Why has TalkTalk got My details ?

Firstly i am not or ever been a talk talk customer, I did however have the unfortunate experience of being a tiscali customer, i wish i had done my research,would of saved me from it,
The reason i post this is talk talk are using tiscali's data base of ex customer's, why? Who do i go to, to have these removed?
Reason being i do not want talk talk junk mail/sales calls the letter starts off

"as a former customer of tiscali"

then offers FREE connection usually £29.99 and saving of upto£114.00 a year compared to bt, offer ends June 30th 10, then states

if your looking to cut your bills without sacrificing service,it's perfect

the product is the ESSENTIALS PHONE/BB with a whopping 40gb

and then from the small print

for a new line costs are £69.99 connection fee and a 24 month contract

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 10-Jun-10 16:50:47)

The Information Commissioner's Office?

Had a look on the ICO web site, it says that they will follow up complaints , once that the company concerned has been told and had a chance to put it right, but in this case it isn't that straightforward, it would seem the data protection act has been ignored in several ways,by 2 trading names/companies tiscali and talk talk
Tiscali held my details on their data base longer than was necessary which is a breech of the act, and also passed them to talk talk without my consent talktalk are in breech as they are using my old details obtained from tiscali and using these wrongfully,
so i think it will be a letter to the ceo dunstone, as i'm not even going there on ringing talk talk,0870 not a chance why should it end up costing me? as for tiscali they are no more allegedly

The reason is simple - in case you didn't already know, TalkTalk bought Tiscali a while ago. It is not unusual for ISPs to send letters to old customers trying to get them back. For example, I used to get them from Freeserve/Wanadoo a while ago, and more recently Virgin Media. They give up after a while though if you don't respond. However, if you have the misfortune of leaving BT, you'll get regular junk mail from them trying to get you to switch to them to "save money" (which for me means lose money). I left BT for TT over 2 years ago, and BT are still sending us mail (got one just last week as it happens) trying to get us to move back to them.

My advice is to just bin/recycle such letters and ignore them, rather than waste your time trying to stop them.

BTW, the £69.99 new line connection fee only applies if you don't already have a BT phone line.

It is quite likely that when you left Tiscali you were left with a PAYG dial-up a/c or at least an free email a/c, as I have but have not received such mailshots.

If you still remember your Tiscali details, see if you can login here http://www.talktalk.co.uk/mail/ to check this and look at My Account. You may then see if you can delete the a/c online. Otherwise, you will have to write to them to demand this (under the DPA).

You can't use the ICO until you have failed to resolve a complaint formally with the firm itself.

TT are entitled to use Tiscali's info. as they now own it.

Talktalk operate a first come first serve policy for customers. customers on BT equipment take priority and even if pairs in the exchange are available they may not be allocated for new customers in case an existing customer has a line fault and requires a new one. This is something I fount out from an OCO last year on the forums.

OCO? Orbiting Carbon Observatory?

There is something within the ico's remit,about the length of time companies keep such info on individuals, i think they overstepped that mark, as it's nearly 3 years since i left tiscali, and to answer the other question, i only had bb from them, (although it may as well of been dial up) as it was very slow all the time, and yes i was aware that the connection fee and the seriously long contract of 24mths was for the supply of a new line, which is something that i for one would not consider, as that i think is unreasonable, 2yrs plus a fee?? bt to me sounds a better plan, just pay em the ?£130 con fee

And to add to that, a Tiscali broadband account could not be downgraded to a dialup account withouit specifically asking for it via their forums. Even then, you had to jump through hoops.
Officially, once the broadband was ceased, the account was ceased and the username returned to the pool.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

And to add to that, a Tiscali broadband account could not be downgraded to a dial-up account without specifically asking for it via their forums. Even then, you had to jump through hoops.
Officially, once the broadband was ceased, the account was ceased and the username returned to the pool.

That i believe is correct, as the E-mail is no longer valid and i cannot log in since the account was closed,So presumably any details they held should by now of been destroyed not re-used for unwanted mail shots /e-mails and telephone marketing calls, they haven't got my upto date tel number thank god, as i changed it due to the volume calls for the previous owner of the number after leaving tiscrapi

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 10-Jun-10 20:44:45)