Talk Talk

[Roadhump]

I wonder if this incident could actually threaten the viability of TalkTalk as a company. It will have done catastrophic damage to their reputation, significant numbers of people seem to want to leave, and I can't imagine people queuing up to join TalkTalk in the near future. Articles like that in the link below may indicate things will get a lot worse for them before they get better.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-attack-charged-250-penalty-fee-a6708346.html

 

[martint235]

I wonder if this incident could actually threaten the viability of TalkTalk as a company. It will have done catastrophic damage to their reputation, significant numbers of people seem to want to leave, and I can't imagine people queuing up to join TalkTalk in the near future. Articles like that in the link below may indicate things will get a lot worse for them before they get better.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-attack-charged-250-penalty-fee-a6708346.html

They have tended to issue quite long contracts with penalty clauses. However I expect the regulator to step in any day now and tell Talk Talk that anyone who wants to leave should be allowed to.

I think the viability of TT as a company is extremely limited. There is already mention of compensation plus what I imagine will be a substantial fine from the regulator plus a lack of demand will see it take a big hit. It has 2015 revenue of £1.7bn though so it may escape with a name change and a new advertising campaign.

 

[biggs682]

just goes to show how little we can trust these so called big safe companys

 

[Smokin Joe]

So not ISIS after all -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34643783

 

[TVC]

It doesn't say if he was the hacker, or the one who made the random demand.
If TT were hacked by a 15 year old that is both funny and scary.

 

[slowmotion]

I wonder if this incident could actually threaten the viability of TalkTalk as a company. It will have done catastrophic damage to their reputation, significant numbers of people seem to want to leave, and I can't imagine people queuing up to join TalkTalk in the near future. Articles like that in the link below may indicate things will get a lot worse for them before they get better.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-attack-charged-250-penalty-fee-a6708346.html

What is this "reputation" of which you speak? They don't deserve to be in business anyway. Their whole business model has been to ensnare potential punters with "cheap" deals and then treat them with utter contempt. I'll dance on their grave swigging from a bottle of bubbly.

 

[martint235]

What is this "reputation" of which you speak? They don't deserve to be in business anyway. Their whole business model has been to ensnare potential punters with "cheap" deals and then treat them with utter contempt. I'll dance on their grave swigging from a bottle of bubbly.

But the number of "greedy" people who thought they were on to a winner is worth £1.7bn for this year, that's not bad for a business plan. Add in the number that didn't read the small print and are now buying themselves out of contracts that they willingly signed up to and it's a nice little earner.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like TT. When they launched though, I thought "There's no way you can offer me a decent broadband service at what you are offering to charge me" and I stayed well away.

 

[slowmotion]

But the number of "greedy" people who thought they were on to a winner is worth £1.7bn for this year, that's not bad for a business plan. Add in the number that didn't read the small print and are now buying themselves out of contracts that they willingly signed up to and it's a nice little earner.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like TT. When they launched though, I thought "There's no way you can offer me a decent broadband service at what you are offering to charge me" and I stayed well away.

Yeah Madoff had a similar model.

 

[Roadhump]

What is this "reputation" of which you speak? They don't deserve to be in business anyway. Their whole business model has been to ensnare potential punters with "cheap" deals and then treat them with utter contempt. I'll dance on their grave swigging from a bottle of bubbly.

I am sure your view is shared by many others, but given they have millions of customers their reputation is perhaps not as bad as you feel it is, whether that is the case or not, it is a fair bet that it will be considerably worse now than it was this time last week.

I have been with TalkTalk for several years now and I would agree that their customer service at times has been terrible, but in the past couple of years my experience with them has been better. I have heard many stories about similarly terrible customer service from customers of other companies which has led me to stay with TalkTalk as they all seem to be as bad as each other. Having said that, I had decided to move on at the end of my current contract before this story broke.

 

[martint235]

Yeah Madoff had a similar model.

Not quite the same though. Unlimited broadband for £5 in a time when most were charging £20 a month was too good to be true. And yet people willingly signed up to 3 or 4 year contracts with penalty clauses for early termination. Now it's gone a little pear shaped they are upset. You do get what you pay for.

 

[slowmotion]

Fair points @Roadhump. I left them before the current fiasco. My reason for doing so was that, whenever they loused up technically, their people always blamed the customer for the problem, usually after I listened to 50 minutes of trying to understand someone with a limited grasp of English, absolutely zero technical expertise, but the faint ability to read a very bad tele-script .

I'm practicing my dance moves and chilling the champagne.

 

[slowmotion]

Not quite the same though. Unlimited broadband for £5 in a time when most were charging £20 a month was too good to be true. And yet people willingly signed up to 3 or 4 year contracts with penalty clauses for early termination. Now it's gone a little pear shaped they are upset. You do get what you pay for.

In TalkTalk's case, you don't get what you pay for. Anyway, I left before all this without any penalties. It's the routine dishonesty of the technical people that irked me.

 

[martint235]

You get a cheap broadband service.

I'm not sure about their technical staff being dishonest as I've never dealt with them. Unless it's specific such as lying about emails sent etc, I'd be more likely to call them ignorant rather than dishonest. Having worked in IT for nearly all my working life, the skills required for a good broadband technical desk do not come cheap. TT probably had no desire to pay those levels and so got techies from the low experience pool

 

[slowmotion]

You get a cheap broadband service.

I'm not sure about their technical staff being dishonest as I've never dealt with them. Unless it's specific such as lying about emails sent etc, I'd be more likely to call them ignorant rather than dishonest. Having worked in IT for nearly all my working life, the skills required for a good broadband technical desk do not come cheap. TT probably had no desire to pay those levels and so got techies from the low experience pool

When they try and blame Microsoft Windows on two entirely different PCs, running two different operating systems for some f#ck-up at their end , you start to wonder perhaps? You seem quite forgiving. BTW, who do you use?

 

[martint235]

I use EE. So far no issues and I get 10Gb of free data per month on my mobile. I've not had to call their desk yet.

I left Sky because when I called their desk they said the issue was in my house. I gave them technical proof that it wasn't but they wouldn't listen. So bye bye Sky. EE just happened to call me when I'd decided to leave Sky

I'm frequently the duty manager for some fairly important stuff so I need reliable broadband. So far EE haven't caused me issues