Trials and tribulations....

So where to begin, it's been a long time since my last post...

And the reason for that is not laziness on my part. It is because of talktalk my internet provider.

About a month ago I signed up for a line rental and broadband. Which was installed quickly and effectively and worked beautifully.

However after a few weeks it stopped working altogether. Nothing. Nada. Zilch....

I was not home at the time so I figure I hadn't paid my bill on time or some such so I waited till I got home to call them. Which I did and this is what I was told....

"Your line was due to go active [on the day it was disconnected] and due to a servicing fault this was not possible and the line was cancelled."

This of course was pure BULL. The line had already been connected and working for weeks previous to the line cancellation and was certainly not due to go live on the day of cancellation. After nearly 3 hours of telephone calls to their help line (on my mobile, no landline, to a premium number). I was palmed off with the same bull, dumped back into the automated service, sold a new line, told there was no complaints department, sold a new line (which would take 7-10 days to be live) and generally told 'tough luck'.

At the end of the 3 hours I finally got a line to the complaints dept. and after explaining what had happened the very nice lady went into the back office software and informed me what had actually happened. Which is that another service provider had informed talktalk that I had switched to them (she said it was probably BT), thus leading talktalk to cancel my line. She also informed me that the only thing I could do was to order a new line, which I had already done.

After this I resigned myself to the fact that I had been screwed and tweeted about it. Only to be contacted by tweet by the talktalk twitter support team. After a correspondence which was remarkable similar to the phone experience (same bull same attitude of 'tough luck'). I found myself in the position that I simply had to wait for the new line to be connected.

I then received the re-connection date which was to be longer than 7-10 days. I did not re-contact talktalk at this point through sheer exasperation that anything would be done.

Today was the reconnection date and I am glad to say that it has gone without a single hitch. My household now has a broadband service yet again.

However I have yet to still receive any such guarantees that this will not happen again. I have also yet to  receive an adequate answer as to why I have had to wait so long for a mistake on their part to be corrected. I understand that the engineers are busy and that they cannot just turn up at the drop of a hat. However I would be surprised if there was no structure in place to assure an emergency service. And I find myself considering that the only reason talktalk did not arrange for a speedier re-connection is that, despite the fact that this situation is of their creation, they were unwilling to fork out the extra money to do so.

In conclusion I would suggest to anyone considering a new broadband provider.... Do not switch to talktalk, their customer service is exceptionally low and very unorganized. The only reason I have stayed with them is that I am skint, and that they do not charge a connection fee or line installation fee. Basically they have me by the short and curlies and they know it.

However they are in for a shock when I send them my mobile phone bill and demand the they compensate me for the nearly 3 hours of calls to their 'Help' line.

Many things have been going on and I will be writing many more blog entries this week, this is but the first (I simply wanted to let you all know what's been going on).

Till next time Kiwi.