Virgin media transferring some of its customers to Talk Talk

[Chris Hogg]

I've just had a message, apparently genuine, from Virgin Media, telling me that it's going to transfer its non-cable broadband and phone services to Talk Talk. I am not pleased, to put it mildly, thinking of all the people and organisations who will have to be notified of my e-mail address change.

A good few years ago, probably when Talk Talk was getting established, a friend was signed up with them and had no end of problems. Are Talk Talk any good these days? Does anyone here use them, and if so, are they OK for basic telephone, www and e-mail activities?

[Brian Gaff]

Are you on a bt line then? I thought the only issue was the people left over from the virgin folk not connected by the virgin phone line and cable. For some time they have been having to pay others to help with the system support. I don't know if its genuine but its worth a phone call to them, I'd suggest before you do anything.

Why would you need to change email. I'd have thought it would not cost them w anything to allow the account to continue using their servers via a secure connection so you could use it anywhere. Brian

[john james]

The reason your email address should not be with your ISP.

[polygonum]

In this area, the original name of what is now Virgin (cable) was NTL. That continued as an email domain for many years (not sure if it is still going?). So no immediate need to do anything. I'd be surprised if that were not the case for anyone who accepts the change to TalkTalk.

This should prompt you (and everyone else who has not already done so) to consider setting up your own domain with its own email addresses - however they are hosted.

In my book, ISP addresses are a useful "get you started", but beyond that seem to be a nasty lock-in mechanism.

[Broadback]

That is what I did years ago, so I now have a set of stable email addresses however often I change ISPs. There is the added advantage that I can have meaningful names, to me, and change them whenever expedient.

[David]

Side note - ntlworld.com email addresses are still valid and working with Virgin.

[stuart noble]

+1

[Ian Jackson]

In message , David writes

Demon.co.uk email addresses still work - despite Demon having been bought by Thus, Cable & Wireless and Vodafone (apologies to anyone I've missed out).

[Harry Bloomfield]

Chris Hogg expressed precisely :

We were on Tiscali, transferred to TalkTalk.

Our Tiscali email continues to work normally, but officially or not, we have the same email addresses in TT landing in the same inbox.

How has the service been - pretty good with both Tiscali and TT, except for those times when it has gone wrong - then God help you. Luckily we haven't had much in the way of problems, but every few years we have and getting to communicate with them is a nightmare. Twice we have been within days of moving ISP, due to problems sorting issues with their Indian help desk.

[CB]

I suspect you wont have to do that for a long time. I have a contact who was with Tiscali, taken over years ago by talk talk but still uses the original Tiscali e-mail.

Indeed this page

gives e-mail settings of quite a few long forgotten e-mail providers now taken over by talk talk

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I was 'transferred' to TalkTalk after they took over Pipex (or whatever)

Probably the worse company I've ever had dealings with. Had breakdowns several times a year - no real idea if it was their's or BT's fault, but reporting and getting them sorted was a nightmare. Was 'off' for at least

3 days each time. They also removed their included free news feed and wanted me to pay extra for one in the future. They then started sending me emails saying they couldn't contact me by email. And therefore would start charging for paper bills. Which they did

- but never sent.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

+1. Of course if you've been fortunate and not had problems they might be OK. Same as any, really.

I'm now with BT (fibre) and to date they've been excellent. Their installation was done very efficiently, so that's really the only dealings I've had with them. And I've not had a problem with it in about 3 years. So have no way of knowing what they're like if things do go wrong.

So saying, my BT HD STB (Humax) failed to record a prog the other day - it stopped after a few minutes. If that happens again, I might find out.

[Huge]

What he said.

Get a domain. It costs peanuts, means moving ISPs is trivial and one benefit I hadn't thought of, but used last week for the first time, it means creating throwaway email addresses is also trivial.

If you want good service (at a cost), I recommend Andrews & Arnold.

[The Natural Philosopher]

[aa]

Have used TalkTalk for about four years now and take all my home services from them - Broadband, landline, YouView tv (but use a Humax rather than the less good TalkTalk Huawei box) and Mobile. Get excellent and rock steady ADSL2+ connection and rarely need to contact their Customer Services. Their Customer Services has typically been their Achilles heel, but this has been steadily improving and if ever I do need any help or advice, I tend to use their helpful (UK based) online forums or exercise patience and be pleasant with their offshore call centres to get the results I want. At the end of the day I renegotiate my current low rate of charges with them each year and for that receive a very reliable service.

[aa]

Forgot to add, avoid TalkTalk email, it's a bag of worms. I use Gmx.net which is reliable and works a treat via TT using Gmx's own Pop3 and Smtp servers.

[Michael Chare]

I was transferred in the same way, then Talk Talk said they would raise the price if I did not take their phone as well. This gave me the opportunity to escape from a contract where the first 3 months were free.

They charged me for the remainder of the contract, and when I complained the Filipino help desk they told me if I wanted my money back quickly I should get the DD reversed. My bank tried to baulk at this, but did as asked.

[Fredxxx]

My experience was around 5 years ago, where I had many issues with Talk Talk after they took over Tiscali.

I also had great difficulty in stopping the service after I moved out, despite a letter to their complaints informing them of my move. Before that, each customer service representative I spoke to didn't have a clue and giving differing advice.

To cap it all, they then closed my online account including email account. Because I had no access to accounts, they had to send them in paper form for the two years I was with them in two large parcels.

I presume they have pulled their socks up since?

[aa]

In my experience, a lot better these days, though like BT, Sky, Plusnet etc., not without their occasional major cockups, but usually little that their Forum's or ultimately the CEO's office are unable to eventually clear up satisfactorily.

[John Rumm]

Are you sure that you *will* need to change address? They could put routing in place such that you don't

If you do, perhaps its time to register your own domain, and then you need never have the problem again.

IIUC they are still one of the most complained about ISPs.