TalkTalk: price hike hits thousands of broadband, mobile and phone customers

I applied to move from Sky and take up a Broadband & Phone deal with TalkTalk in December 2015. The deal included a £100 cash back, if one kept their old phone number, but if Talk Talk issued a new number no cash back would be payable. I filled in their Internet Form and opted to keep my old phone number. I however was unable to check my new customer account until the account went live in January 2016. I then accessed the Account and found that they had changed our telephone number to a New Talk Talk number, WHY! I telephoned Talk Talk the same day of the switch-over and was put through to three different operators and the third operator stated that he would ask ‘The Backroom Boys’ to contact Sky and ask them to release the number in order to change it back to our original number. Was this incompetence by Talk Talk or was it a ploy to avoid giving me £100 cash back? To cut a long story short, after numerous telephone calls to Talk Talk and even a letter to their CEO, I could not get my telephone number back, or the £100 cask back. I complained to Communications Ombudsman and Ofcom of the problems but received nothing as to the outcome of my complaint, no doubt because I could not prove my case, as Talk Talk would of course state that I had not requested to keep my number. I therefore voted with my feet and closed the account. I still to this day do not know if this was Talk Talk incompetence or was it a ploy to avoid giving me £100 cash back?

In answer to OldHenry's request for a satisfied TalkTalk customer - It's me and, even if I am the only one, I have no reason to change. I've been with them for longer than I can remember and still use my original Tiscali email which is handy for my contacts. I now pay considerably less that I was paying 10 years ago at a bit over £27 monthly for all I need with free calls Including line rental and unlimited broadband and a free sim card with more free time than I shall ever use thrown in. I never use the TV service although my TV provides iplayer faultlessly and the broadband speed is never an issue. I have no need of the TV service as the variety of junk on the terrestial channels is more than enough to send me to the drinks cupboard and the prospect of playing games etc. would send me to the garden shed and I hate gardening. The only real problem I have had was several years ago when someone at BT swapped some wires arround and connected me to someone else's service and the overseas support was hopelessly out of it's depth on that but that is hardly surpising. Things will have to get much worse before I even think about changing.

In answer to Alan Gallon's concerns, it is a bit more involved than switching power suppliers, although I've never required a MAC as old oldhenry suggests. A MAC is certainly needed to move your mobile number, but in the case of a land line move your new supplier should do all the donkey work for you. See this: www.uswitch.com/broadband/guides/switch/ You will be informed of a switch-over day, and you could possibly be offline and without a fixed phone for some time on that date. Once when I switched suppliers from BT to Mercury (this was in the previous century) I ended up with someone else's live number, and the only way to get my own phone number back was to revert to BT. I understand that the process these days is somewhat more efficient. You will still have the same wires coming into your house (unless you take direct fibre from Virgin Media. Virgin are the only suppliers running their own all-fibre network.) Anyone else offering fibre will give you FTTC (fibre to the cab) so the connection from the street cab to your home will still use the same BT copper wire. Your new supplier will reconnect your service to their equipment in the local telephone exchange. (Formerly known as the BT exchange. Or the Post Office exchange if you go back far enough.) If you have email addresses supplied by your telco (e.g. alangallon@talktalk.co.uk or SidewaysOwl@BT.com,) Ofcom says you are allowed to continue to use that address. But what the response would be like if anything goes wrong with them is hard to say. Consider setting up an independent, portable email address. I've made no secret in the past that I'm not a TalkTalk fan. Their service is ropey and their call centres are "overseas." You know what "overseas" means in terms of call centres. Good luck! I use PlusNet Fibre (to the nearest street cabinet.) Their stats come in for some bad press on this site and they are a sub-set of BT, but at least you get a nice Yorkshire voice when you need to speak to someone. Touch wood, they've always been great for me.