Unless you enjoy talking to people in call centres half way around the world, have a plentiful supply of tranquillisers or want to become an alcoholic, that is.
Two years ago I decided to get TalkTalk to supply telephone and broadband services to an apartment I'd just bought, as the install was considerably cheaper than BT. A month later I transferred the account to the tenant who moved into the flat. So far, so good.
Two months ago I asked the tenant to leave as I needed to move my ageing father into the flat. The tenant (prematurely) cancelled his direct debit to TalkTalk and between us we completed the necessary form to transfer the account back to me. A couple of weeks later I called TalkTalk and was assured that it would take 28 days to transfer the account but the service would continue.
Last week I hadn't heard anything, so called TalkTalk again and was told that the account transfer hadn't happened yet, but that he would arrange it there and then; I also gave him the tenant's forwarding address (I had also forwarded several letters from TalkTalk to the former tenant's new address).
Today, my father tried to make an outgoing call from the flat; it was directed to TalkTalk; they would only speak to the account holder (my former tenant). I called TalkTalk again and explained the situation and after being redirected and told to call this or that number, it was apparent that there was an outstanding balance on the account and so service has been suspended. I even offered to pay the outstanding balance but my payment wasn't accepted! They simply could not or would not do anything because I wasn't the account holder (even though I set the account up in the first place).
As far as I'm concerned this is ludicrous and I won't be recommending TalkTalk to anyone.
