Me vs TalkTalk

[Derfel]

Here is a letter I sent them a few days ago:

 

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like the following complaint elevated to the highest level, so that if it is not resolved within 14 days I can take appropriate legal action as a matter of principle.

As this letter is rather lengthy, I offer the following summary of my complaint in the hope it might lead to it being addressed more appropriately:

·You failed to provide the service I signed up for.

·You caused me to incur expenses as a result of this breach of contract.

·You took money out of my bank account with no contract in force.

·You persisted in maintaining incorrect data about me.

·You passed this incorrect data to a debt collection agency, again without contractual justification.

·You promised compensation which was not forthcoming.

On 15 April 2006 I signed up for the TalkTalk package with separate telephone and broadband totalling £30 per month. We received neither the service nor any correspondence such as a welcome pack or terms and conditions. At no time was any information volunteered by you to me in the event of problems stopping the account being set up, instead I had to phone your inadequate call centre on numerous occasions. On five occasions altogether, staff at the call centre told me that it is necessary to re-provision the account, but each time after a two week wait, the service was not forthcoming.

When I signed up I was not told that we had to be with BT to transfer the line, and it was not until mid-May when someone at your call centre told me this. I transferred our line to BT, and instructed someone at your call centre that we were willing to pay BT's disconnection fee. By mid-June nothing had happened, and your company started blaming a non-descript BT product on the line which your company could not remove. BT confirmed there was no such product, and we relayed this information to you and we waited again.

In August, I sent two recorded delivery letters terminating the contract as no services had been forthcoming. I tried to transfer to Tiscali but they were unable to transfer us as your company had placed a blocking marker on our line. BT confirmed that the marker was placed by TalkTalk and gave me the cease code XXX. On 5 September I emailed Charles Dunstone (after resorting to searching for CPW Plc directors’ email addresses on the Internet) and repudiated the contract as no services had been forthcoming for over four months, and instructed him to remove the marker from our line. Fortunately, after this, the marker was removed and we were duly able to transfer to Tiscali.

Although out of pocket, I hoped this was the end of having to deal with your company. No such luck! From October onwards I started receiving TalkTalk bills, for services your company was not providing us with and never had. Each time I phoned your company, seeking for this anomaly on your billing system to be corrected, after much cumulative time wasted on hold, I was assured that the balance was reset to zero and there would be no more bills. Each time these turned out to be false assurances. After the first bill, you succeeded in taking money out of my account through Direct Debit, before my bank reversed this. There was not a contract in force therefore you were without reason to take money from my bank account. Eventually I received a letter from your company stating that the account should have a zero balance.

On 4 January 2007 I received a rudely worded creditor’s notice demand for an ‘outstanding balance’ of £76.99 from Corporate Credit Media Ltd. The letter left no room for error on your part, and the fact it was printed on red paper with mostly bold and capitalised text did not make it any more correct. I telephoned CCMedia and was rudely told that they are “not interested in disputes between clients and their customers” and that I would “just have to argue [my] case in court”. This behaviour does not follow OFT guidelines on debt collection. Again, with no contract, there was no reason for you to pass my details to a third party. This is a breach of the Data Protection Act of 1988. Furthermore, you persisted in keeping false data about me, another breach, despite being told on numerous occasions that it was incorrect.

On 5 January I emailed Charles Dunstone with a 14 day deadline to determine a fair resolution to my complaint. This was 7 days more than the letter from the debt collection agency gave me! I received a phone call from XXX, who did not seem aware of all the details and offered £75 compensation, and assured me the account was closed. I declined this as it wasn't a fair reflection of our costs and gave him until the 14 day deadline ran out on my letter to come up with something more reasonable.

The DCA soon afterwards assured me that it was the end of the matter. However, on 16 January I received a second letter from them entitled "PENDING LEGAL ACTION". I phoned XXX about this misleading letter and he upped the offer to £160. Still, this was not a worthwhile offer. A week later, XXX emailed to say that he had arranged for this cheque to be sent, that I would receive it 'in around 5 days', and that the matter was now closed. Needless to say we have not received a cheque.

Here is what I would consider a fair resolution to this complaint.

·I would like the cost of my BT bills for the period between transferring to BT and you removing the marker from our line, minus what TalkTalk would have charged for same period. The BT costs were two bills, the first dated 10 July 2006 at £73.55, the second dated 9 October 2006 at £139.11. TalkTalk would have cost £20 per calendar month, which is £80 in total. The whole difference is therefore £132.66.

·Five hours of my time spent on this issue at £20 per hour. £100 in total.

·The original £160 I was promised solely as compensation.

This totals £392.66.

If you had been prompt and upfront in your initial dealings with me, or acted on my first letters cancelling your attempts at provisioning my account in August, I would not have incurred such large bills with BT.

I believe that the provision in the Data Protection Act of 1988 to compensate for distress and inconvenience would cover the total amount I am asking for.

Again, I would like to reiterate that if this complaint is not resolved in 14 days then I reserve the right to take legal action without further notice, and this will likely incur small claims court costs added to that total.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

What do you think? A customer services rep offered £220 but still doesn't seem aware of all the facts (i.e. thought it was a guesture of good will that they cancelled the debts, but how can you actually cancel debts that don't exist?), and £220 doesn't cover my out of pocket expenses anyway. I hope I can get my expenses and a little compensation for their organisational incompetence.

[Derfel]

We got a call from a "high level complaints officer", who really didn't understand that they broke the Data Protection Act, he thought companies are entitled to recover debts and they only deleted these debts as a guesture of good will. Whatever. He sent a letter of deadlock, which emphasised that they don't understand the complaint.

 

So we're sending this:

 

Thank you for your letter dated 4 October 2007, your ref xxxxxxxx. From your summary of my complaint, it appears that TalkTalk still do not understand my complaint. In July 2006 I sent two recorded delivery letters cancelling the contract. If a broadband service was live on my line at any point up to cancelling the contract, TalkTalk could have written to me, or your call centre staff could have told me so during any of my numerous phone calls enquiring about my account.

I emailed Charles Dunstone on 5 September 2006 for a MAC code, which I was subsequently provided with. That this was necessary implies that our cancellation letters of July 2006 went unheeded.

For reasons unknown to me, and after three written communications informing TalkTalk that the contract was repudiated, our ‘account’ was placed in your billing system, and it appears that this ultimately caused TalkTalk to provide (inaccurate) data about me to a debt collection agency (a third party) without permission, despite TalkTalk being informed by me on numerous occasions about these fictitious bills. I feel this negligence was a flagrant breach of the Data Protection Act (1988).

Since the bills were fictitious, it comes as no surprise that the figures in your letter (being one bill of £39.99 on 18 September, and three bills of £13.50 each in October, November, and December) do not add up to the £76.99 demanded of me by the debt collection agency in January 2007.

You can find the rest of the details of my complaint, and my suggested resolution totalling £392.66, in my previous letter. I feel this resolution is more than reasonable. I would like to offer you another chance to consider this, so I ask that you respond positively within 14 days, otherwise I will begin a small claims court action.