TalkTalk 'my account' and phone porting

Earlier this year I moved from TalkTalk Business to TalkTalk residential, t'internet went so smooth I never even knew it had moved until I did a speed check and noticed it had increased to the new speed I was contracted at, and it has been rock solid ever since (tightly grasping a piece of wood ).
I now have two phone numbers, a 'digital voice' number running on the FTTP and a old copperline number, both work, well the copper line is as crackly as it's always been.
So what could I complain about?

Well I seem to be stuck in limbo!
I cannot access 'my account', not that I have really needed to until today, a few days back I contacted TT via chat as I do every few weeks to try to get it sorted, this time the operator tried to reset my account, no luck so as per usual was escalated, unusually I was told it would be sorted in 28days and I was sent email confirming this, which is a new one on me, usually I'm told 5 days and no email.
Anyway today I get a bill in the post for my monthly amount and an extra £2.75 for the paper bill, WTH, back on chat to sort it, after being told by the bot that my account had been cancelled I was less than happy, got through to a person and told the account is not cancelled, but I had changed preferences to paper billing, as I explained I can't even get in to 'my account' let alone change it, so they change it back to online billing and credit account.
I'm not sure after 28 days it will be fixed, but only time can tell.

Next the phone, part of the 'deal' was my landline number would be ported from TT business copper line to 'digital voice', being given a temporary number until the porting went through. A shiny new adaptor was sent and plugging the phone into it, the temporary number works, but 3 months later and several attempts and the old number is still on the copper line, works as it always has, sometimes OK other times hardly useable due to crackling, I can still access my old TT business account, and this still shows the line as active, they just can't seem to port it over! ATM am leaving this until the 28 days and hopefully the 'my account' problem is resolved, as I know from experience best to only allow them to work on one problem at a time.

If this is the improved customer service with Octopus Kraken system no wonder they are loosing customers.

Ah yes TT 'service' <insert wry smile emoji> what an oxymoron.

I was with TTB for a year or two. Despite generally solid performance and network uptime their customer service was without doubt diabolical and I had repeat issues with things like paper billing being re-activated by some glitch in the matrix. Total horror show to get straightened out.

Just out of curiosity, as you are now a Resident account and not a Business one have you tried registering for the forum?

Not sure if it requires My Account access or not these days.

In reply to a post by CJT:

Just out of curiosity, as you are now a Resident account and not a Business one have you tried registering for the forum?

Not sure if it requires My Account access or not these days.

I was previously a customer of Residential and still had that account on forum, or at least for a couple of days, and posted a question , but that is 'blocked' as well now, so I can't use that to raise a problem. I have thought about trying to register again, but not tried it yet.

No, it's not accepting me registering for forum without being logged in with 'my account'.
Just tried to register again for 'my account', very strange, it accepts me registering, takes all the details, texts me a code to me phone, tells me that I've now verified account and gives me a button to go to 'my account', I click on that button and takes me to log-in, fill in the email and password and it fails with message 'email and password not recognized'.
I have a feeling that as I'm using an email I previously used for Residential it's somehow looking up the old account which is now deemed inactive.

It would not surprise me tbh.

I requested to have my account deleted, and in de-registering me (their words) I now have no account or any access to the forum.

Also, because I closed the Chrome window which had the forum page open and logged into, I now cannot get onto the page to advise them it's worked.

Still from my perspective that's the end of my time with TalkTalk.

An update on the mess that is Talktalk.
On every contact with Talktalk I had been told they would get back to me with a resolution, at no time has this happen over the last 4 months.
This morning I have spent a couple of hours on the chat line, they have not been able to sort anything out, the last straw being they are now saying that since April they will no longer port numbers onto their digital voice for FTTP, I'm still considering how I will proceed, Talktalk business have decided to start charging me £12.72 for use of the present number.
As for logging into 'my account', I've found a work around, it makes little sense but works, I cannot use the registered email address which clearly shows in 'my account' area as the registered email, I cannot use my mobile number which clearly shows as a way of logging on, but I can use a back up email and get a code sent to my mobile.

Is there anyway you could force them to let you leave your contract penalty free due to ongoing unresolved issue?

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Is there anyway you could force them to let you leave your contract penalty free due to ongoing unresolved issue?

I'm considering my options.
Now I can get into 'my account' I'm not to worried about t'internet side of things.
The telephone is another matter, atm I've got a copperline from TTB with a 'cherished' number, a VoIP number from TT, and a Sipgate basic VoIP number which is rarely used.
If we knew if Sipgate intends to continue with 'basic' I'd happily port the 'cherished' number to them and use it for incoming only, which would cancel TTB line, then I'd argue with TT on getting their VoIP service cancelled.
The other option would be port 'cherished' number to A&A (assuming that will work on GSWave on my mobile), which would once again cancel TTB line, and argue with TT over cancelling their VoIP service.
I'll think about it till Monday, unless someone comes up with a better option.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Is there anyway you could force them to let you leave your contract penalty free due to ongoing unresolved issue?

Or even for charging £12.72/m for a service which was formerly free?

In reply to a post by DFScale:

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Is there anyway you could force them to let you leave your contract penalty free due to ongoing unresolved issue?

Or even for charging £12.72/m for a service which was formerly free?

The service was originally charged for as part of my contract with TTB for Internet and telephone, when I moved to TT residential the bills from TTB stopped, in then seems they realised the telephone was still connected, so restarted the charges, technically you might say they are correct in that they are supplying a service, but it's a service which I was lead to believe would be passed to TT residential, all be it changing from a phone service over copper to VoIP via FTTP. I keep a phone plugged in purely to recieve calls on that 'cherished' number and had been waiting for it to be passed to TT residential and disconnected. I will be applying for compensation once I've decided how to proceed.

In reply to a post by burble:

If we knew if Sipgate intends to continue with 'basic' I'd happily port the 'cherished' number to them and use it for incoming only, which would cancel TTB line, then I'd argue with TT on getting their VoIP service cancelled.
The other option would be port 'cherished' number to A&A (assuming that will work on GSWave on my mobile), which would once again cancel TTB line, and argue with TT over cancelling their VoIP service.
I'll think about it till Monday, unless someone comes up with a better option.

Migrating your copper number to residential was what I was going to suggest. This ceases the phone line and the associated broadband, no questions asked. If you're out of contract then there will be a small final bill, which may even be a credit.

I'm still on Sipgate Basic although I rarely use it. I don't know if you can still port numbers in to Sipgate Basic; I think it cost me £25 or £30. AAISP is £12 to port and £1.44 per month.

I guess you could port to Sipgate if they'll allow it, and later if necessary port to AAISP (as long as the appropriate porting agreements are in place; if your cherished number was originally a BT number you should be OK). Of course, there's a risk that if Sipgate terminated Basic shortly after you moved to it, you'd be out of pocket by a porting fee.

On balance, I'd be inclined to go with AAISP, for being a UK-based company and generally clueful and helpful. I've never used GSWave; I recommend Acrobits Softphone or Groundwire, as it uses native push notifications which avoids draining the battery.

And then of course, once your TTR contract is up, migrate to a competent ISP. Grey hairs aren't worth the £2 per month or whatever you might have saved by choosing them. Their current financial difficulties are going to mean even less spent on customer service, not more.

I think you are right and A&A are the safer route, although Sipgate has proved to be reliable for me to receive calls around the world for £0, who knows for how long.
My internet has been on fibre for several years, it's only the phone that is on the copper line, and that is out of contract. There is something very odd with the way TTB seem to have set it up, it shows as being 'Digital Voice' (or what ever they call it), but I've never had anything other than a old Panasonic phone plugged in,

Talktalk have MSANs in the exchange; it's possible you're on a voice service that doesn't use BT exchange equipment. But that still doesn't make it "digital voice" from a customer point of view.

There is something strange about the way the telephone service is set up which I've never got to the bottom of, in fact the original set up for internet as well was very strange.
When we first wanted FTTP TTR couldn't offer DV in our area, I asked TTB and they where happy to give me a copper(phone) and fibre(internet) service and the price was similar to my previous FTTC with phone. They decided that the copper line would carry phone service and FTTC as a 'back up', and FTTP for the internet!
I did connect via FTTC a few times just to see if it worked, at some time months later the FTTC was disconnected, it didn't worry me as the FTTP has been flawless, then some months later the phone stopped working, on contacting TTB they denied I had ever had a phone service from them! When I pointed out they had been billing me for the phone service they stated that it had never been used, I then pointed out my billing included a list of hundreds of phones calls made and received, they then reinstated the phone service.
Fast forward a couple of years and my contract was coming to an end, TTR had rolled out DV to more areas and where offering a good deal, so tried to go with them, it was found to be 'impossible' to port my number across, one comment from TTR stood out to me "are you sure it's not already on DV?", anyway after a lot of discussion TTB decided to offer me a contract with the same prices as TTR, so never migrated. My conclusion was that it was still early days for TT DV and they still hadn't fully sorted their systems, esp. as TTB said they could see no reason that TTR couldn't accept the porting of number.
Anyway earlier this year my contract coming up again, TTB refused to match TTR prices, and TTR assured me that the porting of the phone was proceeding without problems. I now know this was not true.

+ 1 for AA for VoIP

Never had any issues with them, £1.44 per month via DD for my ported in PSTN number.

An update.
First 'my account', the fix was easy, the problem was very strange. TT have been sending me emails to my 'primary' email account, and I've been receiving them no problem, but trying to log on via that was not possible, the same with using mobile number. Because I was wary of getting voice and internet transferred from TTB to residential due to having copper and fibre I phoned to set up account, the operative misspelt my email, quite how they could communicate with me I have no idea, but I sorted it.
Next porting of number, the twists and turns for this where something to behold. As it stood I was paying TT res for Fibre and VoIP, and TT bis for a copper phone service, at first my tactic was to try and get the number ported, and get some compensation for the payments made to TT bis, after all they have been telling me for months it would be ported until suddenly changing their minds and saying it couldn't be ported. In the last month I have been variously told it could be done, it couldn't be done, it was to be done at no cost (twice contracts where issued then cancelled), and twice that it would cost me several hundreds of pounds! In the end I gave them two alternatives, and they finally saw sense and 'somehow' managed to come up with a solution to keep me off their back.
Today I'm on a new 18month Fibre only contract, the first 6 months is discounted to give me enough compensation to cover my costs. In the next day or so I will be seeing about porting my 'cherished' number to A&A.

Wow what a headache!

I am SO glad I don't use TT any longer. Happy to use A&A for my phone number and had no issues with Aquiss for my internet

In reply to a post by CJT:

Wow what a headache!

I am SO glad I don't use TT any longer. Happy to use A&A for my phone number and had no issues with Aquiss for my internet

Firmly grasping piece of wood, TT's FTTP has been good, it's the phone service and customer service which has been poor, I've known this for years and worked around it, but this latest episode has tested my patience.
Email today from A&A confirming porting as being accepted, but know date of change as yet.
As TT haven't requested the HT801 ATA back had a quick play with it yesterday, but I couldn't get in to it, maybe it's locked down?
Meanwhile I'll use GS Wave on my mobile which I've used for Sipgate.

Ditto. I had 'my time' with them a few years ago on a business contract. Service was pretty solid. But human service was beyond a joke.