Despite the fact that I haven’t had TalkTalk broadband since the 5th September 2006 they still insist on billing me and chasing me for money.

When I first received a bill for October they told me it was because I had to give 30 days notice to cancel and that I had to pay. When I told them I gave them notice on the 25th July 2006 I was told the invoice would be credited and would show on my next bill.

Now I didn’t trust TalkTalk as their promises seldom come to fruition so I decided to cancel my direct debit to make sure they didn’t get the money which wasn’t due to them. A couple of days later I received a letter telling me I had cancelled my direct debit and I should use an alternative method of payment.

Then today I received a letter telling me my account was overdue. When I rang their credit control department and explained I don’t have broadband with them they told me I still had to pay.

To cut a long story short I think I eventually got my point through and was told my account was going through the termination process and all will be resolved on Friday.

I have no faith in Talk Talk being able to sort this out but fingers crossed miracles might happen and I’ll be finally rid of them. We’ll see soon I guess.

I read today in the Mail on Sunday Newspaper of a man who has now got a criminal record for a piece of paper placed in the wrong recycling bag.

This poor man who was doing his bit for the environment voluntarily at that, has now had his reputation tarnished for life, had to appear 5 times before the Magistrates who had no proof that it was him that carried out this heinous crime yet still fined him £100 and made him pay £100 costs too.

Even if he did by accident place a piece of paper in the wrong bag the punishment in my opinion does not fit the crime and should have been thrown out of court.

It was not mandatory for him to recycle his waste and if he hadn’t ever done so he would probably have had a better defence.

We are encouraged to recycle as much as we can but is it worth the risk if this could be the consequence?

It looks like Matt Cutts has been busy pressing his red button and demoting previously high ranking sites to 31st place in the results. That is the top of page 4.

These sites are no longer able to score higher than 31st place even for their own company name. Google strives to give relevant results but in this case they are manipulating them to an extent that it is laughable.

How can you say scoring someone at 31st place for their own company name is giving you the most relevant results for that search query. This is particularly a problem for many users who have Google as their home page and go to their favourite sites by entering the name into the Google search box.

They will now have to go through to the 4th page before they can find it and that is if they haven’t given up in the meantime. Is that a good user experience of Google?

No-one knows for sure what is causing this phenomenon (except Google of course but they are unlikely to say) and speculation is rife amongst the many forum posts from effected webmasters.

Further reading can be found at:

Threadwatch
Digitalpoint
Searchenginewatch
Webmasterworld

just to name a few.

So if you can’t find your favourite site on Google anymore try going straight to page 4 or the results and check out Number 31!

TalkTalk broadband was featured on BBC Watchdog last night and we’re told they have received more complaints about TalkTalk than any other company ever featured on the program.

Charles Dunstone from TalkTalk says he’s disappointed that so many customers had complained to Watchdog. What does he expect them do?

He also said “Talk Talk is connecting hundreds of thousands of people to free broadband every week.” He added that half a million have already signed up and the offer has been so successful, the company has been overwhelmed” Now do the maths on that one, hundreds of thousands of people are connected each week yet only half a million have signed up for the offer since April. At the rate they are going it would only take 5 weeks to get to that figure. Doesn’t seem quite right to me.

He also said “that he has introduced a process for handling cancellations and outstanding accounts”. Doesn’t mean it works though. I’m still being billed for broadband that I haven’t had since the 5th September.

He showed a board on the wall that stated that calls were being answered within 15 seconds and there were no calls waiting. When I tried to call them yesterday (five times) after selecting the option I needed I was immediately cut off. Maybe that’s why there is no-one waiting.

My advice to Charles Dunstone is to try calling in with a problem himself and see how his staff deal with things. Only then will he truly understand the problems his company has.

Even though I left TalkTalk broadband on the 5th September I am still being billed for their service. Trying to call them today you get to their automated service that says “for Broadband Press 4″. I tried 5 times this morning and each time I pressed 4 the line got cut off immediately.

Now that’s what I call Great Customer Service!