i have placed an order with BT to move my line rental and calls to them and they have given me an "earliest possible" provisional date. presumably, what will happen at that time is a BT guy will unplug my line from the TT LLU equipment and plug in into the antique roadshow part of the exchange. i will then be able to order a new isp who will then instruct BT to re-plug my line into the isp's LLU equipment. ... seems a hell of a way to run a modern day telecoms business

been there; done that; bought the t'shirt m8

i hear what you're all saying guys but the bottom line is, if you ran TT would you make your customers go to another provider when they actually want to pay you for line rental and calls?

actually, i use them for uk calls as they only charge to connect the call then zero pence per minute (hour max).

http://www.18185.co.uk also http://www.1899.co.uk]1899.co.uk also www.call18866.co.uk and probably more too

question (for others who might be interested in UW): does UW allow their customers to access prefix diallers such as 18185?

cheers S-L. if i wanted an all in calls and broadband package then uw might be my best option but i really do want to go back to my old isp and caller display is a necessity.

no. they totally refuse to revert me to phone only. what they seem to be saying is once my line has been plugged into the talktalk LLU equipment then they are not going to put it back to where it had been previously. however, i thought that each exchange had 2 sections, LLU and non-LLU - and my line has been in the LLU section for a few years. when i added broadband to my TT account all i thought happened was a BT person would change some computer setting so that TT was my isp instead of my previous provider. talktalk are very specifically saying that my line has been transferred to their LLU equipment. surely if each provider had their own equipment in each exchange it would be total chaos ... plus being wide open to dirty tricks. as for UW, sorry m8 but no free calls on the basic package plus charging for caller display makes BT a better option (i want to go back to my previous isp)

shining: but i've been using LLU, with a different isp, for a few years. they are now very specifically saying that they will not provide me with a line only service or line and weekend calls. they insist that i must stay on their essentials package or leave tt.

one of the tt 'online executives' has just posted this reply "If you are not happy with broadband services and you are on LLU with TalkTalk then all services do need to be cancelled should you choose to cease your service" does that make sense to anyone here? 1) if a line was unbundled (this happened over a year ago) then i can't have the contract i was on previous to me simply adding broadband? 2) that tt would rather a customer moved to bt than give them the contract they were happy to provide a couple of weeks ago?

1) UW? plz excuse my ignorance 2) yeah, even more spinning than Kylie Minogue i left out a number of other "unbelievable facts" as my post was already so long but i should probably have mentioned ever since i added broadband to my talktalk package i have been unable to use any of the prefix diallers. i can still log into my account. still sent sms messages through them. but i can't make any calls. what's the chances that they have blocked prefix dialling companies? are they allowed to block prefix dialling companies?

i don't know if you've seen this but it made me smile ... A SENIOR MOMENT - An elderly lady actually wrote this letter to her bank. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in The Times and this newspaper thanks him most sincerely. Dear Sir, I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three 'nanoseconds' must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank. My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, re-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows: 1-- To make an appointment to see me. 2-- To query a missing payment. 3-- To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there. 4-- To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping. 5-- To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature. 6-- To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home. 7-- To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required. A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorised Contact.) 8-- To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 8 9-- To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call. Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year. Your Humble Client Addendum from The Editor: IMPORTANT to REMEMBER that this letter was written by a 98 year old woman.

i have have my line and calls with TalkTalk for some time and been very happy. however, a while ago i decided to start using TalkTalk as my isp. i was told i would get 8meg. i said "no way" the fastest i would ever get on my line, due to line length, would be 3.9meg - as i was getting with my then isp. switching wasn't without it's problems, and the first lie from TalkTalk, but i got connected. however, my connection was terrible. at best slow, sometimes even dial-up. i upload a backup file to the ubuntu cloud each week, most of the time i can't even get the ubuntu one site. google mail & docs is so slow i got so bored with waiting to send an email that i did something else. when i went back my inbox was displayed. it wasn't until two days later that i noticed that the email hadn't been sent - this was an important communication to my MP! 3 or 4 times level 1 support said my router was compatible the TalkTalk service and we went through many setups and line checks. level 2 support said also said my router was fine, more checks and eventually passed to bt. 48 hrs later i started to re-assess things. initially it seemed no different, 3 days later i was sure. to i rang again only to be told that my problem had been de-escalated as i hadn't been in when bt had phoned. i was also told, by a cancellatiion person, that my router was not compatible with your service and that's why i was having problems with my phone. i replied that i wasn't having any phone problems and at that point we were cut-off 4 or 5 times. i had not been cut-off before, or since! i also notice that even though the TalkTalk cancellations person claimed to have been cut-off all those times, my ip didn't change and various applications i had running showed no problems. two more days waiting for the "escalation to bt" - nothing. so i rang to cancel, after a good hour of being redirected, told to ring the "direct" number (which was the one i had dialled) i eventually got to someone who said they could do the cancellation but if i cancelled my broadband then i would have to cancel my entire package with TalkTalk. adding that "my line would be lost and my number". when i pointed out that in the past i has switched from bt to TalkTalk, back then back again and that i had never lost my number before the person said that i might "lose my number" due to "my exchange having been unbundled", adding, "you're not paying for the broadband, if you don't want it, just stop using it". but i am paying, effectively. originally i had line rental with free weekend and evening calls, caller id and 1470 all for no extra charge. i was told when i joined that if i was unhappy with the service then i could cancel it within 30 days - and that's just what i want to do. all TalkTalk was prepared to do was either cancel everything, in which case i will lose my line and may even lose my number or continue with the essentials contract, which she was prepared to offer me a 50% discount for 6 months followed by a further 6 months when that expires, and simply not use the broadband element of the package. sorry such a long post but i tried to answer any question you might have.

update: on 2 june i received a very nice phone call from scottish power ... in reply to the email i had sent to their ceo. he explained, appologised and even offered to get his ceo to write to me personally (an offer i declined). later the same day, i received a letter from bcw. they acknowledged my recent communications then added that they confirm they have "arranged for a copy of the documentation to be sent to [me] directly by [their] clients". on 3 june i received the promised appology from Peter Skuodas, Senior Complaints Adviser, Directors Support Team, Customer Relations, ScottishPower in conclusion, i am happy that scottish power made a mistake which they have now put right. however, i don't have any such warm feelings about the bcw.

1) really? what about all the issues raised in my post number 44? i think if i started a vote about this thread you would find that very few agree with you. 2) hear/here "to help" ... again, i really think you wouldn't win a vote on this point. as for your "is required or asked for" i find that extremely offensive. the least you could do, if you really do work for sp, is to actually get someone to reply to my now multiple emails plus snail-mail. 3) and that's why your web site makes those details so easy to find? 4) you have supplied two links. i have sent emails to the first two addresses shown in the links that you supplied plus another two emails to your ceo plus my snail-mail. i have not had even an acknowledgement from sp. is that due to ignorance of simply arrogance? or should we have a vote on that too? 5) i seriously wonder about that! for the record, i, and i'm sure lots of people on this forum, have written to a number of ceo's. sometimes snail-mail, sometimes email, i have always, i repeat, always, had a reply. yes, it has mostly been from some "assistant to the CEO" but always some sort of reply. Congratulations scottish power, you are the first company not to reply

i decided that a long time ago when one of their door-to-door clowns asked if i "would like to consider coming back to sp" (i had previously been with sainburys). he "guaranteed me that sp were the cheapest". it was a bit of a coincidence but in the early hours of that very day i had been through all the comparison sites and sp had not been the cheapest. i do like being lied to. p.s. just a thought, i wonder if sainburys know that sp use their contact information in this way?

i asked you to pm me your official sp email address so that i could send you details of the account. even though i have already emailed the same details to your ceo on 18 may 2010 - without any reply! N.B. his email address is correct (or certainly was over the weekend). over the weekend i have also emailed everything to the two email addresses that your previous link showed and posted a snail-mail letter to your ceo. 2) i totally agree that the courts will enjoy looking at this. even judges like to smile. 3) what? no comment about sp not bothering to reply? 4) i have done all the going that i intend to do. now i'm going to sit back and watch the tide come in (that's a euphemism for the dcq's doing their thing) don't worry colin, it's already been published by marcus at the amazing ceo email address site and advertised by the CAG. well done marcus! i totally agree pinky and that's exactly what i am doing. i was partly keeping everyone aware of developments; partly hoping to gleen more information from sp, e.g. a straight answer; and partly hoping to make the decent members of cag smile in disbelief.

ok then, what is your CEO's correct email address then? i'm sure we would all like to know, including marcus @ the ceo email site.

i have just received a reply from an email i sent to marcus who runs the brilliant ceo email site. he assures me that the email address his site shows for the boss of sp is correct he has asked me to get an email address from the person posting as colin, the sp company rep. i replied that "colin" has already side-stepped my request for his email. ... here's his chance to put things right. p.s. colin: i will not "publish" or pass-on any email address you send me except to marcus at the ceo email site - he wants to talk to you about your claim that Nick Horler's email is wrong.

1) must say, i'm a tiny bit confused. my last post asked you to pm me your email addy @ sp. clearly i asked that so i would know just who i'm giving the keys to my chastity belt. yet you totally ignore me and reply that i should pm you private information. i wonder just who "sp company rep" really is? 2) that does not tally with the facts a) i know you've passed the debt to at least two dca's. b) each dca shows a different amount owing. c) it seems obvious that each dca has added it's own fees to your original debt. d) one of those dca's has actually said that they will be adding further fees 3) nothing 4) yes it is! first it's the one shown in the ceo email list. if the address was invalid then it would bounce! i went to your web site, as found by google. sp home: Cheap Gas and Electricity Suppliers | Scottish Power as there was no contact i went to your site map: Sitemap no where under "home", new or existing customers, is there a "contact" area. only under your business section. why do you make it so difficult for people to write or email you? finally) from what i read here sp have broken the rules, probably even the law. if you think that i am now going to play by your complaint rules you really are am optimist.

"sue" as in, get a tame solicitor? or "sue" as in, here are some links with simple 101 type advice plus all the letters you'll need?

1) please pm me your email addy at scottish power and i'll send you the details that bcw show as a "clients ref" plus the supply address. 2) so if sp sell a debt to every dca in the country, lets just say there's a thousand of them, and each dca "initially" (see final point raised) charges an average of 35% then won't that mean that the debtor would have to repay 1000 x 35% = 350 times the original debt? isn't that rather like you doing your weekly shop at tesco then, after you've paid for it, you put it all back on the selves so they can sell it again? i wish i could sell the same thing over and over again 3) the original letter from sp, and my reply, was months ago. correct, he never owned the property. 4) as i said, i couldn't find your address on your web site so i pasted the contents of the letter into an email, attached a pdf of the letter and sent it to the email address shown on this site: http://www.connectotel.com/marcus/ceoemail.html: "Mr Nick Horler, Chief Executive, Scottish Power" subject FAO: Mr Nick Horler, Chief Executive showing a reference of the supply address. sent: 18 May 2010 12:26 i.e. 10 days ago! final) just to remind our readers, i started this thread as bcw had written to me about a debt. lets ignore the previous sp involvement. i replied to bcw by letter and email. today my post arrived just before 14:00 and guess who's sent me another letter? correct! those nice people at bcw. it says that i "have failed to notify them of any legitimate reason for non-payment". my absolute most favourite section of their letter is the part that says that the "principal" (there they go using that word again) is now: £864.23 in an earlier post i said about dca's numeracy skills as "think of a number" ... seems i should have said "think of a number and double it". if anyone from bcw reads this post please, please, please take me to court. run up lots of legal fees. get a really expensive bunch of solitcitors. what about: Robert Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey, Johnnie Cochran, Thomas A. Mesereau, Jr., Brian Oxman, Robert M. Sanger, Susan C. Yu, Steve Cochran, Mark J. Geragos, Benjamin Brafman, Brian G. Wolf, Zia F. Modabber

1) clearly ScottishPower cannot possibly have passed on the information i gave them unless ... the dca's decided to ignore it. maybe you would like to tell us which is the case here. 2) "may be returned to ScottishPower from one debt collector if they have been unsuccessful and assigned to another debt collector" - all within one day? the letters from these two dca's were dated 11 & 12 may. SP have either sold the debt twice or the Royal Mail really has improved recently. 3) given that SP have clearly not told my son that they have sold this debt; given that SP have clearly sold the debt twice; given that SP seem to have totally ignored my original very helpfull letter; given that these two dca's can't even agree on the amount, frankly, i have told my son to totally ignore all corresspondence he may receive about this debt. if it does get to a court issue then we will be back here for a further laugh, sorry i obviiously meant to say "post". last) "outstanding issues when you receive your reply" - don't you mean "if"?

wow! i have never seen or heard of this happening. do the powers that be ever do anything about these breaches in the law? ... clearly not enough!

sorry for being thick but are you saying that the original person you owe the debt to MUST inform you themselves if they sell it on? i have only ever heard of the pirates, sorry, dca advising the debtor.