How to complain effectively: a case study.

TalkTalk never listen to me on the phone so I am having to write them a letter. Without any sense of irony, they have an article on their site instructing you on how best to complain when you have dealings with shitty companies.

When things go wrong after you’ve bought something, it can be tempting to write a stinging letter, but that won’t always help. We explain how to complain and get results

Good service is something that we all like to receive but there are times when things don’t turn out like that.

How to complain effectively.

Mostly they are advising on problems with actual material goods but I’m sure the advice applies equally when complaining about poor service. From a telephone company or something like that. Let’s try it and see:

Monkey Towers,
Brixton

TalkTalk Telecom Ltd
PO Box 32595
London
W3 6WD

Ref: TalkTalk account no. XXXXXXXXXXX

19 November 2010

To whom it may concern,

I feel slightly crazy writing an old fashioned letter to a telephone and broadband company but after 9 months of trying to talk to TalkTalk on the telephone, I have concluded that you don’t ListenListen. Hopefully you can ReadRead.

On or around 23th January 2010, a TalkTalk agent came to my house trying to sell me your services. I had recently started a new telephone contract with Sky so I was sceptical that any savings from you would offset the penalties from leaving Sky. Your agent advised me that TalkTalk could offer further reductions to account for this so filled in your contract.

On or around 28th January 2010, so I spoke to someone in your sales call centre. Sky had quoted me £90 termination fee and was offered £60 off my future TalkTalk bills. Since this was worse than my existing contact, I instructed the agent NOT to connect my phone and to CANCEL my TalkTalk contract. This was readily agreed by the agent and it was within the 14-day cooling off period so I assumed the matter was closed.

Nevertheless, on or around the 4th February you ‘slammed’ my line taking over my telephone service from Sky contrary to my wishes. This should never have happened. At first I was unaware of what you did but for the last nine months I have trying patiently to resolve this. It is taking such a long time to resolve that my memory of the exact dates is imperfect. But I know that I spoke to an agent called Shameegh on 27/8/10 who promised that everything would finally be resolved with no balance outstanding.

My phone service was disconnected rather than being transferred to sky. I have had to be without telephone and internet for 6 weeks and have had to have a new number. Meanwhile you are still sending me bills My experience suggests that is a lack of communication between your technical and your billing teams. Over the months, you have threatened me with debt-collectors and legal action whereas I have tried at all times to be polite and courteous to you. However, if you cannot resolve this swiftly, I shall instruct my solicitors to deal with the matter on my behalf and will forward all correspondence to OFCOM.

With regards,
Dr. Caspar Addyman

Update: Seems like Ofcom have already heard about this.

About caspar

Caspar is just one monkey among billions. Battering his keyboard without expectations even of peanuts, let alone of aping the Immortal Bard. By day he is an infantologist at Birkbeck Babylab, by night he runs BabyLaughter.net
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4 Responses to How to complain effectively: a case study.

  1. Alien says:

    They may be able to “ReadRead”, but how do you check whether they understand what they read?

  2. Nina says:

    Hello

    This cheers me no end to hear I’m not the only one. After signing up with TalkTalk in August 2010, I’m still without Broadband in January 2011 and have called them every week and they still do not seem capable of anything with certainty or accuracy. Sadly they set up incorrect accounts for me, so I get all kinds of random bills for different people, many which have been direct debited from my account. I’ve called them to cancel my account on numerous occasions and they don’t listen and often cut me off. They leave me no action but to write a similar letter to yours above, cancelling my direct debit and facing the hideousness of debt collection.

    Sadly they have had me in tears wondering how the hell I can get out of this.

    Absolutely shocking.

  3. caspar says:

    I’ve heard similar stories from several friends. Just a quick warning that your complaint letter won’t get you very far at first. The reply to mine was fobbing off that suggested they hadn’t even read what i wrote. I’ve recently sent another letter to their Chief Executives Office. I will post that up here shortly.

    That is the last port of call before Offcom.

  4. Pingback: My TalkTalk nightmare enters its second year. | onemonkey.org

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