Residential landline Calls between current Talk-Talk customers and Talk-Talk customers migrated to Fleur Telecom 

Update on the status of future calls  - will these revert to  type "TalkTalk" OR  be moved to  "UK Local & National" 

With no disrespect whatsoever to the community stars on here who do a fantastic job helping customers,  it is not their job to  chase TalkTalk staff  responsible for dealing with issues.  It would save a great deal of time if TalkTalk staff simply emailed customers directly or picked up the phone to them once it is obvious the customer has a genuine issue that requires a resolution. Thanks!

[Gondola]

Hi @inkie 

Just to confirm that the TalkTalk manager that I've been liaising with is going above and beyond to get to the bottom of this issue for you. 

[Gliwmaeden2]

@inkie, I am going to re-escalate this thread, as your query about the £7.20 hasn't yet been addressed by staff.

If they don't reach it today, I am afraid that it will be after the weekend before they reply.

[inkie]

Thanks Gondola, just to be clear on this, the evidence confirms it was not a mistake - calls between TalkTalk landlines and TalkTalk landlines migrated to Fleur remained legally free  after the customers were moved  in 2015.

I don’t doubt this situation was put in place as yet  another TalkTalk legacy “special case” because I doubt at the time they could identify which customers would get hit with unexpected charges to TalkTalk migrated customers. 

I don’t know if the  billing system links to TalkTalk email accounts but it is possible that there are automated updates to landline call types for deleted TalkTalk accounts (eg leavers). This Fleur customer stopped using their TalkTalk email account in the Fleur system around 2020 and it is likely TalkTalk have now deleted it as an “inactive email account” If they were doing a “tidy up” in the various databases in Nov 2023 then the removal of the email account may have been the trigger. This is all just theory -  you would hope  TalkTalk know how their systems work!

Back on point, TalkTalk just need to refund my £7.20 charge incurred  as a direct result of the information given to me by the billing agent on 16th Dec and confirm if the numbers call type will remain as Uk or be reverted to TalkTalk. It’s that simple!  Ii is possible that my issue has potentially uncovered something that might affect  other customers but that is for TalkTalk to resolve by identifying and notifying those customers.

Thanks for your assistance.

[Gondola]

I will draw TalkTalk attention to this post and ask them to comment further. Their response so far is that the only TalkTalk customer to TalkTalk customer calls that are free for up to 180 minutes are between TalkTalk Consumer customers.

Interesting point about retaining an active TalkTalk Customer MyAccount to hold the TalkTalk mailbox addresses. Perhaps it's because of the active MyAccount that the Fleur customers were mistakenly identified as having a TalkTalk landline.

Anyway, I'll pass on the information.

[inkie]

Hi, As requested:  The  Talktalk customer was migrated to Fleur in 2015. The letter received from Fleur in November 2015 specifically states “customers will continue to have free calls to TalkTalk customers and customers like you who have moved to Fleur for up to 180 mins” 

This statement  by Fleur in the migration letter  implies that TalkTalk had agreed that calls from TalkTalk to migrated Fleur customers would also remain free supported by the fact that  no communication has ever been sent by TalkTalk  warning of the introduction of new charges for calls to  TalkTalk customers who were  migrated to Fleur.
No further communication has ever been sent by Fleur to the migrated customers advising them free calls to TalkTalk customers has or would be removed either.
Fleur migrated customers also technically  retained  an active TalkTalk account via their  TalkTalk email address so it makes sense that calls between TalkTalk and migrated customers remained free. 

[inkie]

@Gondola Yes, we can completely ignore the call duration - its a red herring and not relevant to the issue. @Gliwmaeden2 has explained the different call duration lengths correctly.

Whilst I appreciate the only Fleur migration FAQ's that still seem to be available  are for one-tel customers and mention of IDA, again this is not relevant.

If we are after a history lesson on TalkTalk customer acquisitions, upgrades, changing packages  & migrations then I can provide quite a long one because I was originally a Tiscali customer.  TalkTalk bought Tiscali  but it remained a separate entity which caused all sorts of headaches when dealing with TalkTalk on issues!.  Tiscali originally provided a "friends & family" landline call package for up to 10 numbers, the same as BT back then if I have remembered correctly. When TalkTalk eventually decided to move Tiscali customers onto their own network Tiscali call packages were switched to the nearest TalkTalk equivalent, EG:  "evening & weekend" calls . Free calls between TalkTalk landlines was introduced when Tiscali customers were moved to the TalkTalk  billing system in  December 2010.   This move caused a number of issues for old Tiscali customers for several years throughout TalkTalk's major upgrade programme which  was blamed on poor record keeping by Tiscali. 

In 2015 or 2016 (exact year unknown)  TalkTalk offloaded some old Tiscali ( TalkTalk) customers to Fleur Telecom (as part of an agreement between Daisy Group and TalkTalk) as previously discussed.

Fleur telecom had no email platform so it was agreed as part of the setup of Fleur that migrated customers would keep their Tiscali/TalkTalk email accounts and I believe active accounts were subsequently migrated to TalkTalk's new email platform at some point. Having spoken to the customer it seems that AFTER they were migrated to Fleur, calls between 3 different TalkTalk account holders and the migrated number remained free but old Fleur bills have not been kept to prove this.

Whilst this is all interesting history on TalkTalk's  messy acquisitions, mergers, sales and  administration  (well to some people!) it really is not relevant to the straightforward issue raised in this thread and to my mind this is  simple for the billing team to resolve one way or the other. The wider potential issue of how many other numbers in the billing system have recently had the call type changed  is another matter altogether!.  

[Gondola]

Ah, my bad. I see I made the mistake of repeating your "90 minutes" even though I thought you'd been advised correctly on the 3 hour (180 minutes) TalkTalk to TalkTalk landline call time.  So, yes, I'm not aware that there's ever been a 90 minute call duration.

[Gondola]

December 2015 is relevant to the migration notice from Fleur Telecom that I posted earlier. I've gone through all the FAQ from that notice and there's nothing there advising of any free calls from remaining TalkTalk customers to migrated Fleur Telecom customers.

TalkTalk and I are confident that the 180 minute free calls have been in place for TalkTalk customer to TalkTalk customer landlines all the time from pre-TalkTalk days when Carphone Warehouse was the owning entity. In fact, because I first became a TalkTalk customer in 2016 I thought the 3 hour call time was introduced by Tristia Harrison, the then TalkTalk CEO, at the start of the pandemic in 2020. However, this was just a temporary increase in the Anytime UK calls boost that's 60 minutes of free call time per UK call. 

So, if your understanding is that 60 minutes of free call time per call between your landline number and a Fleur Telecom landline number was what was agreed in 2015 then that's an entirely different situation. I'm also not aware of any calling time inclusive that's 90 minutes.

This then raises the question of whether we're talking here about Indirect Dialled Access (IDA) which was a feature for onetel customers and that is mentioned in the FAQ. Onetel's “Dial Around” or “Indirect Dialled Access” was withdrawn in 2015 / 2016. Full details of what was notified to customers then about the withdrawal of IDA aren't given.  Only that Fleur Telecom didn't support IDA and customers would receive bills for any calls they make.

Or are we talking about you having a legacy inclusive calls package?

The only sure thing we have is that the calls were labelled TalkTalk free until November.  But is that because the TalkTalk Billing system was associating that with TalkTalk issued landline numbers. That would certainly have had to change recently because in the separation of TalkTalk divisions TalkTalk Consumer would be billed by TalkTalk Business Direct for terminating landline calls. Therefore the TalkTalk Billing system would have to have a different way to distinguish a TalkTalk Consumer or residential landline customer from a TalkTalk Business Direct / TalkTalk Wholesale customer of which Fleur Telecom is one.

I think maybe that we're getting to the issue here that it's the TalkTalk Billing system that's had to be updated and that in turn has flushed out this error in billing for calls to Fleur Telecom customers.  Perhaps you should have been billed for calls outside of any inclusive package calls made to the Fleur Telecom customer between 2015 and 2023? 

The Billing team are looking into the case and will no doubt give us more details on any recent changes. In the meantime if you do have documentation from 2015 outlining what would happen regarding TalkTalk customer to Fleur Telecom customer calls that would be useful.

[inkie]

@Gliwmaeden2  Thanks for clarification on the call length, I have just found the 3 hour limit mentioned somewhere in the help pages. 
@Gondola   The ownership relationship between Fleur & TalkTalk has gone through several complicated changes since 2015. You might be interested in this article and its associated links. TT’s acquisition's & mergers  have always been somewhat messy & fluid! https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/07/debt-pressures-pushing-budget-uk-isp-talktalk-toward-b...