What if we don't agree to cancel?

[jw0853]

Talk Talk wants UFO customers to take some action before the service stops on 29th May 2023.

I got an email about this with two options: either cancel the service, or agree to a new contract (i.e. City Fibre for £39.95 for 18 months).

But my UFO fixed-term contract continues until September. Why, then, would I agree to a new service at a higher price?

I've talked to customer services a few times about this. Been bounced around between a few different agents, stayed on hold for a while as they talked to their managers, been hung up on by the "customer loyalty" people! I think they don't have any good solutions. They can't reduce the price of the City Fibre contract, they can't extend the UFO service beyond May, and they certainly don't want to offer an equivalent service at the same price for the rest of the fixed term.

But what if I don't agree, either to cancel or to move to City Fibre? The existing contract still exists. They're still obliged to honour it, even though this may be costly or inconvenient to them. Aren't they?

Seems like a bit of a mess, honestly. They should not have offered customers fixed-term contracts that ran beyond the service end date.

[joeyboswell]

Grass not greener?

It has to be as Talktalk cannot offer FTTP/UFO here anymore, hence why I have to switch! They can only provide 100 meg to me now.

[ferguson]

The grass isn't always greener ...

[peteb99]

That's annoying that it took you so long to find out, I guess £3 is not too bad.    Hope everything goes ok with Vodafone for you.

My NoOne internet has been great for the last month, until yesterday when it went down at 3.30pm.   Within three minutes they had an update on their website to advise they were looking into the issues so I didn't have to phone them.

This is what updates they provided - really great and detailed updates.   It came back on around 8pm.   When we lost the internet with TalkTalk it was just impossible to get any details of what was going on at all and it took days to be resolved, NoOne are a breath of fresh air.

http://status.as49375.net/incident/347834

[joeyboswell]

And another reply, Octoplus can provide a fixed IP for an extra £3 a month, wish they state these things on their website. But costs are rising now with these addons....

A bit too late now. 😞

[joeyboswell]

Just to add for others info.

Got a strange email from Octoplus wanting the router sending back, even though I cancelled the install as unclear on call charges on the website, so didn't get a router. But managed to get some info out of them via various email replies today.

They charge £5 a month for all calls, this is 2000 mins (FUP) which I thought was pretty good (so similar to Giganet), but the deal breaker for me was still CGNAT as Pete pointed out.

Anyway, waiting for the Vodafone install at the end of the month.

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Thanks for the update.

[peteb99]

Cityfibre engineers arrived at 11:15am and left at 11:35am.   They swapped over the ONT in a couple of minutes and then had to wait in a queue for 10 minutes for CityFibre to make the changes on their end.

Everything is working fine and getting exactly the same speeds as UFO. 

[peteb99]

Hi JB,

When I tried to setup Giganet it said to me that I would have to pay £5 a month for the phone line with 2000 minutes (but doesn't say if this is landline only numbers or includes mobiles).   I have to say that Giganet's website is incredibly slow and put me off ordering from them, haha.  However, they do provide you with a Eero Pro 6e router which is a great router and very future proof as Wifi 6e will be the standard for years to come and is very very fast.

I have an appointment with CityFibre tomorrow to install the new ONT (the new one is tiny compared to the old ONT).    No One have been pretty good so far - the person who answered my phone call was very helpful and knowledgeable.   They have already provided me with a PPPoE username and password (god only knows why they are using PPPoE which is so inefficient) and told me what VLAN port use.   They allow you to use your own router if you want but won't support it - however, I'm confident that I know how to setup mine up for it.  

My whole street has decided to stay with TalkTalk as when they phoned TT they were given horror stories as to how it would go wrong if they left TT and that it wasn't straight forward at all.  Some have kids doing GCSE's so don't want to disrupt them - though they still need a visit from an engineer to install the new ONT.  I don't blame them - it should be simple to switch if Ofcom had followed through with their promise.

I will post again to let you know how it goes tomorrow but I don't forsee many problems.

Peter

[joeyboswell]

So, I signed up to Octoplus, but found very unclear about home phone and call charges, speaking to them is as hard as speaking to talktalk so already cancelled Octoplus today, best option for me was Vodafone as I really wanted to keep the City Fibre connection.

A bit of a mess, email from Talktalk with a link to change to the new 1gb service, the link then tells me not available here and only 100 meg available??

Is the 29th of May the real cut off date for all current users? I know a few who are not aware at all and had no contact about it.

Regards

JB

[jw0853]

I hope the switchover goes well for you @peteb99 . This thread has been very informative.

I have a booking for Giganet which is fortunately more than 30 days in the future, so I will have to call Talk Talk on exactly the correct day to cancel. If it's too soon, they won't schedule a cancellation for a future date. If it's too late, that's a demand for £81 which I will have to argue my way out of, just as you did.

I am expecting further problems - indeed, I expect a shambles - but luckily we can work from home with just 4G if we need to. The various UFO outages over the last few months have been a good preparation for this.

[peteb99]

I managed to get the installation date brought forward to the 14th April which I'm happy about.

I phoned TalkTalk to let them know.     They now say that it is impossible to cancel the contract without 30 days notice even though I was told (and I specifically asked) that it could be cancelled in a couple of days.   The guy tried to say that I hadn't been told that but I informed him that I had a full recording of the call (I never used to record the calls before dealing with TalkTalk and I let them know I'm recording the call).   He changed his tune but still said she was wrong and it was impossible to do.   After 30 minutes he transferred me through to customer services who he said would resolve it immediately for me.

I got put through to someone and had to go through all the security again.       He informed me that yes, I would have to give 30 days notice and also pay £81 for terminating the contract early.  Arrgghh.   He confirmed it was impossible to cancel before the 30 days notice.    I could hardly tell a word he was saying as he was talking so fast.

He then said I'd need to be put through to retentions.   I wasn't happy but let him put this through.   I'd been on the call over 50 minutes at this point.

I spoke to retentions, went through security for the third time.     Again he said I had to give 30 days notice and would have to pay a £81 early re-demption fee.   I explained that TalkTalk were cancelling the contract and not me and I was already pretty annoyed that they had broken their contract and wanted me to pay.     He then saw the letter sent to me and said as I was a loyal customer he would waive the £81.  Gee thanks for that.        

He then said he would offer me a great deal for the same speeds for £39.99 a month.   I said it isn't the same speeds, yes it is he said.  I asked what the upload speed was, 110Mb/s.     I explained I was currently on 900Mb/s but apparently I was mistaken and TalkTalk have never offered upload speeds anything like that.   Arrrggghhh.   I still said I wanted to leave - no problem he said and I told him when.   Yes, no problem he said and has done it so it's cancelled on the 14th (even though everyone else had said that was impossible)

He made a big thing about losing my email address that I could never get back and that I'd lose the phone number which I don't use anyway.

I'll now have to see what happens on the 14th April.   I'm pretty confident No One Broadband will get it working (well City Fibre anyway) as they use Username/Password authentication and a VLAN tag to connect through (which they've already given me already).

I really wish that TalkTalk were even slightly good but they have been awful for years to me and I am so glad to be leaving.   Something that should be so simple took me over an hour on a phone call.

[joeyboswell]

Thanks Pete, more food for thought, I have registered interest with Octoplus who say they will contact myself within 48 hours to confirm, but I do like the idea of a fixed IP for my ESXI server and want to retain the City Fibre connection!

I will have to look into a separate VOIP service again, had one many years ago (with a Siemens Gigaset handset), but would like to retain our landline number which is a unique and very easy to remember number. My wife uses the landline a lot so an important thing to have here.

Regards

JB

[peteb99]

Must admit that I never use a home phone anyway.   The TalkTalk phoneline is not even plugged in.

I just use a VOIP SIP phone and I haven't used that for outgoing calls for years.    You also get an email when anyone leaves a voicemail which is useful.   When you can get unlimited calls with Smarty for £5 a month with 4GB you can't go wrong.

I've now signed up with No One.  They offer 900Mb/s up and down and also give you a static IP address which I've wanted for years.

What's funny is that the CityFibre installation date for me is 22nd May which is the earliest available.   Very quickly the installs will end up beyond 29th May and what are TalkTalk going to do then?  Just cut everyone off?

I phoned Talktalk and they went through the hard sell but had to admit that the upload speed is a lot slower so I asked to leave.   She said she could cut it off on any date I wanted and I just had to tell her which was great.  She told me to get the installation date from the new provider and phone them back so that they would crossover on the same date..   I went with No One, got the date and phoned TalkTalk back.      As usual, the call handler denied that what the first caller had said and that it "doesn't work like that".    I now have to phone back on 22nd April and cancel it to give them the 30 days notice.     I queried this as they are breaking the contract, not me.    She just repeated that it wasn't policy.   I let her know that my policy is not to break contracts and keep to my word.

I'm not looking forward to the handover as no doubt TalkTalk will mess something up, but at least I'll be free of them after all these years.

[joeyboswell]

The other issue is a phone, not many of the providers in the list can include a phone line (VOIP), those that do are unclear on call charges!

[peteb99]

Hi Joey,

Glad I could help BUT I've found out that Octaplus use CGNAT which is a nightmare for port forwarding as you share an IPv4 address with a lot of people.    I've found out so far that Octaplus and Giganet use CGNAT so that rules them out for me (I use a VPN server at home to view CCTV cameras etc).

I'm still looking now and I'm thinking of No One internet now.   They seem to get really good reviews and they provide your own static IPv4 address which would be very useful for me - wouldn't need to use a DDNS anymore haha.

[joeyboswell]

Pete

Many thanks for explaining the deals, think I will go with Octaplus, as you say, a shame, was great in the early days as testers, but Talktalk support is terrible now.

Regards

JB

[jw0853]

Thanks @peteb99 for your interesting and useful reply, and the hint about looking at upload speeds. I'd certainly assumed that the new £39.99/month service was "UFO with a price increase", I didn't realise it was a downgrade. I am considering various options, Giganet look very appealing.

[peteb99]

Hi jw0853,

Like you my contract is up in September so I am just waiting for the same message you have received.

Have you looked at the alternative offerings here :

https://cityfibre.com/availability

There are 12 companies available to choose from.    The cheapest I've found is £32 for the same deal we have now (900 up and down) with Octaplus.

Whatever you do, don't agree to stay with TalkTalk.   They are misleading you (I've seen the message as my neighbours have received them).    Have a look and you'll see that they don't tell you how much the upload speed is (the message says "this package is most similar to your current service").           I had to spend a few minutes finding out what the upload speed will be and it is 91Mb/s.    Obviously TalkTalk's use of the word similar is significantly different to mine.   I found the information about the upload speed here : https://www.choose.co.uk/broadband/talktalk/reviews/full-fibre-900/

Be careful when choosing who to move to that they actually offer the same upload speed as the download speed - Zen for example also only offer 100Mb/s upload.   All the others on the page I've linked you to seem to offer 900Mb/s upload and download.

I think think that I might move to Giganet as they offer a 12 month contract with three months for free which makes the effective monthly price £30 which is pretty good.  They also offer an Amazon Eero Pro 6e router which seems like a great router (I think TalkTalk now use the same).

I will be sad to leave TalkTalk as I am still very grateful that they took a chance in 2015, installed the network and gave a really great price for it (it was £21.70 a month then which quite frankly was and still is amazing).    The only issue I have is the customer service over the last couple of years - it is very hard to get through to someone and even harder to actually get anything fixed (as evidenced by the threads on this forum).   However, I would say that the customer service on this forum has been very good it's just that they don't know or aren't given any information on UFO so struggle to help us.   

Good luck with whoever you choose to move to.

[jw0853]

Thanks Arne.

> Im sure if you contact our loyalty team they will be able to help with the cost of the package

I'd think so too, and a customer service agent did refer me there, but they hung up on me instead of answering the call (twice). I got nowhere asking the salespeople either (again, twice). They've plainly been told not to offer any discounts. It seems a waste of time to chase this up.

With 3 months free, the service *is* slightly cheaper for the next 5 months (you're actually the first person to point this out) but then there is a commitment at a higher price for more than a year after that, so I would prefer to wait until the end of the fixed-term period and then shop around, which is not an option but should be.

From my side, the service didn't change aside from the price: it's still fibre to my home, at the same speed, provided by Talk Talk. It may be that there are some big internal changes within Talk Talk about how the service is provided but this is not relevant to the customer.

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Hi jw0853

Thanks for your post. 

The UFO service is stopping, which is why the offer of transferring to city fibre is being made, we are covered in the terms and conditions, should you choose not to stay with us you will need to contact another provider which will most likely be provided by city fibre,  there will ne no termination fees for canceling the service. 

Im sure if you contact our loyalty team they will be able to help with the cost of the package,  Also the promotion does offer the first 3 months free. 

Contact us on  03451720088 

Regards