More amazing BT incompetence

Gary_Stephens

I made a post on here a while ago about a problem with a business line and BT Company Representative gave me a little assisstance but I am suffering daily from increasing incompetence at all levels within BT. Every single person who we speak to gives us a different story and nothing gets done at all.

We moved house on July 15th. The new address had a BT Business line and we were told by the house owner it would be converted to a residential line on July 14th for us to take over. It seemed like a simple process to me but we were told we would have to wait 11 working days for the privilege of continuing to be a BT customer into a 25th year.

On July 14th we made a phone call to BT and a man who tried to sell us every package BT provides, finally confirmed to us that the owner had made the call and that we were able to take it over, still having to wait 11 working days but we went with it. We placed the order, we have an order number and we were told the line would be working on July 30th, they told us what our new number would be, it seemed to be ok. It looked like the ordeal was over.

Yesterday on July 25th after waiting 7 of the 11 working days we get a phone call from BT telling us that they can't take it over and that we need to pay £122.50 for a new line so to contact sales. The fact that they are installing new lines without a connection fee clearly escapes them. After agonising lengths on hold, we are told today that they can now book it today but Openplan can't do anything until August 4th where presumably we will have more waiting time going round in circles and getting nowhere.

All we want is a phone line. We cannot have television, broadband or a phone line all because we are waiting for BT to get their act together. We take names of people we speak to but when we call back asking to speak to them, to our amazement we are told they don't exist and have never worked there! We now have our broadband supplier breathing down our necks telling us that we have to pay a cancellation fee because we cannot provide a working BT landline. Why should we be forced to pay a ridiculous cancellation fee because BT can't fulfill our order through no fault of our own? I should stress here that BT did offer us compensation towards the cancellation fee, yes they offered a grand gesture of £10. Thanks BT that will solve everything.

We have an order number. The BT staff on the day I placed an order checked the line and confirmed we could take it over. The fact they have now mucked around should not impact upon me. They have left it so long that now apart from the inconveniance of having no tv, phone or internet we now have to fork out sums of money for their negligence! Can anybody please help me? I just want to talk to an actual human being who knows what they're talking about and doesn't try to treat me like an idiot fobbing me off with nonsense. It should not take nearly a month for BT to give us a phone line and we can't go anywhere else because either it isn't available in our area or we have to have BT before we can switch.

Apologies if this was an incoherent ramble, I'm at my wits end here. ANY help from anybody that has a clue what they're doing would be very greatly appreciated.

DVardysShadow

I am sorry to tell you that you are completely mistaken. This incompetence is not in the least amazing, it is totally run of the mill.

Our own recent experience: 3 weeks to get a phone line working and lose the number for the previous residents, then a further 2 weeks to get the internet working. Why? Errors in the postcode for our address in BT/Open reach databases. This is apparently very common. I hold Ofcom responsible, for not ensuring adequate technical standards.

BT_company_representative

Sounds like you have had a tough time. If you send me a PM I will take a look at this for you.

Thanks

Patrick

BT Support,

Gary_Stephens

I've now managed to get my internet connected again. Have had the BT line for about a week now.

Just want to say a big thank you to Donna, Michelle and everybody else who helped me to finally get this sorted out. Your help was very much appreciated.

Thanks!