I have been with TalkTalk for over 7 years and decided to upgrade to full fibre at my current property. The Openreach contractor actually said it was one of the easiest installs he had done, straight through the front wall and already spliced to both neighbours. Job done, or so I thought.
Within 48 hours the LOS fault light came on and the connection dropped.
- An engineer was booked, but I was told afterwards that I apparently was not in, despite waiting all day. Their notes claimed there was an issue with the number given, which is strange as I never had a missed call.
- I then spent over 1.5 hours on the phone trying to rebook. First I was told it was too late as Openreach were closed. Then the story changed and suddenly I was told an engineer was booked for the next morning between 8 and 1.
- Nobody came. When I called, I was told an engineer was still on the way at 1pm. Nobody arrived. No contact at all. I have had zero contact with Openreach via any method since Monday, and there is no way for customers to contact Openreach directly.
- Last night I tried again and was told there had been a “meltage” in one of their call centres, so I could not even speak to anyone. To make matters worse, their online chat will not deal with FTTP issues, which means I had no support channel at all.
It feels like paying customers in the UK are being penalised because TalkTalk routes its support through overseas call centres that are not equipped to handle real issues.
I have now been without service for 5 days immediately after install. After years as a loyal customer, I think this is disgraceful service. To have a brand new product installed only for it to fail within 48 hours, and then to be left offline for nearly a week with failed appointments, broken communication and excuses like “meltages” is unacceptable.
I am posting this here because it should not take public complaints to get things moving. Clearly, something is very wrong with how TalkTalk handles faults, escalation and basic customer service.
