This is just a warning to people considering signing up with these people and falling for the high speed sales patter they give you when they want your money.
My contact with Sky was ending and they wanted too much. I found TalkTalk to be much cheaper and even offered me faster speeds (I don't have a fibre connection). Following a conversation with someone obviously bveing paid by the customer (mate, if you stopped repeating the same things over and over you could slow down and pause for breath), I signd up on August 15th.
I made it clear that my contract ended on September 7th, so that was when they should take over. Despite that, an end date with Sky was givenas August 30th, with TalkTalk agreeing to send me a router on August 29th and a an activation date of August 30th. All good.
Out of the blue on Friday (August 23rd) I get a text telling me an engineer was needed to install my broadband, which would be September 10th, and my equipment would be delivered on September the 9th.
I then spent 2 hours (TWO HOURS) navigating various bots explaining to them that this was unacceptable, that I work from home and was unable to go to the office on for most of the days I would be without service, meaning I would lose 4 days annual leave. I was offered a different date of September 6th, but this has exactly the same impact on me. I asked why the engineer was needed and was told it was "for the digging". What digging? "To install the fibre".
My contract is for a part fibre connectrion, I know there is no fibre to my house, as far as I am concerend this is a straight swap from one provider to another, no mention was ever made of needing to dig anything.
Eventually, "Nisrat" told me that the installation was being changed back to August 30th, and that it would all be confirmed in an email.
No email arrived, so I went through the whole bot thing again, and was eventually told that Openreachcould not honour an August 30th date, so it was back to September 10th and no-one had bothered to tell me that this was the case - I only know because I kept checking. I was again offerred a September 6th date, which I declined.
Contacting Sky revealed that it was too late to cancel the deal as the process was too far down the line - which seems wrong as I am within the cooling off period. So I got back with a bot again and booked the engineer visit for the 6th, with a booking reference.
As of now the activation date is still showing as the 10th, I have had no email confirmation of the 6th and I am still going to be without internet for 10 days. I strongly suspect that TalkTalk are unable to honour the internet speed they promised and as a result need to dig a hole.
I have a complaint resolution call booked for Tuesday. I doubt very much whether anything will be resolved, but the obvious solution (and one that doesn't seem to have occured to the bots) is to activate my service on the 30th and if they need to dig a hole on another day then do that - at least I'll be able to work in the meantime. No amount of financial compensation will get back the 4 days annual leave I will lose, and will not get me back the 4 hours of my life I have spent dealing with bots and/or people who don't understand what to do when things go off script, no matter "how great they feel assisting a valuable customer like me".
Avoid these people at all costs. I wish I had.
