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Hi,
I had a talktalk contract back in 2014/2105. I was contacted by fraudsters with my account number. I asked talktalk to change my account number/phone number which, after a fight, they did via a change of ownership. Despite them still harping on about this being a nuisance call and no evidence of my account number being 'hacked' this is not my main issue. the fact talktalks 3rd party employees were accessing and using the data means it's never going to admit how bad this was and no actual hacking from outside the company was needed so evidence of such would never be there. ( i have had browser warnings that my personal data has been found on a 'list' and that i should change a named list of website passwords etc. finding this list and determining if it was indeed related to talktalk accounts would be a nice thing!)
My account number change was actioned via a change of ownership and i was specifically told and communicated in writing as this having no charges for this action. - letter from ceo office clearly stating no change to contract etc
when i got my first bill with respect my changed account number i knew it was higher than expected but could not access both sets of bills to find out why. I ended up calling their head office to get this sorted after numerous failed efforts from customer service. They said it was a free call but failed to say only for the first hour - yes it took that long to figure out why my bill was wrong and how to get access to them.
They had added a contract breakage fee on the old account. and following the call to resolve access problems added a call cost for that too.
Despite a year of fighting them to get the bill correct they just closed my dispute and sold it to lowell group. lowell wrote off the debt as they could not get any information from talktalk regarding my dispute over the charges. The 'internal' debt collectors BCW / now avarto ? also sent the debt back to talktalk re my disputing the breakage free and call cost to resolve access.
talk talk however marked my credit file as query,2late payments,query,defaulted over a 4 month period. then settled several months later when they sold it to lowel. They have stated several times their marks are legit and and still refuse to remove them. up until early 2020 they were still claiming the contract breakage fee was correct and in fact in their final response to investigating claimed the total balance was the contract breakage fee. - i should add the total balance was approx £83. £40 of which were late payments , £5 a contract breakage fee and £4 for a call to restore access to bills. the original was all but the £40 late payments
I had told them numerous times, while the account balance was with talktalk, that i was not refusing to pay, but was willing only to pay what I calculated as owed and was expecting a correct bill. when telling them i was willing to pay what i calculated as owed they still insisted i pay the full amount (my stating i was willing to pay what was owed contained in my DSAR) to avoid late payment charges and credit marks.
recently cisas adjudication found they had indeed broken their contract by adding the contract breakage charges but still insist talktalk were right in adding those marks as the incorrect part amounted to a part of the balance.
My argument is that had the bill been correct, or had they been willing to actual investigate my claims the bill was wrong and not add late payments, credit marks while the contract breakage fee was being disputed then this issue would never have arisen as payment would have been made.
My bill was offered to be paid in part, minus those contract breakage charges and a call cost to their head office to sort out my account(s) but they refused to accept that payment and insisted on full payment to avoid any charges/credit marks. ( i take this as legalised extortion) They however just kept adding late payment charges despite the dispute - the original bill was approx £43 containing the £5.03 contract breakage fee and a @£4 call cost to their head office. Both these charges were deemed worthy of 'a good will gesture' to remove but was never actioned (contained in my DSAR)
With cisas having agreed with the FACT that the contract breakage fee should never have been added, I view this as talktalk refusing to investigate my balance at the time, or since (their deadlock letter in march 2020 claimed the balance of £83 was all the CBF proving no real look at my account has ever been actioned), and instead them using late payments and credit marks to enforce payment of a clearly wrong bill to avoid repercussions.
The argument of paying what was owed despite their refusal to stop any credit file marks / late payment is mute given the fact they still, after a full investigation, claimed the contract breakage was correct (in fact claimed the entire balance was the breakage fee). And as such had i paid up in full to avoid their late payments/credit marks i'd still be fighting them for money they were not owed.
Advice on small court claims action please
I had a talktalk contract back in 2014/2105. I was contacted by fraudsters with my account number. I asked talktalk to change my account number/phone number which, after a fight, they did via a change of ownership. Despite them still harping on about this being a nuisance call and no evidence of my account number being 'hacked' this is not my main issue. the fact talktalks 3rd party employees were accessing and using the data means it's never going to admit how bad this was and no actual hacking from outside the company was needed so evidence of such would never be there. ( i have had browser warnings that my personal data has been found on a 'list' and that i should change a named list of website passwords etc. finding this list and determining if it was indeed related to talktalk accounts would be a nice thing!)
My account number change was actioned via a change of ownership and i was specifically told and communicated in writing as this having no charges for this action. - letter from ceo office clearly stating no change to contract etc
when i got my first bill with respect my changed account number i knew it was higher than expected but could not access both sets of bills to find out why. I ended up calling their head office to get this sorted after numerous failed efforts from customer service. They said it was a free call but failed to say only for the first hour - yes it took that long to figure out why my bill was wrong and how to get access to them.
They had added a contract breakage fee on the old account. and following the call to resolve access problems added a call cost for that too.
Despite a year of fighting them to get the bill correct they just closed my dispute and sold it to lowell group. lowell wrote off the debt as they could not get any information from talktalk regarding my dispute over the charges. The 'internal' debt collectors BCW / now avarto ? also sent the debt back to talktalk re my disputing the breakage free and call cost to resolve access.
talk talk however marked my credit file as query,2late payments,query,defaulted over a 4 month period. then settled several months later when they sold it to lowel. They have stated several times their marks are legit and and still refuse to remove them. up until early 2020 they were still claiming the contract breakage fee was correct and in fact in their final response to investigating claimed the total balance was the contract breakage fee. - i should add the total balance was approx £83. £40 of which were late payments , £5 a contract breakage fee and £4 for a call to restore access to bills. the original was all but the £40 late payments
I had told them numerous times, while the account balance was with talktalk, that i was not refusing to pay, but was willing only to pay what I calculated as owed and was expecting a correct bill. when telling them i was willing to pay what i calculated as owed they still insisted i pay the full amount (my stating i was willing to pay what was owed contained in my DSAR) to avoid late payment charges and credit marks.
recently cisas adjudication found they had indeed broken their contract by adding the contract breakage charges but still insist talktalk were right in adding those marks as the incorrect part amounted to a part of the balance.
My argument is that had the bill been correct, or had they been willing to actual investigate my claims the bill was wrong and not add late payments, credit marks while the contract breakage fee was being disputed then this issue would never have arisen as payment would have been made.
My bill was offered to be paid in part, minus those contract breakage charges and a call cost to their head office to sort out my account(s) but they refused to accept that payment and insisted on full payment to avoid any charges/credit marks. ( i take this as legalised extortion) They however just kept adding late payment charges despite the dispute - the original bill was approx £43 containing the £5.03 contract breakage fee and a @£4 call cost to their head office. Both these charges were deemed worthy of 'a good will gesture' to remove but was never actioned (contained in my DSAR)
With cisas having agreed with the FACT that the contract breakage fee should never have been added, I view this as talktalk refusing to investigate my balance at the time, or since (their deadlock letter in march 2020 claimed the balance of £83 was all the CBF proving no real look at my account has ever been actioned), and instead them using late payments and credit marks to enforce payment of a clearly wrong bill to avoid repercussions.
The argument of paying what was owed despite their refusal to stop any credit file marks / late payment is mute given the fact they still, after a full investigation, claimed the contract breakage was correct (in fact claimed the entire balance was the breakage fee). And as such had i paid up in full to avoid their late payments/credit marks i'd still be fighting them for money they were not owed.
Advice on small court claims action please
