I Just Knew It - TalkTalk Email "Transition"

[Cluster-Lizard]

What did I say on other threads here about this matter. It is undoubtedly AI driven and once it gets it into 'its' head that you're not a TalkTalk customer unless someone tells it has made a mistake it will keep on spewing out emails to customers telling them they're not customers and that their email service will end in July.

Worse than that the service will be incrementally depleted in the next two weeks with the removal of the ability to send emails (see screenshots below).

I was assured that the earlier emails I received were mistakes and should not have been sent to me as a TalkTalk customer and that I did not need to do anything.

Well obviously I do need to do something and soon because if my email service gets stuffed by TalkTalk's unwise reliance on AI and their inadequate customer service in dealing with this matter I will be very unhappy.

I suggested that what was required was not some generalised apology published online explaining that TalkTalk customers received these warning emails in error. What was needed, at the very least, was an email from TalkTalk sent out to all those customers confirming this was an error and that their 'system' has now been updated and recognises them as customers.

Was that too much to ask? A simple assurance, in writing, that because of a TalkTalk mistake your email service is going to continue as normal. Is that too ,much to ask now?

If anyone has any suggestions about how customers like myself and others here who've been affected by this this inexplicable mess TalkTalk have made of this then please..........please help.

[Gliwmaeden2]

@Starfleet, the important thing is that you would need to be told that the Talktalk agent would be completing a webform to ensure that your email addresses are associated with the current broadband account. 

Any other reassurances are not correct procedure  - so definitely challenge what's happening. 

[Cluster-Lizard]

That is disturbing news; now you have me worried again.

Hope you get this sorted out because as a TalkTalk customer you should not have been moved to Everymail and presumably expected to pay extra for the email facility which was an important part of the TalkTalk service you are continuing to pay for.

The way the second customer service person I spoke to explained the problem was that it was an internal administrative one ie. TalkTalk's mistake so I'd go back to them if I were you and not be fobbed off. All that was supposed to happen was that at this point in time, late May, you were meant to have been prevented from sending emails and certainly not swapped over to Everymail. That was not scheduled to happen until July and all that only if you were not a TalkTalk customer.

My own experience: thankfully I have received no communications from TalkTalk like that but have received an email (at the address in question) reminding me I'm out of contract. However that is 'comforting' as it does mean that their system appears to have been updated now to recognise me as a customer.

[Starfleet]

The saga continues,

After about 3 chats assuring me each time something would be done to associate my onetel email, now received yet another email saying take action - so called up this time and the agent says it's now under Everymail control

Getting so frustrated and despondent!

[Gliwmaeden2]

Thanks, @Cluster-Lizard.

Community Stars were told to put the notice in our signature by the forum staff - it's been there a couple of months now and shows in every single CS post. [I altered the ending of mine as I could not get the link to copy and paste correctly!]

Anyway the font is as it was in that template. I'm not going to alter it as all the CSs are supposed to be showing the same.

You'll see across the forum that anything under the single bottom line in posts is a "signature".

[Cluster-Lizard]

I'm sorry if it read as being "off hand" I actually did not see the "Any news?" part of your post just the, what I assume is now your forum signature, repeating the fact the forum it is now peer to peer.

The way it displays in the browser I'm using (admittedly old) is with the same font/size as the actual body of the post.

So apologies again for the mistake and misunderstanding. 

[Gliwmaeden2]

I was only asking after your progress, @Cluster-Lizard.

No need to be offhand.

Other customers are genuinely interested if caught in a similar situation. 

[fr8ys]

@Cluster-Lizard it's affecting @talktalk.net domains too.

if you log into mailbox manager you should be able to create a n additional email address, but do you want the hassle if transferring to everymail and paying if you ever do leave TalkTalk?

If you want an additional email address, possibly consider a free one like Gmail or Outlook and gradually transfer yourself over? That way if you do leave you don't have to worry about emails.

https://apps.talktalk.co.uk/myaccount/#/login

[Cluster-Lizard]

Not sure why you posted that ^?

I am, obviously I would have thought, well aware that TalkTalk have effectively castrated the most useful aspect of this forum and turned it into little more than  a talking shop for complaining about TalkTalk's service. Obviously there is good advice available here given by people who have have the experience or knowledge to help without having to go through the hoops of actually contacting TalkTalk. So it does still have purpose and I am grateful it is continuing even in this redacted state.

Back on topic:-

I think the matter has now been fixed for me. I managed to get through to a TalkTalk customer service person who clearly knew about the problem and the correct solution. She submitted the internal form whilst I was talking to her, the form others here have mentioned, with, I hope, the correct information. Afterwards she confirmed that as a customer who wants to keep their email service I had 100% assurance my email service will not be affected.

If others here have resolved this themselves then I hope that information is of use.

To get through to a real person the shortest route I have found is to just use the word "COMPLAINT" when you're prompted by the voice activated telephone prompt. If you use "email problem" or other option, it will 'assume' it is a technical issue and you'll be committing yourself to another round of irrelevant voice activated menu options.

One thing I wanted to ask here is if the many other people who have been put through this unnecessary 'experience' if they have @talktalk email domain names or are like me using old email @onetel.com or @tiscali etc ones. I just had this thought that may be the root cause of the trouble identifying users who are ".......not a custumer.....".

That led me to ask this question: I don't know the answer even though I have tried to find out myself, but is it possible under the present TalkTalk email system to have second or more email addresses?

[Gliwmaeden2]

Any news, @Cluster-Lizard?

[Cluster-Lizard]

Not received any confirmation or form in my email yet. Just the usual automated response and online questionnaire from TalkTalk: "How Did We Do?".

I told them in no uncertain terms I was not happy and couldn't recommend them to friends/relatives as the existing important matter I'd contacted them about has still not been satisfactorily resolved.

Sometimes a bad review/complaint gets the sort of response you were looking for in the first place.

Worked for me with HMRC. 😀

I'm wondering if I misunderstood the customer service guy and what he meant was that I'd receive confirmation the mysterious TalkTalk form Gliwmaeden2 describes had been submitted/accepted rather than was actually going to be sent to me.

Because of that I'm going to wait until Friday and if nothing happens try contacting them again.

Early Friday Edit

Nothing more from TalkTalk since Tuesday (apart from the customer services performance questionnaire) so I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and contact them again and see if this time I can get some sort of useful response.

[Gliwmaeden2]

Even when staff were on here, you'd simply be told that it would be done, not given "proof", @Starfleet.

The usual thing now is for agents to do the form by phone or Chat, so I have my doubts about what @Cluster-Lizard was told.

[Starfleet]

@Cluster-Lizard it really is scary, I have no faith in it and yet like you am totally helpless and out of any control, what is this form and how do you get it?

What I did was to do another online chat after the 2nd email (which was already after the first online chat following the first assuring me it was an error - which of course they were talking rubbish now) and the 2nd agent said they would associate my email to my TT account...but I have had no confirmation or proof and so now worried about the upcoming 26/5 & other deadlines....

It's becoming clear TT are a husk of what they were now they are probably down to so few real staff who understand what to do

[Cluster-Lizard]

It just has to be AI, as I suggested earlier.

If I don't get the form or confirmation that my email service is safe by the end of of today (Wednesday) I try contacting them again by 'phone tomorrow and, hopefully, sort this matter out properly. 

[Gliwmaeden2]

Ever since last summer, when they started notifying customers about the need to use Everymail after leaving, and to continue the service that had previously been assigned to Mailplus for former customers, there's been a muddle with some current customers somehow getting swept up with the Everymail deadline notifications  - yours really is the only case I have seen where the customer is supposedly being sent the form to complete, rather than it being filled in by staff.

Very odd, and you may have just encountered an agent who did not understand the process - either that or the process has suddenly been changed, @Cluster-Lizard.

Either way I would ring back for a second opinion. 

It is indeed strange how Talktalk seems to have lost the plot with these old addresses, having run them itself or taken them over in the past. Chaos behind the scenes, and poor record keeping. 

[Cluster-Lizard]

I'm actually concerned about what the form they're emailing me will contain and why it is not being sent immediately. 

As said I've found this whole thing odd - do TalkTalk not know who their customers are? Why do I have to fill in a form to prove I am a TalkTalk customer using the email address concerned? That is particularly odd since they're emailing the form to that registered email address and it was even used during the customer service 'phone call conversation to help verify who I was.

So they know I'm an existing customer. They also know that's my email address is active and I want to continue using it. What more do they need to know?

Sending me a form just to repeat information it is proven they already have doesn't make any sense. Does it?

I have a feeling this matter is not over yet.

[Gliwmaeden2]

Thanks for reporting back, @Cluster-Lizard.

That's certainly a change of method, as, previously only staff / agents completed a form. 

Do keep us posted!

[Cluster-Lizard]

Just an update that may be of use to other customers here who had the same, worrying, second email about their email service being removed because they are ".....not customers.....".

Only method I found of contacting TalkTalk effectively and getting through to a real live person is by 'phone. The 'Chatbot' option just didn't work.

You still have to go through the usual telephone menu options with voice confirmation which is always dodgy. I was cut off whilst waiting in line (<2 minutes) but at the second attempt I got through to the customer service OK.

They already seem aware of the problem so I guess others here have reported it too. They have an odd way of dealing with this and that is they are sending me a form (email) sometime in the next few days which will, apparently, sort out whatever the problem is/was. I suppose it is just official confirmation that the email address is being used by a customer and not a non-customer.

I await the form with trepidation but, hopefully at this point, that will resolve the issue satisfactorily and I won't lose my email service because of a TalkTalk error.

[Gliwmaeden2]

@Cluster-Lizard, please use the Complaints process, linked at the foot of any Talktalk page, to make sure that your concerns reach Talktalk as that will be much more effective. 

I have highlighted the fact to the forum manager that there appears to have been a further crop of emails sent out to customers whose email service shouldn't qualify for the arrangements for Everymail service etc. 

But direct feedback is the only way for you to bring the issue to the attention of those in Talktalk who should be acting on this - they are not going to be following the forum as it has no staff support. 

[Cluster-Lizard]

Good luck but I doubt that email will get through because at the bottom of the damned thing it says:-

"Please do not reply to this email, emails are not monitored."

I've said this before that this whole matter is like some Kafkaesque nightmare where you can't communicate with, in fact it feels like you're deliberately being blocked, anyone real at TalkTalk in a position of authority who might be able to sort this absurd situation out very quickly.

We are paying customers who just want to maintain our existing email service but for whatever reason we have been wrongly identified as non-customers and threatened with with losing it.

This is TalkTalk's problem, their fault, likely their rubbish AI's mistake but it is us, the customers, who are expected to contact them to resolve the issue and yet they're making that as hard as possible.

It is doing my head in because I thought this had been resolved.

I don't want another AI apology published on the web site because that was clearly not worth the paper it wasn't written on. I want all those paying customers affected by this matter to receive a direct email apology from TalkTalk and 100% assurance that their email service is safe and, crucially, they are recognised as valuable customers who want to maintain that existing service.

This is not much to ask.   

[Starfleet]

Same, I had the initial email, then went to webchat and the agent confirmed it was an error and nothing needed to be done.

Today I got the 2nd email and now am totally worried at losing this...what a ridiculous situation!

I replied to that 2nd email asking them to associate with my TT account and hope someone does something...