Hi - I'm looking for advice on a long-running dispute with Talk Talk.

In December 2014 I opened a Talk Talk account but went overseas before it became live (due 29 December). I came back home a few weeks later later in january 2015 expecting the account to be live but found letters saying "we're sorry you decided to leave us".

I called up and was told the account was now cancelled (as of 17 or 18 of January). Talk Talk are now pursuing me for £240 odd pounds for breach of contract. They have provided no evidence that I did indeed breach the contract but claim another provider took over the line.

I had no communications with any other provider, and also received no introductory information or correspondence from any other provider. I had a telephone conversations with Talk Talk a few days before the account was cancelled - asking what my new phone number would be - and they didn't mention the account was about to close.

I did take the case to the ombudsman who found that Talk Talk had followed their own procedures for notifying me of cancellation of the account (several letters) and said they only ruled on whether they followed procedure. Talk Talk have refused to show me what the request to terminate the contract looked like, citing data protection. I am now putting in a request for them to provide transcripts of all of our communincations and all information about my account.

Talk Talk are claiming they wouldn't have transferred the account without an instruction from me, but that's clearly wrong since I didn't provide one. There must have been a mistake somewhere but they are refusing to acknowledge it. Talk Talk have now referred the case to Lowell Group to pursue the charges.

I have requested all data about my account including telephone transcripts but haven't had the response yet. I think I am now at the point where I need to actively seek to raise a case against Talk Talk. legal advice since Talk Talk refuse to drop the case despite having no evidence that I breached the contract. So my questions are: - has anyone else experienced this and how did you deal with it? - can anyone recommend how I would go about getting specialist contract law / telecomms legal advice that was economical? - what woudl be the best route to go down? Small claims is attractive, but frankly this has cost me quite a bit so maybe I should go another route? Is there an icon for tearing my hair out?!!!

I'm grateful for any advice - this has been going on for over 2 years and I'm desperate to resolve it. Lorna

Hi and welcome to CAG

In my opinion, legal action is still a long way off. I assume you have sent a Subject Access Request (SAR) to TT to get all the account info, data and history and sent them £10 to cover the costs of this request.

What usually happens is that a company will make an error with an account and accidentally cancel the wrong account. The SAR may show this event and if you can prove you were elsewhere at the time of the cancellation, this would put TT in an awkward spot. Why TT are spouting the data Protection Act when it is your data is a little concerning. Are they trying to hide something?

Thanks for your response. I have submitted a subject access request but haven't had a response yet - I only get post once week in my current location so things can take a very long time to get to me. Meanwhile Lowell Group continue to say they are raising a case against me which is pretty stressful. I was beyond furious when they cited data protection as a reason not to tell me who had taken over my account or who had instructed a change. I was the only resident and it was an account in my name. But they wouldn't tell me anything and have never produced any information. Hopefully the SAR will throw something up. I was definitely in Pakistan at the time the account was cancelled as I was working there at the time but I have told them that and it made no difference. It would be good to resolve without legal action so lets hope the Subject Access Request sheds some light on what happened.

There is a practice where telephone services are taken over by competing providers and it tends to be a very haphazard sloppy arrangement where it seems that it can happen without even the customer knowing about it. I know because I've been on the end of it happening with British Telecom.

I certainly agree that the first thing to do is to send off an SAR, and you seem to have done this. Not a lot you can do until you receive the results.

When you receive the disclosure then you will need to go through it very carefully not only to find out what is there – but also to try and figure out what is not there.

I'm very interested to learn that they have responded to you refusing to give you certain information which applies to you on the basis that it is subject to the Data Protection Act.

I'd be very grateful if you could post up a copy of that letter in PDF format – redact the identifiers of course.

No tearing hair out image.. perhaps hitting head against brick wall will do !