SurfSurf for 'free' with TalkTalk broadband

A TalkTalk userTue 18 April, 2006 4:23pm

P2P doesn't work on TalkTalk, legal or otherwise. If you want to use P2P keep well away from TalkTalk. If you're not going to be using P2P then check the small print to ensure you can use whatever application use require 8Mb for.

AnonymousMon 12 February, 2007 9:39pm

My husband and I have been with talktalk since last September we have had nothing but trouble with the email system, can never get in then the connection breaks and the computer is forever redialing when we are supposed to be broadband not dial up. When we do get an answer via the phone it doesn't make sense to us and do they give you any help NO.As soon as we can we are getting out of the deal with them any suggestions as a good company to go with that doesn't charge a fortune?

AnonymousTue 10 April, 2007 4:26pm

Talk Talk broadband. More like s**t s**t broadband. Its so rubbish, its as slow as a slug and on some websites u can't view most pictures such as WWE for example. U also can't play most good online games such as stickcricket and u can't such P2P things such as limewire unless its some stupid time in the morning like 1am which im never awake at that time anyway. If your thinking of getting Talk Talk broadband because its cheap, think again because overall its a big pile of donkey poo.

adamSat 14 April, 2007 3:42pm

p2p seems to work ok at any hour, for me, using a linksys router, but not at the speed an 8mb line should be able to download at. Yet to see it reach over 80kbs for any particuler download.
Connection is very unreliable, at least once a week theirs a day where 3-24 hours during that day it will constantly cut u off, over and over and over again.
customer services... ha... hahaha...HAHAHAHAHAHHA....AHHHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA ARHGHHHHHHH HAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHA A *Heart attack* *comes back from hospital* HAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA AHHHHHHHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA ARGHHH *coughs* AHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA.
ok where was i, uhm... well , save urself constant unwanted stress and choose pretty much any other provider, and i mean ANY . you'd think that customer services would be a bit more interigating to, tried accessing information through a number of different names including David Beckham, Tony Blair, Jimmy Riddle, all the while the subscribed service was registered under my mothers name. Never failed to get past this security. Once they asked what my mothers age was, and after replying with '' do u even know your mothers age ? '' an rough estimate was still good enough. got put through to 5 different technical support numbers, 4/5 didnt even exist as a phone number, one woman when asked to repeat the number gave out a number with 3 different digits in it, when told this didnt sound correct and could she repeat it , gave out a number different from the first 2 again, all similar but with at least 3 different digits changed. no guesses to if it worked or not. After asking how much this was per minutie got put on hold, only that she forgot to press hold and could hear her confirming with a work coulleege as to how much it is by the minuite. well clued up lady that. They give u every excuse to get rid of you, and like the rest say if they cant help ur put on hold... they love to put u on hold after they cant help at technical support because this costs money by the minuite so ur paying just to be cut off after 15 minuites of listening to the on hold music. that felt great, rather be screwed off quickly than after 15 minuites of bulls**t talk and 15 minuites on hold which only ended to being hung up on .
absolute great service i must say. They do really have no idea at how to help anyone.
Theirs something in the small print that sais they are unable to help anyone who isnt using their auto supplied modem. lol, wouldnt want that peice of garbage if u paid me to take it...... its absolute crap . Took a computer whizz to setup my linksys router through them cause they could not help at all, just clutching at straws with the settings only to put me on hold when it didnt work. could go on forever, waste of blo*dy time this company. Gonna shout in the shop at carphone warehouse everytime i walk past it and be a friendly warning to anyone in their who might be considering the broadband service. jokers, the whole company.

AnonymousThu 6 December, 2007 6:00pm

glad to see someone thinks its crap cant send emails or recieve, techinical advice dont waste your time

AnonymousWed 19 April, 2006 10:36pm

Same as above. P2P does not work with Talk Talk broadband unless it's between the
hours of 1am and 9am !!! What's the point in that!?!?!.... Stay away, I'm looking to change as soon as possible!!

AnonymousMon 8 May, 2006 1:01am

Talktalk DOES let you use P2P, just leave it on overnight! Also make sure you're using the right port forwarding and you shouldn't have any issues... Just mind that 40 gig d/l limit!

AnonymousTue 30 May, 2006 12:10pm

Talk Talk Email only has an email attachement size limit of about 5 Mb. It could be difficult to send photos etc.

WArwickWed 9 August, 2006 9:37am

Talk talk webmail is crap. Most times it wont authenticate to the mail servers and so you cannot get to your mail. Also broadband varies from 400k to 1.7 mb during the day. Not as expected from Mr Dunstone!..

AnonymousThu 17 August, 2006 4:38pm

Stay well clear of Talk Talk landline. I've been trying to cancel before my cutover date and, as previous posts have suggested, "Customer Services" will put you through to a line that is simply not answered. I've contacted BT and they are confident that they can block the transfer from there end... Here's hoping!

MBFri 27 October, 2006 12:36pm

talktalk crap. Waited months for connection was fine for a wile then when we had a problem and the broadband went down that was it we couldn’t contact anyone no matter how hard we tried we were left hanging on the phone up to 45 min and still no reply we have been with out broadband now for a month and no one seems to care rubbish don’t do it!!!!

AnonymousWed 8 November, 2006 1:25pm

Talk Talk??!! More like W*NK W*NK!!! I have never in all my life had the misfortune to deal with such an incompetent, useless bunch of halfwit's!! I had been waiting for 3 months for broadband when they said I'd be on in 1, every phone call is at least 45 mins long and that isn't including the 3 times previously they've cut you off!! I have now swapped back to BT only to find I need my MAC code that Talk Talk never issued me with. After another 15 useless phone calls I was told they would e-mail it me within 5 days. 2 weeks later still no MAC code, when I finally got through to someone (about 2 million miles away who can barely understand what I'm on about, through no fault of their own) I was told my request had never been logged!!!! Here I am four months later still no broadband and with a bill of £40 for my trouble!! They should be paying me that for my shrink visits!!!!!!! STAY AWAY FROM TALK TALK, I'M SO GLAD THE CARPHONE WAREHOUSE IS 2/3 DOWN ON THER PROFITS IT SERVES THEM F*CKING RIGHT!!

AnonymousFri 29 December, 2006 6:41pm

If you are thinking of contacting TalkTalk via email, think again! They never respond! You're going to have to go through the theme music for 20 minutes on the phone etc.

David PettigrewTue 7 November, 2006 2:40pm

Since broadband upgraded to 8mbps 12 days ago TalkTalk's landline service disappeared in that, whenever I try to dial out all I get is the message that the number is "not recognised". Telephone calls and emails are ineffective. Can anyone out there give advice please on a sensible course of action.

AnonymousSat 2 September, 2006 10:50am

Here is one for talktalks defence. I have been with them as a landline customer for nearly two years, and it is BT I have had the problems with who had been charging me for calls when they weren't even my provider. When I asked for the money back all they said was they couldn't. I think people are forgetting that Talktalk are dealing with millions of customers at the moment and they won't be able to please all of their customers, I certainly wouldn't be able to even contemplate taking on such a massive task. So come on people give them a break, there are probably lots of satisfied customers out there. But in good old English tradition we are happy to moan when things aren't right, but don't do anything when things are! And by the way my broadband is fine, the connection speed is fine, ok webmail is not fab, but so what!

myraMon 30 October, 2006 9:54pm

the internet isnt to bad better than aol getting into your webmail is crap it doesnt work half of the time.the operators are 99% forieng and you cannot understand them they are quite abrupt when you genuinly tell them you cannot understand them i find it discusting

AnonymousSun 21 January, 2007 10:53pm

Good God Onetel/Talk Talk E mail is absolutely dreadful. Over Christmas I was unable to even look at a Onetel Web Page net alone check my mail. I spent hours on the phone and I was fobbed off with every excuse under the sun. And I mean every excuse, please if you are considering any Talk Talk product be warned they take your money and then are not interested in you, and you will definately receive a very poor product. Two empty tins and a length of string will be better. In short be warned.

AnonymousSat 27 January, 2007 11:28am

talktalk webmail is absolutely waste of time it hardly regognises your id half the time you can never log on get rid

adamMon 16 April, 2007 3:55pm

left a post the other day, thinkin that P2P had no problems on my machine
was wrong... today am getting between 0.01 - 0.70kbs second on any download..
80% of the time 0kbs on all of them. TALK TALK r every bit as bad as anyone sais.
those that say otherwise, have been so freaking lucky ( SO FAR ) .

AnonymousMon 26 November, 2007 6:55pm

Talk talk, more like falk falk. Now thats clever. Talk talk is crap. Dont ever get it. It just dies.

AnonymousSat 8 December, 2007 9:04pm

Wow, what an ISP, works every time, had it since 1st announced no problem.
Maybe we only here from the few who have problems and not from all of us who think its great.
60 Phone calls, 10 mobile calls, talktalk package, Line rental and free broadband, all for 26 pounds. What a bargain

AnonymousWed 30 January, 2008 6:30pm

I have never seen such a stupid broadband i.e. talktalk. Email system is rubbish. Mail download sometime it does work and most of the time it does not. No one there to assist you out from talktalk. There is a big error in their software and technology which is a big shame and not easy to solve the problem for me. Online Billing is another stupid idea Email and its contents i.e. Bill does not open. How many time can one try to struggle? Its a crap system and would not recommend anyone.

AnonymousTue 17 October, 2006 12:45pm

I JOINED THE TALKTALK BROADBANDWAGON IN JULY 06 AND HAVE HAD NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER.

AnonymousMon 24 July, 2006 12:44pm

I signed up for free broadband from talktalk, what a mistake, started jetting charged for all services and line rental whilst waiting for my modem, recieved my modem on friday 21/07/06, go live date had past 16/07/06, could i get connected to the net,............no! spent over 7 hours on the phone to an indian call centre which was no help. I have now cancelled the contract, and incurred cancellation charge of £70. Not going to pay this

AnonymousWed 3 May, 2006 10:14pm

TalkTalk block WoW, don't use if you play the game. Remember, you get what you pay for. World of Warcraft thread: http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-tech-support-en&t=295499&p=1&tmp=1#post295499

andyTue 20 June, 2006 2:09am

i had exactly the same prob with talk talk, they block everything all day.
completely useless isp, rubbish customer service and although i have now thankfully changed isps, am still being billed 2 months after disconnection. like they are gonna get it...
i wouldnt use talk talk or reccomend it to anybody. complete con.

Rabbit80Wed 31 May, 2006 7:05pm

Strange... P2P works fine for me... are you using the talktalk software / modem? (Mine is through a router)

AnonymousSun 15 October, 2006 3:51pm

I must be one of the few people who has Talk Talk broadband and landline and doesnt have a problem, I do think their webmail is crap keeps through it keeps telling me my username or password is incorrect so I have routed mine through Outlook and this works fine.

AnonymousFri 16 June, 2006 9:35pm

Do not touch talk talk broadband. P2P is throttled during the day, and this was confirmed by a Talk Talk rep. I have now cancelled and gone back to the much more reliable and better service of BT. Its a few pounds extra, but you do get what you pay for, and TALK TALK is rubbish. You spend about 30mins trying to get through to an agent, and after cancelling the broadband, I rang back a month later to find they had'nt actually done it, which happened a second time. You were warned!

AnonymousSat 1 July, 2006 12:53am

TALK TALK! SIGNING UP FOR BROADBAND WAS THE WORST THING I'VE EVER DONE. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING IT ...... DON'T. IT'S NOT FREE. IT'S COST ME £30 SO FAR AND I'VE NOT EVEN SEEN IT. THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS NON EXISTENT. THEY IGNORE COMMUNICATION (EVEN IF IT'S SENT BY RECORDED DELIVERY). I'M BACK TO BT FOR MY PHONE AND WILL REVIEW MY BROADBAND.

AnonymousTue 11 July, 2006 7:32pm

Don't sign up for talktalk. Never mind the p2p problems or WoW problems (both of which are hugely annoying) but when it comes to trying to cancel or sort a billing error you'll experience the worst public service I have ever come across. Avoid like the plague..

AnonymousWed 2 August, 2006 6:57am

I have had talktalk for 18 months or so and they are a complete nightmare.

I have been trying to cancel for 2 weeks now amd everytime I get to an advisor - advisor in inverted comments, as soon as I mention the cancel word I am put on hold, the line goes dead or I am transferred to another department that says they can’t help.

I have e-mailed them several times - no response, I have added comments in their contacts us section of their website - again no response.

I have even tried faxing them only to find that the number supplied is a phone and not a fax machine at all.

I am at my wits end, I have now written to them and sent it via registered mail.

I am amazed that in this day and age they are allowed to get away withthis, they are shambolic.

Besides this the service is appalling, the broadband connection regularly trips out and has to redial, the mail box excludes anything above 5Mb which halts photos etc. Games, P2P, Voip, you can forget and if you are banking its very hit and miss.

Talk talk - try walk walk as far away from these clowns as possible.

AnonymousTue 5 September, 2006 10:39am

signed up for talk talk in april. Went live August 17th after continuous phone calls. Have still not received the modem, again have made several phone calls.

AnonymousFri 13 April, 2007 10:46pm

I so agree with people who say that customer services are a joke! If you can get through to second line support they are ok, but the indian and south african call centres are appalling. Talktalk have 'upgraded' my connection and since then I can't stay online for more than 10 minutes. reconnection can take 4/5 attempts. I know more than their tech support which is truly scary.....they didn't know that their own server was down for 72 hours and spent 90 minutes trying to tell me I didn't know my own password! They also lie without a thought, so often that it has to be company policy! By the way, if you feed their customer service (0870....) into SAYNOTO0870.COM you will get landline numbers that will connect you to second line support with a bit of fuss on your part! Also they will cancel your contract without penalties....as for MAC numbers threaten them with OFCOM....if enough people complain officially they might get a whacking fine.
When talktalk works it's not bad value, but how firms deal with problems is what shows them in their true colours.Remember, as they plead 'popularity' they are spending millions on advertising for more new customers.....if the problems were down to volume, surely they'd spend a fraction of that money on CS and infrastructure

Talk Talk HellWed 2 August, 2006 3:33pm

I setup a blog http://talktalkhell.wordpress.com to chronicle my own problems with Talk Talk. Within a month I'd received about 10 comments from angry people, now I get 3-4 from different IP addresses. The story is always the same though:

1. Awful customer service
2. Awful service
3. Port throttling (including gaming)
4. Billing problems
5. Frequent disconnects

The above even includes customers that aren't using the 'free' offer.

Do not use Talk Talk! Go somewhere else!

ScottWed 16 August, 2006 4:58pm

DONT get TalkTalk. You will be sold 1/2 a story by the sales person who will forget to tell you its £30 to connect and you'll get charged for using your old Dial-up whilst you wait. I used OneTel for international calls. Once I swapped to TT for my free calls they 'forgot' to tell me to change the dial pre-fix, so I got a bill from TT and one from OneTel (who TT own by the way) The customer services is ALWAYS 'busy, call back later' (everyone complaining about their bills I expect.) Cancellation is the ONLY choice I have left and they aint gettin a penny more than I see fit to pay. Worst Move EVER!

AnonymousThu 14 June, 2007 5:20pm

I have been with talk talk since last july but only got the broadband in april, since then it has been a complete nightmare, it is un-usable, after spending hours talking to India I have lost the will to live, one call alone cost me £9 and now they tell me it will cost £70 to cancel, which I am not paying, they should pay me for the stress they have caused me, they can all go to hell.

CHRISTIANThu 23 November, 2006 10:37pm

TALKTALK is a joke. I've been waiting since April to get connected. I was finally connected in October. I have yet to be sent my starter pack depsite over 10 e-mail/telephone requests. The level of customer service is the worst I've ever experienced. Charles Dunstone should be ashamed of himself. I frequently loose my internet connection. I had to reset my settings to gain access to Hotmail and other websites. The connection speed is slower than my old broadband provider. I cannot use certain software (e.g. P2P). You cannot get through via the telelphone number and they ignore my e-mails. The entire company is a joke. AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS. THERE ARE PLENTLY OF OTHER BROADBAND PROVIDERS OUT THERE......

AnonymousWed 9 May, 2007 4:16pm

I have talktalk and I'm of the opinion that the service is very poor. I've measured the bandwidth and found it, at times, to be little better than dial up speeds. I will be looking to move and would not recommend anyone to join.

AnonymousFri 6 October, 2006 1:44pm

Talktalk is totally rubish. I switched to Talktalk as I was getting different version of answers from different person of BT for a same issue. Now I am thinking to going back to BT again as soon as I finish this contract with TalkTalk. At least when I was using BT there was not connection problem or any control in my account. I took Talktalk's 2MBPS unlimited download option broadband b4 their free scheme has arrived in the market. As usual I got connected 10 days late. Morning shows the day. I was using P2P but one fine morning I saw my P2P downlaod is very slow speed is going maximum 1 kbps, maxm time it's 0. When I called their tech support guy they are saying "we are regulating P2P download. It's allowed between 12:30 AM to 8 AM. I asked them why they stopped P2P without my knowledge? They told it's in the contract. But there was no such contract they had sent me and even on there web site they are saying they will not block unless someone is excessively using or slowing their network and that also they will do after sending letter to the customer. Now when I told the tech support guy I did not receive any contrct where it says so she told then call cutomer service they will send you the contract. Now if they send a contract also why I will abide that as it was not told or sent me when I took this broadband. But i called their cutomer service dept for a written letter that they are blocking P2P. Now customer service guys are saying they are not blocking P2P service but I am sure they are narrowing the P2P traffic day time(1 kbps maxm) as in the midnight speed goes upto 70 kbps/s. Can someone suggest me what I can do now? I can't cancel as it will cost me 70 £.

keithTue 17 October, 2006 10:06pm

talk talk, I call it crap crap!!!!,thats all ive got to say.

AVOID TALKTALKWed 1 November, 2006 9:17pm

Unless all you want to do is browse a few web pages infrequently then avoid TALKTALK like the plague. The quality of connection is appalling for web browsing, on line gaming and file downloads. In my experience the customer service dept promise but never deliver (They will never call you back if they promise to etc), have no idea what they are talking about technically (constantly contradicting themselves) and often just plain lie to you. Check recent reviews and choose a proper ISP and they take a very long time to hand over your MAC code to change to a professional ISP.

AnonymousWed 8 November, 2006 12:46pm

I agree with all the criticisms of TalkTalk. I have lost my internet access for the second time and have been without it for three weeks (I'm emailing from work). How ironic that I can't email or even get through on the phone to my ISP. I've emailed them twice from their website. Guess what.....? I want to go back to BT but how can I get my MAC number if I can't contact them? Any ideas?

carlSun 24 December, 2006 6:47pm

i have been with talktalk since june and have had speed problems ever since.
i was with bt broadband and had a regular speed of 2.2meg all the time.
since i switched it started at 2.0 meg then went down to 1.2
then in october i had a letter saying they were upgrading the exchange on the 20th november and might experiance a few glitches with my phone and broadband.
since then the fastest connection ive had is 475kb.
what to do?
the call center is of no use whatsoever and when put through to broadband helpline the phone goes dead.
how much is it to get out of contract?

AnonymousThu 28 December, 2006 5:29pm

total rubbish. customer since june. problems ever since with logging into webmail. keeps saying password incorrect, then after 8/9th attempt let me in. moved house, and paid £53 for the privilege of them moving my service (got through eventually to useless call centre in india who advised if i was a new customer it would be free - hey, what happened to customer loyalty!?) Anyway, connected me (apparently) on 20 November, but haven't been able to get access since. Since then have also sent me 2 (yes 2) new usernames and passwords, and another modem (why?), but seems like when i get through to the call centre they cannot understand what i am saying.....
ERR, IT JUST DOESN'T WORK!...girl said she doesn't have a solution, and the service is free anyway!!!!!!!!

So, here i am, no internet connection, but if i break the contract they will bill me for the pleasure!

Oh, and they always cut you off if they cannot answer your question. nice.

AnonymousSat 12 July, 2008 8:58pm

most unimpressed with talk talk - absolute rubbish very obvious why they tie you in for 18 months once they got you - they got you for 18 months

AnonymousSat 16 August, 2008 3:25pm

Talk Talk broadband - worked fine and fast for the first month, now a year ago. Then started to slow down, now the spped is totally erratic, often so slow the browser gives up on popular pages whilst if you try again a few minutes later it downloads them fast. P2P is blocked, whatever you may be told, our experience is that you can never connect. In the evenings and weekends it can be completely unusable as more of their customers try to come on line. In short, you get what you pay for - ie, in this case, very little usability when you want it compared with the other ISPs.

AnonymousTue 25 July, 2006 10:18am

Talk Talk is rubbish. The service is cheap and its cheap for a reason. Unable to connect to the network for more than 10 minutes during the entire 3 week period during which we had their very tacky modem installed, and that was after waiting weeks for the connection.

Customer service is non existent and relies on call centres in India. Hours spent sat waiting for them to answer and the suggestions made failed to sort out the problem To get technical help you dial a different number which charges 10p a minute so you are paying them a small fortune for them to explain to you why their service is so useless-if you can actually get a reply, which I couldn't.

Do not consider using Talk Talk under any circumstances-if you are with them already cancel your direct debit-they cannot sue everyone and if they do sue you have the right to transfer the case to your local court and attend an informal hearing there at which you can describe the poor service you received. Also Talk Talk cannot get a costs order awarded against you for sums below £5,000 so it will cost them more to take the matter to court than the bill you owe them.

<em>This comment has been edited</em>

NicThu 14 September, 2006 8:14pm

I Joined talk talk in April , having swapped from BT for no other reason than saving money and now wished i had remembered the following sayings:

"you get what you pay for "
"If you think a deal is to good to be true , Then it probably is"
"There is no such thing as a free meal "

All the above are soo true , I have spent over £200 on my companies mobile phone calling them to try and resolve problems hat are of their own doing not mine.

They managed to lose my mac code twice

They manged to call for the direct debit 3 days earlier than the agreement , which my bank paid and tried to charge me for due to insufficient funds. Which then meant me calling my bank who politely put the monies back into my account .

My line went dead and they blamed BT for it even though i pay Talk Talk for my line rental . Then they tell me that it for me to call BT as it is there line and it is talk talk who rent it from them . I tell them that i have no contract with Bt and have one From Talk Talk and that they should deal with it , to be told that they are not responsible for it. So I make a descision to switch back to BT , and ask for my MAC code . After them transfering me and getting cut off 5 times i finally get through to be told that they will email me the MAC code and that i will receive it in 5 days , even though BT gave it to me instantly over the phone when i had requested it from them. I'm still waiting 3 weeks later !!! and each time i'm told that they have no record of the request.

I have called BT and within 6 hours my phone line has been reconnected , and im full of confidence that my Broadband will be sorted by them even though Talk Talk are playing a stupid game.

I for one will be refusing to pay te release fee and will be quite happy to visit the county court with all of my correspondence to them as proof , and will probably put in a counter claim for £200 for all of the time spent in the Queue.

AnonymousTue 14 August, 2007 11:43pm

Poor customer service and technical support lots of empty promises,Cds coming via china chile and antartica and still not arrived four months later. Phone line is crackly from time to time and at others very muted sounds like you talking to someone with several layers of cloth on phone. Adsl cuts out every five mins or so sometimes for ten hours. Free broadband yes hmmmmm but is it considered usable if i cant stay on net?

AnonymousFri 4 August, 2006 4:50pm

My land line is down ( 36 HOURS SO FAR)and its impossible to get through to technical and they dont answer emails THIS IS RUBBISH SERVICE

JonThu 10 August, 2006 9:15pm

I am offering free TT Support for anyone with problems with TT Broadband - you can find it by visiting my site and going to TalkTalk Help :-)

No promises, but I'll do my best!
www.cool.uk.net

JonFri 1 September, 2006 7:21pm

was that last post from Charles Dunstone, CEO TalkTalk?????

AnonymousSat 9 December, 2006 5:51pm

i'm with talk talk, it seemed like a good idea at the time as i was with them for over year on the standard i meg package and never has problem with P2P or ortherwise, when i switched over to the 8 meg package thats when all the problems started and now no P2P problems with the phone line and the broadband is more like yoyoband speeds go from 1 meg to 5 to 8meg, thos guys india don't even know what p2p software is and i wasted half an hour askin a simple question are you blocking p2p software ports , they had no idea what i was talking about, fed up now as i can't download anything and i have to pay £70 to quit the contract. total rubbish service and the staff are use less as well, i could go on but not worth the breath wasting it on talktalk, i use to recommend the talktalk service but not anymore,

AnonymousSun 31 December, 2006 8:46pm

My mother has had exactly the same problems - ie: dropped connections between 10-30 minutes, unable to reconnect, poor communication the list is endless.

I have recently joined Pipex for my phone calls (I wish I hadn't, they are no better than Talk Talk) and they tried desperately to get me to have their 'cheap' broadband as well.

However, having heard the horror stories regarding Talk Talk, I am reluctant to give up my Orange Broadband connection (previously Freeserve, Wanadoo) which I have used for 4 years and found extremely reliable. I don't think I've EVER suffered one dropped connection in that time, no lie.

Talk Talk seem to have more demand than they are capable of providing for - however my mother did recieve a letter recently that suggested they were moving her broadband connection to new servers in the new year so you never know, there maybe light at the end of the tunnel after all!

AnonymousThu 10 August, 2006 10:04pm

Took up talktalk broadband early on - went live in May. No problems with set up and got on net straight away. However, have noticed lately that it is increasingly slow and not much faster than the aol dial-up i had before. Finally got through to some sensible person last Friday morning after phoning several times re connection problems on thurs evening. Only to find out that server was down. Suggested they should have put a message to let users know to avoid thousands of calls blocking lines. You'd think a company like that would have better customer services, but obviously not. My neighbour has had terrible problems trying to get connected. Its finally working, but everytime they try to open a webpage it cannot be displayed and sometime causes the pc to switch off. Anyone had a similar problem?

lynnFri 18 August, 2006 2:17pm

I've been trying to send my MAC code to talktalk for 2 months now. I've been with talk talk for a few years as my phone call provider and had no problems so I'd decided to take up their free broadband offer and switch over from Tiscali. As I said I've spent roughly 3 hours on hold over the last couple of months trying to give them my MAC code, which I have given them 3 times. Then every 2 weeks I receive an extremely cheeky and annoying letter from talktalk asking "don't suppose you know what your MAC code is". So frustrating! Also had them hanging up on me after being on hold for 30 - 60 minutes at a time, and heard the so called advisors laughing and joking with colleagues while supposedly taking down my MAC code details. I'm sick of it, I just spent another 30 minutes on hold this morning and got cut off before I got to talk to anyone, I then called Tiscali to try to get a new MAC code as the previous 2 have expired, and got talking to some one from Tiscali within 5 minutes who informed me about the problems with talktalk. I've decided staying with tiscali for 15 quid a month is what I'm going to do. I'm embarrased as I recommended talktalk to several friends. I'm relievd it's not just me who is having problems though (not to be selfish, just made me re-think) and I'm glad I found out in time. They should not be allowed to get away with this.

MikeMon 11 September, 2006 6:31pm

I signed up with talktalk six months ago,should have had my broadband in May,still waiting,as i am still using btyahoo dose this mean i can get my mac code form them,and they go to sky,who answer there phones.!

TALKTALK i was warned about them from a Nine year old,should of taken her advise!! rubbish

AnonymousWed 30 August, 2006 8:48pm

Had talktalk broad now for 1 month, modem arrived within 2 weeks of order, up and running straight away (didn't bother to wait for my username and password to arrive, just rang the helpline and you get put through to an auto system that asks for your landline number then reads your username and password out!!). had zero problems with the network, its fast and reliable. very happy and saving a packet compared to BT who I was with. very happy.

johnWed 20 September, 2006 9:46pm

Very happy with talk talk no problem 2.3 m fast then dial -up

I signed up for talk talk on the 11 july, welcome pack and phone line end of july.
broad band modem and welcome pack 14 september, on line 15 september every ok. Before go live date of end of september.

Using mozilla firefox no problem with any webs pages not loading, internet explorer crashes and does not find server or web pages.

AnonymousMon 18 September, 2006 11:13am

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT SIGNING UP FOR TALKTALK
I was one of the first to sign up. No problem if everything works but when things go wrong it exposes what a third rate organisation this is. I was suppose to be upgraded mid August to 8Mb broadband. Since the upgrade I've not been able to access the internet. Numerous calls to the "technical" support center has got me no where. THEIR STAFF ARE COMPLETELY USELESS.
Stay away unless you like being on hold for 30+ minutes and then just speaking a clueless non-techical person who has no capacity to resolve the problem at hand.

AnonymousMon 18 September, 2006 2:44pm

talktalk! Well thats a joke in itself.i have not been able to talk talk on my landline since they "upgraded" their system 22/8/06. They are absolutely atrocious and i want to willingly go back to BT!!!!!

johnWed 20 September, 2006 9:55pm

runing talk talk broadband with 5 asdl filters, only 2 bells switched on, no problems with speed or phones.

AnonymousMon 25 September, 2006 1:44pm

DO NOT SIGN UP TO TALKTALK. The test of a good company is when things go wrong. After hour upon hour of waiting for calls to be answered you may finally get through, but then you may as well be speaking to them in a foreign language as their customer services don't have a clue. has anyone ever got through to one of their technical guys? AVOID...You have been warned!!!!!

AnonymousFri 6 October, 2006 11:44am

The worst customer service I've experienced. It took me over 2-months to get my service changed from BT to TalkTalk and I'm still not setup properly. I've spent hours on hold to their customer service line. They may be cheap, but if I had a choice I would go with someone else. I'm paying for free broadband that currently doesn't work.

KarimTue 17 October, 2006 3:36am

ok, about 30 minutes ago, my talktalk internet disconnected, but when i reconnected lone behold the usual 2.2 messege didnt come up, instead i was greeted with a hefty 7.2mb, at first didnt believe it, retested and yes 7.2, done all the tests and im downloading at a stiff 736kbps which now makes me very happy, also in talktalks defence i phoned them up 3 weeks ago to return a modem and the phone was answered in less then 3 minutes, shocking.
to sum it up the deal offered by talktalk was great and took them by supprise imho they couldnt cope and yes we as customeres suffered bad service for talktalk under expectating how many people would want it, hence the 2 month wait and the long hours on the phone but it seems to be they have fixed all the problems they had and i can say im one happy customer now. i believe them when the man told me they hired an extra 1000 staff as i did notice a conciderable improvement on service, i will say the bbline does disconnect too much for my liking but thats shabby usb modems for you. i now use my old orange speedtouch 330 modem with the max dsl upto 8mb driver and im getting these speeds today, 3am in the morning so i assume they have upgraded my line and are giving me the best speed possible which is better then the other bbands i have been with namely homechoice who only provided me with 4mb for a much higher price.
anyway i think its about time people retested talktalk, customer service etc and see how long it takes to get connected, and how your internet runs as ive change from a 1/10 to a 9/10, all they need now is digi tv and unlimited downloads and ill be flying.
last words for bband concerned users, speed is determined by the attenuation of your line and margin. low atten = good higher margin = good, altho new modems can handle a llow margin without disconnecting. pref u want a sub 40db attenuation to receive at least 6.8mbs and sub 20 to get full connection. hope this hasbeen useful and i for one stick by talktalk with the new bband now:) 736kbps here i come

Robbie GossingerTue 17 October, 2006 2:34pm

I applied in July 06 for TalkTalk 3 international with Free Broadband.They warned me that it would take until end of September before I would be up and running - so I knew what to expect - A long wait !!! I was happy to wait. I actually went live on the 19th September - so this exceeded my expectations.

I wanted wireless broadband so bought a Belkin wireless router for about £90. After some minor difficulties installing this ( more to do with software and my laptop than TalkTalk) I was up and running and surfing at incredible speeds. I had Tiscali dial up which was just unworkable - I can now download loads so much faster.

I was also warned by TalkTalk that they would charge me one off £29.99 - so again I knew what to expect - no nasty surprises.

On a whole I am please with the service - although the intial setup meant I had to ring customer service - which took me to a line in India which was frustrating I agree.

A small word of warning though - If you have talk3 - remember to add the prefix number before you dial - otherwise it wont be inclusive. I made that mistake and they charged me for a couple of calls to Canada - when I explained to TalkTalk - they credited me back for it.

I am sorry that so many seem to be having nightmares with this service.......And no, I am not Dunstone in disguise !!! LOL

Sun 31 December, 2006 8:15am

talk talk has eventually provided the service it advertised, but only after months of frustration and loads of conversations with India. 3 months without broadband, then apparently receive it but takes another 3 months + to get it working. All these companies should realise that customer services from India, Sout Africa or the like do not work - lack of understanding by those operatiors and time delays cause huge frustration..It has cost us so much in time, and also paying for a 'computer wizz' to come and help us. . . . if we had been doing it ourselves we would never had achieved the service. CONSEQUENTLY IT HAS NOT BEEN FREE BUT VERY EXPENSIVE! Now we have it . . well surfing is ok, e-mail not reliable at all and our confidence so low with talktalk that we have kept our account with bt on a second phone line, and as soon as talktalk contract expires will dump them and choose another broadband supplier. BUT WHO PLEASE? AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY MAC NUMBER? We don't want any problems next time round!!!

Mervyn HardingThu 2 November, 2006 1:34pm

Hi

Can anybody help. We have had talk talk landline since last October without any problems. We signed up for their broadband offer and have been using it OK until 10 days ago when we stopped getting a connection. Not being technically minded we have tried ringing Talk Talk on numerous occasions for help and their customer service has been non existant. They have told us that because we have a wireless connection this is the problem so we have tried connecting directly but still no different - Can anybody give us any tips or will just remain frustrated. Please bear in mind we are not technical at all but are computer literate.

Regards - Mervyn & Maureen Harding ( email address supplied is the one to contact as my private address is not accessible)

barry severnsSun 5 November, 2006 10:04am

Had talktalk land line for 3 months,no problems.Just been connected to free broadband 2nd november.It works fine up to around 3pm then its just gets slower and slower.about 4pm i cant get on it at all or if i do it drops me after five min.Then i cant use it till next morning strange.had onetel for two years not one problem.talktalk are crap,customer services are terrible,well the whole lot is terrible iam leaving asap.never again.

AnonymousThu 16 November, 2006 2:43pm

It is my opinion that TalkTalk are on the way out.
On the 4th October my phone was disconnected during TalkTalk's installation of equipment at BT's Watford exchange
in an attempt to improve the service provided to their customers, this has proved an abysmal failure.
I have NOT had a phone line since then.Numerous contacts with their fault and Customer Service departments
failed to get an indication of when it would be fixed or even when my landline would be redirected to my mobile.
I have cancelled my account with them on the basis that they have broken their contract and am returning to BT.
I RECOMMEND THAT NOBODY SIGNS UP WITH THEM.

ken TThu 23 November, 2006 4:48am

They are truly "the ISP from HELL" !!!
customer service is a big joke ! it takes you 40 mins to be connected, about 2 minutes to confirm who you are, and that is it, you get cutoff! in my case 8 times before I gave up, and cancelled my direct debit.
BEWARE ! , talktalk removes you from BT network, so if you are not satisfied with them, you have to move back to BT, before you can switch providers, which can take up to two months BEWARE !!!
Service, internet speed, reliability, customer service all SUCK BIG TIME !
Join them at your peril !

AnonymousThu 23 November, 2006 12:37pm

Abysmal TALKTALK. For those saying "I've had no problems" just be warned that when you do get a problem, and you will, your experience will leave you as disgusted and disgruntled as the rest of us. The technical staff do not have a clue, you get banded from operator to operator when you phone, you spend upwards of an hour on the phone being charged for their incompetence and you get no resolution. Their service is DISGRACEFUL.

PearceThu 30 November, 2006 11:52pm

THIS ISP IS A ******* JOKE!
P2P DOWNLOADS LESS THAN 1KBS

ID RATHER GO BAK 2 DIAl UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AnonymousWed 6 December, 2006 3:28pm

I signed up for Talktalk back in April/May.. seems so long ago I can hardly remember. Anyway my talktalk broadband was switched on November 9th. I thought my problems were over, but no they'd only just begun! If all you want to do is surf the internet then this service is probably fine for you, but if like me, you want to send emails or use FTP you might as well forget it. As for their 'customer service' - do they even know the meaning of those two words? Repeatedly I am speaking to an Indian call centre on barely audible phone lines to utter morons. These people don't even know what FTP is let alone how to fix it.

Anyway, I've now requested my MAC code from talktalk and I'm going back to my previous provider with my tail between my legs. Anyone else wanting to do the same, don't accept it when they tell you that it will take 7 days to get a MAC code. I know for a fact it takes roughly 30 seconds. The moral of this story... if it seems too good to be true, it probably is! Lesson learned!

talktalk userWed 6 December, 2006 10:08pm

I recently signed up to talktalk in may or around that time, and about 2 months ago I could no longer use limewire, torrents or any other p2p related download means. I phoned the talktalk help line and all I got was a person saying my router was faulty and I needed to either reset or replace it. I then found this site and read about the p2p times, I tried to download and I might as well not bother, it's the slowest thing I have ever seen. I'm lucky if it's 200b/s extremely lucky, we are seriously considering another provider. I advise you to do the same.
TALKTALK SUCKS BIG TIME, DON'T USE!!!

AnonymousThu 25 January, 2007 11:14am

Absolutely the worst ISP I have encountered in almost 20 years of using the Internet. Absolutely the worst customer services of any company of any sort that I have ever used. 9 months since ordering and broadband still doesn't work. Talktalk has no interest in resolving. Created www.mytalktalkhell.co.uk to vent my anger and tell the whole sorry saga.

AnonymousSun 18 February, 2007 2:32pm

STAY AWAY!!!!!
iv been with talk talk since september 2006 and all was well until november when i got into some financial difficulty, and had 2 cancel two direct debits. sice i dont have a credit card i was told the only way to pay is at the carphone warehouse shop.so the months of december and january i paid in this way.
then last thursday i realise my phone is dead, so i call them from my mobile an they tell me they have cut me off due to me not having paid anything since november.
i say to them yes i have, i tell them the dates i paid into their carphone warehouse and they say yes i see you have paid but unfortunately the payments have gone to the broadband department not the phone department, so we have already started proceedings to cancel your line.
i have transferred the money back accross but u will need to ring bt to reactivate ur line.
now that really peed me off for two reasons, my ex ran up a big bill with bt in my name before getting it in his name, so i cannot go back with bt and also when we switched to talktalk from bt we had already done a 12 month contract, signing up to bt again will just be another contract that i would of had to stick to. so now i am left with no phone and soon to be no internet, i am well pissed off, also not happy with customer service, sometimes u cant understand them, disconnections, long waiting times, u get through only to hear we are experiencing technical difficulties ring back later.
other then that i did not have any problems with the broadband, but i think i have been disconnected unfairly and with no warning email, phone call or letter.
if u need to ring these scammers use this number i found it on a website and it does work,
if its not the department u want get them to transfer you. also ring them on a mobile, when i do that they rung me back.
the number is 01925 554949 and i also have 01925 554955

AnonymousTue 27 March, 2007 2:32pm

*** Scott | Wed 16 August, 2006 4:58pm SAID: ***
*** DON'T get TalkTalk. You will be sold 1/2 a story by the sales person who will forget to tell you its £30 to connect ***

The £30 charge for the modem is printed on the contract that you sign.

Do you read stuff before you sign it?

manc555Wed 25 April, 2007 7:41am

Certainly not ideal but Talktalk does allow p2p but only between the hours of 1am and 9am (you will need to do your downloading overnight).

My main gripe with them is poor customer service.

AnonymousSat 11 August, 2007 11:04pm

TalkTalk = Sh*tSh*t

AnonymousTue 25 March, 2008 4:11pm

Talk Talk...what can I say?

What do I think:

They are possibly the worst ISP I have ever come across, having had..AOL, Demon, Plus Net and Freedom2Surf. Now the reason I changed, was to reduce my cost on broadband. BIG MISTAKE, at the end of the day you pay for quality...and as Talk Talk's broadband is free included in the Landline deal, your well and truely stumped.

Connection:

The connection I get...being 1 mile away from the exchange, running my router from the bt hub, are pathetic I must get disconnected more than 20+ times a night. (Im usually online from 4PM - 12AM) Although the connection seems to sharpen up around 1AM...but to be honest I give up around 10PM.
I've never had a connection problem before with any other ISP. So why Talk Talk? Oh yeh there bl**dy useless!

Customer Support:

Well I have only ever phoned twice. I waited 3 hours to speak to someone. When I explained my problem I mentioned ADSL...which, we all know is Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Then what happened next? The customer help here gob smacked, "Sorry Sir could you please repeat that", "Which ISP are they", "Im sorry Sir I have no idea what this is".....at that point I told the Customer Help Operative, to stick me through to a Manager or someone that know something. (Oh by the way, Im sure the call centre is in Deli).
Once through to the 2nd Level Help, or whatever there called (GeekSquad), there hints/tips were to restart me router and machine and start again, saying that it was a fault at my end...I then started to ramble, now I've been working with computers for 5 years and setting up ISP/networks in small business for just under a year. So I think I should know how to set it up in my house? Well apparently I was wrong according to Talk Talk...

Personally I say avoid like the plague.

Don't call there help line. (50p a min)

The Customer Help Line...well they cant speak English, Dont even know what ISP/ADSL is..and Got my customer name wrong on more than 10 occations.

Just cancel your DD's.

TALK TALK IS SH**E.

AnonymousSat 5 July, 2008 11:22am

When you ask some 1 from a company do you block tcp/udp ports or restrict or firewall p2p applications except so you dont go over the allocated download limit of 40 GB (although im hearing some customers are being told GB is gigabit and not gigabyte)

And they tell you categorically that they do not impose any such restrictions on p2p tcp/udp ports and then...

In all the time that you are online my p2p software EMULE is ALWAYS firewalled on the KAD network and the tech support (bunch of incompetent fools for the most part btw) respond with :
Talktalk do not support p2p software and reccomend you uninstall/disable it but add that talktalk do not restrict connection in any way lying m****f***k**s

AS far as I can tell talktalk completely block/disable p2p software so it never connects to KAD and is permanately firewalled

Needless to say I will be leaving this incompetent dishonest company asap and will be spreading this news as far as I can this is exactley how to attract customers to other isps and THEY DESERVE IT june 2008

Jose Vidal Leeds UK AKA Oggmeista