Three weeks without a phone

When TalkTalk demanded £33 from me, I phoned straight back to explain that my husband had just died.

If it would tell me what the amount was for, I said I would send a cheque. Its reply was that it could not accept one until my name had been transferred on to a new account. This would take 24 hours and mean being without a phone.

After three weeks and three days, I am still not connected. My daughter and grandson have been phoning to see why an 83-year-old widow has to be without a phone. TalkTalk has accepted payment but then it did something that required an engineer to fix. EVELYN HANNEY, KENT

You report that many times before you wrote to me you had been promised reconnection. Despite this your phone never worked under TalkTalk again.

You have moved to a different provider, which charged a small sum for reconnecting it.

A TalkTalk spokesman now says: “We are sorry that we accidentally suspended Mrs Hanney’s account after the loss of her husband, and for the problems caused when she tried to change the payment details. We have apologised and waived all the outstanding charges.”

Another reader who reports connection problems is GW of Mid Glamorgan. He also called TalkTalk time and again when he was without broadband and a phone. The last time he was told TalkTalk would send an engineer for a “one-off” £100 charge.

Rather than this he cancelled his direct debit and went elsewhere as he didn’t think TalkTalk had fulfilled its part of the contract. TalkTalk had said it would contact GW within 72 hours but all that came was a text telling him to pay a cancellation fee of £467. The new provider sent an engineer who fixed both problems within a couple of days with no charge.

A TalkTalk spokesman says: “We are sorry Mr W experienced disruption to this service because of a fault on the line. We have apologised and waived all charges.” concedes that the other personal information it had should have been used to identify your account. There was therefore no substantive cause to reject the transfer request.

It has now paid for your £874 losses and added £300 to say sorry for the trouble and upset caused. It has added £15 for your telephone calls and so forth. It also sent a bunch of flowers.

All this is on top of the £65 it had already sent you before my involvement.