Thank you I know - it's very scary. However, you do a search like that for any provider and you get horror stories about all of them. I have had numerous people telling me to steer clear of Virgin Media etc as well... in the end it's a bit of a gamble I guess. I thought I'd share my latest communication I have had with TalkTalk on here. I submitted a COMPLAINT. Not just an email, but a complaint. It said they would aim to get back to me within 24 hours. I took them 3 days, and after I asked them to please call me and discuss the problem as it's costing me a fortune from my mobile and I don't get anywhere by calling customer services I got this reply (remember the complaint is about not having a landline and broadband): 'Dear ...., Thank you for email regarding the poor services that you have received from us. I would like to offer our apologies for the negative experience you had. We can assure you this is not in any way our normal working practice. At TalkTalk we pride ourselves on a high level of customer service and at no time do we accept staff being uncooperative towards our customers. I would appreciate it if you could contact our New Lines department on 0800 049 1423 as they will have full knowledge in assisting you with regards arranging a earlier date for the connection of your landline. I appreciate your patience in this regards. For any further queries, please visit the TalkTalk Helpdesk for answers to common broadband and landline questions. Alternatively, you can contact us by telephone on 0870 444 1820. Calls to this number are free from your TalkTalk landline. Kind regards, ..............., TalkTalk Customer Relations. Isn't that just unbelievable?! Simply pushing the responsibility away from them again, asking me to do exactly what I had done numerous times before and emphasizing that (if only I had a TalkTalk landline...!!!) calls to this number would (or should I say 'could') be free! Absolutely unbelievable!

I know, I had that email address before and have tried it twice - without the gap - and it still bounces back :-S

Thank you both for your advice! Unfortunately, the email address you gave me (and several others that I have tried) doesn't work I'll send a letter through the post, see whether I hear back, otherwise I will indeed try and switch over to O2! Thank you!

We moved into a new property and the previous owners were with TalkTalk and when they spoke to TalkTalk they were told we could simply replace our details with theirs on the date of the move. This would have been perfect as both of us work freelance from home and need the internet every day, all day. So the previous owners were sent a form to fill in. However, when the previous owners received this form, things did not add up so they called just to be told they had been ill-advised and such a switch-over was not possible, the line would have to be disconnected and re-connected. This could take up to 3 weeks for us. Although it was very frustrating for us, there wasn't much we could do and we agreed to having a new line etc all put into place in about three weeks' time. We were told a BT engineer would come to ours on the 3rd December 2010. The couple of days before the 3rd December we had heavy snow in London, which is why we called TalkTalk on the 3rd December to check everything was going ahead. By this point there was no more issues with travelling due to the snow and it was confirmed by TalkTalk that the engineer would be with us by 6pm. Which he wasn't. No phone call, no message, no nothing. So we called TalkTalk who told us that it was because of the weather. Which was a ridiculous excuse. School, trains, busses, everything was back to normal service by then. Never mind. The chap on the phone told us we could have a new date, 11th December. We told him that this was VERY inconvenient as BOTH of us work from home and have to rely on the internet to be able to do our jobs - pretty much 24/7. In addition, we have family abroad so phone calls from mobiles are very expensive, never mind all the extremely expensive phone calls to TalkTalk, which would be free from a landline.... if only we had one. So we asked whether there wasn't an earlier date. The chap (we have his details) said that unfortunately there wasn't, so we agreed to this date. Throughout the week running up to the 11th December we received a number of phone calls from TalkTalk asking whether we wanted to arrange a new date for a BT engineer, so we kept telling them we already had one. I got very suspicious by this and my worries were confirmed when we were told on the 9th December that, in fact, NO new date had been arranged and that, because of this, we would now have to wait until the 26th JANUARY for an engineer to come round. Speechless doesn't even come close to how I felt. We then asked him why the engineer would not come on the 11th and the chap told us as a matter of fact that we had told him we didn't want the engineer to come on the 11th but before then so he hadn't booked us in for that date. Well, we would've LIKED the engineer to come before the 11th, but there was no question about taking the date of the 11th as there was nothing sooner and we had CONFIRMED we wanted the 11th December! He told us this was not what had happened. Ie he was telling us we were lying. Why - I ask you - would we refuse a replacement date to receive our landline/internet?! So he said unfortunately it would have to be the 26th January. To cut a long story short we made a number of phone calls, and called again and asked about the dates. Another person told us there should be an earlier date and that he would call us back. Which he didn't. We then called again (each time from a mobile phone...) to say that it is ridiculous that we would have to wait until the 26th January. The guy on the line was very polite and said that he can see that we'd been messed around a little and that he had filled in an escalation form. Someone would call us within 48 hours about this. We told him we wouldn't actually believe someone would call, but he confirmed this would be the case and gave us his details in case there were problems. Sure enough, no one called. So we called, again. This time we spoke to a lady, again from a mobile, again telling her the whole story. She then said she wouldn't be able to tell us when we might get connected. ...? Well, that's just not good enough, is it? At the moment we have to pay 2 x £30/month on VERY weak dongle connections that won't allow us to do 80% of the work we need to do. Furthermore we spent a lot of money on calls to TalkTalk, and have to make all other calls from our mobiles. With having moved house there are a lot of 0845/0870 etc numbers we need to call, as well as having to call family abroad. Ie, we spend a good £100/month because, apparently, no replacement date can be sorted out before 26th January because of TWO days of snow! 2 MONTHS delay because of 2 DAYS of snow? How can that be justified? TalkTalk blames BT - BT blames TalkTalk. I don't care. All I want is a working landline and broadband connection - is that too much to ask from a broadband company? NO engineers available between now and the 26th January after the engineer failed to show up on the 3rd December? So anyway, this lady tells us there is nothing she can do other than to offer us some compensation so she put us through to yet another person. After minutes of waiting in a queue we got through to yet another polite guy (whose details we also have). First thing he says is "I believe you want to cancel your subscription?" No. We just want it to work. So we tell him, still hanging on a very expensive line, our whole story again. He is very sympathetic and tells us that there might be an earlier date but he cannot guarantee it and can't tell us more. He tells us we get three months free connection (not even covering all the expenses we will have to pay if we are not connected before the 26th January...). We tell him that is a nice gesture and will accept the discount, but that we want to speak to someone more senior and ask him to put us through. This isn't possible. However, he promises his duty manager will call us within the hour. We tell him we don't believe this as NO ONE has kept ANY of the promises so far and we have had NO person returning ANY of the calls. Well, he says we have his details and can get back at him if this call doesn't take place. Lo and behold, here I am, FIVE hours after the duty manager was supposed to have called us, and we have STILL NOT had a call back! A lot of broken promises and the unbelievable claim that a failed engineer visit on the 3rd December cannot be rectified until the 26th January?! What can we do? Anyone can help?