Contract not Cancelled - Account has been taken to Debt collector

[Morsal]

To whom this may concern,

I am writing to inform you of a significant circumstance and bad experience with getting into contact with TalkTalk customer services. I am disappointed with the service this company has to offer.

Firstly, I would like to state that during January I was in contact with one of their agents via phone regarding a renewal which was later cancelled on the same day. The agent reassured me that this was not a problem and would cancel the contract as I would be terminating the contract during the 14-day cooling-off period. Since I received this confirmation, I was billed and charged by direct Debit for 2 months, I was shocked after reviewing my statement, hence I took matters into my own hands and cancelled the direct debit via my bank. I had tried to make contact numerous times with TalkTalk but as my phone number was disconnected, I could not get a hold of any agents.

This further led to a third-party debt-collecting company making contact known as JC International Acquisition informing me of a substantial outstanding bill of £300.35 which I must pay. I called the debt-collecting company and waited in a phone queue for over an hour, the agent I spoke to explained that the renewal contract which I had signed up for in January was not cancelled but TalkTalk kept their services. I had explained my situation and the agent suggested that get in contact with the TalkTalk bots /chats and provide confirmation that my TalkTalk contract was cancelled but the bill continued for the next few months.

This led me to communicate via a chat box on the TalkTalk homepage, the agent reassured me the phone conversation I had made was recorded on the system, but the agent had not cancelled my contact, failing to provide a reason as to why this was the case. I have proof of times and dates of call communication and of the chat with the online agent, all can be attached if required. This situation has significantly escalated, and I am not in the best financial position to afford any of this and to inform you that I am not in the wrong clearly stated above. Therefore, I would greatly appreciate it if you could please investigate this and feel free to contact me via email.

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Hi Morsal

There is a record of you contacting us to renew in January 2023 which was accepted, there is no record of a cancellation request , only a cancellation of the direct debit in March 2023. 

The debt has now been sold to a collection agency. 

[Gliwmaeden2]

The confusion might be that cancellation of a renewal wouldn't of itself stop the service. 

The service continues after the contract ends, unless that service is specifically stopped with notice. It becomes simply a rolling contract. 

Did you actually instruct them that you wished to stop the service altogether?

It is normal to have a couple of bills afterwards while the notice period plays out etc.

Staff will be able to look into this for you but the issue may be with the debt collectors rather than Talktalk at this stage. Hope they can disentangle it for you.

[Morsal]

Many Thanks @Gliwmaeden2 for your response. 

Sorry if I was not clear above, there is only a limit to what I can type and explain. 

Unfortunately, the TalkTalk agent failed to cancel my subscription, even after reassuring me on the phone the contract was cancelled and no further payments would be needed. My ongoing contract had come to an end so this would not have carried on after I cancelled the renewal.

TalkTalk then went on billing and charging me for the next 2 months, I thought this may have been an error, I tried to call but the answering machine kept repeating the phone number/account number I had entered was incorrect. I tried calling TalkTalk customer service but my phone line was disconnected, so I wasn't able to connect to any agents, but only chat to agents online who had limited access to my account online.

The chat agent confirms I had called to cancel at the time so surely the system would update and I wouldn't have to call so many times to clarify myself. 

So I am now worried and do not want to escalate the matter further and hope for TalkTalk to cancel this debt.  

[Gliwmaeden2]

Sorry to hear about your difficulties, @Morsal.

It should have been possible to phone to clear this up as they ask at the start of the call to confirm whether you are phoning from the number in question etc.

Cancelling a Direct Debit is always going to incur charges - it doesn't cancel the service. 

It's not clear from what you posted that you actually asked them to cancel the service. Cancelling the renewed contract would normally mean you revert to your ongoing package at the in contract rate if that hadn't yet finished, or out of contract full price.

Unfortunately Chat agents cannot cancel a service. They can only ask phone agents to call you back, and thereby finish the process. We always recommend therefore using the phone in the first place and then checking perhaps in a forum topic that it's all been processed correctly. 

Staff are on here during the day, Monday to Friday. They won't phone or email you. 

All correspondence is done via the thread or Private Message if they ask you for confidential information.