A year or so ago I was one of the lucky few who got connected to the ‘free’ TalkTalk broadband service. Some people had to wait months to be connected, but luckily (I thought) I got on pretty quickly. Since then, though, the speed of the service has slowed to what can favourably be described as a crawl, and unfavourable as worse than a 28.8 modem. It’s so slow that I can barely use TalkTalk’s own Web site to manage my account. I sent them a message to complain and ask what can be done but, of course, was instantly ignored.
On his blog, Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone has the bare-faced gall to say:
“The only limitation to the scale of TalkTalk’s Free Broadband, is ourselves. We have the most competitive product with great speed and very high download limits, quite simply everyone who uses broadband should use TalkTalk.”
Yeah, brilliant, then we’d all get download speeds of about 1k per second.
It’s not just slow, it’s also flakey. I just clicked on “Manage My Services” in my TalkTalk account and got this rather cryptic message:
“We are currently experiencing database problems with the service changes you have made to your account.
Your service changes have not gone through. Please try again later.
Thank you for using the service.”
Er, what?
So, I’ve just (re)sent an appeal to TalkTalk’s customer service:
“I sent this message a week ago and haven’t had a reply. My broadband – supposedly 4Mb – goes slower than a 28.8k modem.
Is there something you can do to fix it, or am I better off switching to Sky’s free broadband?
I know your customer service is reputedly awful – please do something to convince me otherwise.
Charles Dunstone makes the right noises on his blog and in interviews – but what’s the reality?
Please contact me ASAP.
Thank you,
Richard”
On submit, you get the message:
“Thank you MR Richard Longhurst for your enquiry.
We will endeavor to respond to your query as soon as possible.”
ASAP for TalkTalk is a week and counting so I shan’t be holding my breath.