Was it something we reported?
Has the Reg ever had a good news article about T-T?
(other than those where they get a slapping for lying, incompetence etc.)
TalkTalk has been slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after emailing lies to its customers as part of a hard-sell tactic for expensive fibre broadband. In February and March this year, some customers received emails from TalkTalk saying: "We regularly look at how your broadband is performing to make sure …
Perhaps they should rename themselves to something more modern and in line with what they do / how they work.
Given that voice usage is down and its all about data, then perhaps they should consider these ?
Data Data
Internet Internet
Bullshit Bullshit
Outage Outage
Hack Hack
GiveUsYourCash GivesYourCash
CrapService CrapService
Talktalk once sent out letters demanding payment for unpaid bills. The trouble was, the bills were up to date and they blamed it on an admin error. Mine was for £370. Some people paid, I didn't. It turns out it was a phishing scam by talk talk.
Hands down the worst ISP I've ever used.
F*** you talk talk
Billing your parents for 6 months after they left? How about billing a widowed mother for 9 months when she didn't have a service with the - hadn't requested a service - and was happy with her BT provided phone and broadband? And when the matter was taken to CISAS (one of the Ofcom arbitrators) TalkTalk's defence document contained lie after lie which were easy to show for what they were because I had kept ALL communications from them to my mother.
They lied to CISAS. They lied to me. They lied to my mother. They claimed what my mother and I suggested (that is WAS possible to agree a service without actually being known to the hapless victim) - was IMPOSSIBLE. And yet, CISAS found against TalkTalk and stated that it had happened. Part of the recompense was an apology to my mother, along with an explanation. It was roughly: Sorry you became upset over something, and you did something but we were not able to fix it properly in good time. NOT an apology OR explanation of what had happened (as confirmed by CISAS). So, liars AND taking CISAS (and Ofcom) for fools.
And taking their customers for fools as well, it seems.
I don't deal with companies that employ fraudulent business practices on their own customers.
One of the many reasons that I've ended up far from the mainstream banks, and have many online-only services.
No spam, no junk mail, no unwanted notifications, calls or offers. They just supply a service, take my money, and that's it.
I have, in the past, literally phoned a company and cancelled contracts because of tactics like this. They protest, apologise, offer recompense, etc. but I just don't do business that way.
It reminds me a little of one of the early Dragon's Den episodes where twit-head Peter Jones basically tried to time-pressure someone into a huge business deal by counting down how long until he removed his "offer".
Sorry, mate, I don't do business that way. I'll take my time, deal with someone sensible, because you can't even be civil and business-like for a 30 minute program, let alone a business partnership.
Charles Dunstone is now concentrating on his new baby. That of providing backhaul for data, in which he has invested a lot of money. TT (and also CPW) are the stepchildren now and up for sale to the right asset stripper. (Liberty Global or Vodaphone). Or a hedge fund (who are waiting for Brexit before pouncing and raping) for cashing in for what its worth.
I give them a year to survive in the current format.
I knew that penicillin kills guinea pigs
And paracetamol is very toxic to both cats and dogs (causes acute liver failure even in very small doses).
In general, unless specified otherwise by a vet[1] don't *ever* give human medicine to animals.
[1] We had an elderly dog that needed tramadol. What the vet prescribed was identical to what I had previously been prescribed (same dosage too) for arthritis.. So (with the understanding of the vets) we used up my supply since I wasn't taking it any more[2] but the capsules were still in-date.
[2] Too many side effects - including insomnia.
From https://www.talktalk.co.uk/help/servicestatus/ just now:
Your Usage: Your usage last month of 1562 Gb suggests you’re on the right package
Your Stability: Your connection result shows no known faults between our network and your home
Your Speed to your Router: Promised Speed: 62 Mb - 80 Mb, Measured Speed Today: 80 Mb
Your Router: Our health check shows you're using one of our latest routers and its firmware is up to date
@ Jamie Jones "Your Router: Our health check shows you're using one of our latest routers and its firmware is up to date"
So ShitShit are quite open about having back door access to your router such that it reveals details like Model number+revision and Firmware version. Great if you want to find out whether it's been patched to close whatever security holes were in the previous Firmware version I suppose. Also "firmware is up to date" gives false reassurance if the last firmware update was 2 years ago. <Slow hand clap>
I'll be honest, if I were a normal user, then I would be happy with that.
YES, having some way to get that info is potentially dubious... But if it's a proper, encrypted/authenticated connection - which it should be as it's their hardware and their firmware, that only provides that info, then it's no worse than any http server having a status page showing what server SW version is being run.
The advantage of this is that, if they are doing it right, your router can be automatically "administrated" from TT, or whatever ISP it is, by which I mean - they can monitor the connection health to identify network problems faster, and they can push updated firmware to the router.
This means that any network issues can (hopefully) be addressed faster and any security updates pushed out. The User then doesn't have to worry about updating the firmware themselves (be honest, how many "normal" people do you think will check for firmware updates and install them?)
YES, having some way to get that info is potentially dubious...
No - having it is pretty much required for proper network management. Especially if it's only read-only SNMP access.
Then again, using BlahBlah and 'proper network management' in the same sentance without a "no" between the two phrases is probably wrong.
The funny thing is, that information is untrue.
I have the "remote management" aspect of the router disabled.. I just checked the router and their website, and I'm *NOT* running the latest firmware!
So, it's even worse "firmware is up to date" is false - I presume they equate "not reporting an old version" as "running the latest version"
As for the rest, I use it in "bridge" mode as a vdsl modem only - I have a dedicated router with dhcp/nat/ip6/ etc. for the rest of it
Do TalkTalk even allow / support SNMP with all of their business broadband plans ?
I wanted to use SNMP to monitor my connection but was told by TalkTalk "We don't allow business customers to use SNMP".
CAVEAT : This was a while ago and using one of the lower level plans and their router so it may have changed.
FOLLOW-UP : If I can now get SNMP on my business TalkTalk plan, I'd love to know how to do it.
The usual pointless ASA response. Forbid someone from continuing a particular advert long after that campaign has finished and they had no intention of continuing anyway. BT have recently been claiming to be the "only provider guaranteeing wi-fi coverage in every room", concurrently with Sky advertising the same thing. Without doubt these adverts will be allowed to run until the next set of bloated claims is ready for air time and then the ASA will step in and demand they are discontinued.
Ban the offending company from ALL advertising for a month for the first offence and double the ban for each subsequent offence. That should sort out the persistent offenders and discourage those who try it on from repeating their misdeeds. ASA? More like ASLR. Totally lacking in Authority, more like a Limp Rag.
"Ban the offending company from ALL advertising for a month for the first offence and double the ban for each subsequent offence."
Why would you expect a regulatory body owned and operated by the advertisers to actually inflict any sort of real punishment on their own members?
I think the best way to curb marketing bullshit is to make them actually walk the walk. This article mentions previous adds claiming that their routers signal "couldn't be beaten". Make them supply the best router on the market to their customers and upgrade it if someone makes a better version.
Yes, it would be prohibitively expensive. The word "prohibitively" is germane here. Being forced to make good on their claims will prohibit their marketing department from making nonsense claims in the future.
"Make them supply the best router on the market to their customers and upgrade it if someone makes a better version."
If this was standard policy, the whole consumer society would cease to exist
Please make it so
The ISP told us: "While we're disappointed with the ruling, TalkTalk will make the required changes to any similar campaigns in future."
I'm also disappointed by the ruling. Where is the fine?
I whole thing seems pointless to me, slap on the wrist and don't do it again.
The ASA tell them they can't use that advert any more but it's months after they've already stopped using it. TT have already made their money out of it.
Ironically, A&A supplies lines running over TT Wholesale. I had Home::1 1Tb on TT for a couple of years, and it was surprisingly fast and reliable. If it's good enough for RevK, it'll be good enough for us mere mortals.
The retail side of TT is a total bag of spanners - over-committed, under-resourced and badly-supported - but the underlying whole network isn't that bad. Maybe Dunstone's onto something with these new investments, but I do pity the retail customers if they get sold off to someone else.
Wouldn't any download immediately cap your broadband?
Like, downloading Warcraft, or GTA both at 60+ GB, bang. Capped download, at least for a couple minutes on the largest broadband. Or some backup into a cloud or something. No reason to get an upgrade letter from any ISP.
Bullshit excuse.
The article seemed to be interchangeably referring to data caps and download speed.
It sounded to me as if TT were claiming that punters had maxed* out their line download speed on three occasions but the complainants said that they had not exceeded monthly download allowance. Surely neither claim contradicts the other.
*or hit 2/3 or whatever
I used to work for BT, so I know that one of the reasons they were more expensive is because they invested more in backhaul than their competitors. TalkTalk is renowned for underinvesting - they remind me of the Ruskin quote:
“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.”
When I left BT, I lost my free employee broadband, so I looked for a cheap alternative (I’m rarely home, so I just wanted 38/10, rather than 80/20, and I don’t need any ‘value added services). I joined Direct Save Telecom, and while I’m content with it, it has brought home the reality of differing levels of investment in backhaul and core networks: at peak times, it’s faster for me to use my iPad on 4G than it is to use broadband. They also have tried a couple of upselling gimmicks/mistakes, which I avoided but which I thought were slightly underhand.
Out of interest, who’s the best *cheap* provider? Direct Save Telecom seem decent value, the above caveats notwithstanding, but I was wondering if there are alternatives, mainly for family members who are more reliant than me.
In light of this (and totally off the topic of TT and broadband) has anyone else noticed that the quality of the Amazon Basics stuff seems to have gone up of late. I use them for essentially disposable or short lifespan items, like usb cables, but the last few things I've had from them seem to be of somewhat higher quality. Certainly better than I would expect at the price point given the competition.
I wonder if this is a new strategy or just an anomaly on the race to the bottom?
This doesn't surprise me at all. In an error of judgment, I used to be a Talktalk customer and received what was euphemistically called a "welcome call" from them shortly after signing up. During that call, I was treated to the hard sell to upgrade my standard broadband to fibre, and told a number of untruths as part of the process: in particular, the operator told me that it was almost certain that during the course of my 12 month contract the quality of the service would deteriorate to the degree that it would become completely unusable due to the age of the lines serving my property and that fibre might become unavailable in the future so if I didn't upgrade then and there I could be left months and months without usable broadband.
Needless to say I complained to TalkTalk about their using misleading customers with a view to making a transactional decision that they would not otherwise have, which is a breach of UK consumer protection law. Naturally TalkTalk chronically mishandled the complaint and even went as far as to claim that the call was not a marketing call, despite it being almost 30 minutes of trying to sell me things.
Ultimately, I took the matter to CIFAS who agreed with me that TalkTalk engaged in banned practices including 'bait and switch' and pressure selling, but unfortunately does not have the power to insist that TalkTalk undertake a root and branch review of the degree to which misselling of services is endemic within the organisation and to determine whether any customers were hoodwinked by TalkTalk's toxic sales practices in order to make them good.
This finding confirms my suspicions that the call I received was not the result of a single 'rogue operator' but a systemic culture within TalkTalk of misleading customers in order to coerce them to upgrade their services.