BT complaints

Heinz

An email to ian.livingston@bt.com appears your only option now.

BT_company_representative

Hi horrible,

Is sound like you and your father have had a terrible time in trying to get this sorted. If you PM me your fathers BT account details I can take a look at this for you.

Thanks

Patrick

BT Support,

casla

I am posting here in the hope that a BT representative will spot this as phoning call centres is getting me absolutely nowhere.
I moved to a new home and started a BT phone and broadband contract in mid-July. I got the top package with mobile broadband and everything was working well. The reason for this was that following this move my husband would be working mostly from home from 24 August so we needed the best quality service and foolishly thought that paying BT a lot of money would ensure this.
Everything worked fine until last Friday 14 August when the broadband light on the hub started flashing orange and eventually went dead. After much plugging and unplugging of filters I rang the call centre and was told there was a fault on the line but someone would call me back with a solution. I waited 24 hours and heard nothing so phoned again. This time (Saturday lunchtime) I was told someone had phoned and left a message (they hadn’t) but the new agent tested the line and confirmed that the problem was still there (definitely with the line not the filters). She assured me I would get an update within 24 hours. Later on Saturday evening I was phoned back and told that some work had been done and everything should work by 8.30pm on Sunday evening. It didn’t but I decided to wait until Monday morning to phone just in case it started during the night.
On Monday I call at 8am and explain the whole problem and am told the call will be referred back to the technical support (so who am I speaking to?). Later that morning I get another call asking if my broadband is now working. I say no. I had called to tell them that but this person either didn’t have up-to-date call notes or didn’t read them. That person tests the line (doesn’t believe me when I say it’s not working) and I’m told I’ll get another call. At 6.30 pm I’m told something else has been done to the line and it should be fine in 26 hours - 8.30pm on Tuesday 18. So I wait again. In the meantime I’m using my BT mobile but I’ve no idea when that credit will run out and I very much hope I’ll get compensated for all the broadband time I’m losing.
Tuesday 18 August 8.30pm still no broadband. I call the 0808 number again and sit on hold for about 20 minutes before explaining the case again. THIS time the agent tells me an engineer will be sent out and I’ll get a call with an appointment within 24 hours. When I try to complain about how frustrating this all is – why can’t that agent set up the appointment? – I get cut off. I decide it’s not worth calling back and sitting on hold for so long again just to complain about getting cut off but it puts me in a terribly bad mood as I go to bed.
Today, Wednesday 19 August I get a call at 12.00 asking if everything is working now. I say how can it be? I’m still waiting for an engineer to make an appointment. Again this person hasn’t read the most recent notes and tests the line again! He said an appointment will be set up within 24 hours but now I don’t know if he means yet another full 24 hours or if I should still count from 9pm last night. I asked for a direct number to make a formal complaint but it seems BT doesn’t have a complaints department – I can well understand why! I tried online but their page keeps crashing so this is why I thought I’d try my rant here.
I’ve no idea what to do. I worked in a call centre once myself and so I know there is no point ranting at the people who call me as they have no authority or expertise anyway. So BT representative if you see this please advise me on where to go next. My husband starts working from home on Monday 24 and there is no flexibility with this date. I’ve no idea whether he will cope with just the mobile dongle broadband and if this affects his ability to do his job he may well lose it. At our old home we had BT broadband for years and never had any problems. I don’t know if higher tech products are more temperamental or if we are very unlucky but I’m really starting to panic about it all.
Thanks for the opportunity to post here. Hopefully I’ll get some good advice on how to proceed.
L

NEH

Heinz wrote: »

An email to [EMAIL="ian.livingston@bt.com"]ian.livingston@bt.com[/EMAIL] appears your only option now.

Thanks I may give this a try after I have just been told that even though BT made the mistake and assured me compensation on Friday they are now only going to pay it if the broadband order doesn't go through. After asking them they are able to put my cashback through but only if I give the order details, problem is that is the order that had to be cancelled because they made made a mistake and put it through incorrectly. I am at my wits end and find one lady in particular is very unhelpful and tells me a whole different story to the one I was told on the phone on Friday when I orginally has my call back. I have requested yet another call back but I doubt I will get very far. Apparently it is now all Ofcom's fault as they have to leave a certain gap when switching providers which is fine but why not tell me that on Friday???

Given my mum has yet to even start her service with BT I am vey tempted to tell her to go to someone else. They even sent her 6 letters the other day :eek: talk about a waste of paper and not one of them apologising....

horrible

It appears this is where you should come to get things sorted.

Within 24 hours it looks as though my fathers problems are over.

The issue was taken up by a BT rep who listened, understood the problem and very kindly sorted things out.

Why don't they have these people on the end of a phone??

Thanks anyway.

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi horrible,

Is sound like you and your father have had a terrible time in trying to get this sorted. If you PM me your fathers BT account details I can take a look at this for you.

Thanks

Patrick

BT Support,

User_name_6

I, too, have had an impressively long string of problems setting up my new line after moving house:
I bought my new house (a new build) on the 27th of march, called within a few days to be told I should not place an order yet and wait until I no longer needed the old line instead. my notice on the previous property didn't expire until early may. so between early may and the end of july I made approximately £60 pounds (quite possibly more) worth of phone calls to BT placing in the region of 6 or 7 orders to setup the new line. most of these times they assured me they had to check something and would call me back to complete the order. chasing these a few days later I found that the orders were either cancelled or there was no record whatsoever of the order at all. there was never an explanation as to why the order was cancelled. they didn't even cancel my old line until the 6th of july.

when I raised a complaint about this over the phone in mid july the advisor was able to quite simply setup the order, and could not see any reason why it was unsuccessful previously. they took details of my complaint and assured me they would arrange a manager to call back to resolve it within 24 hours (this of course never happened, and guess what next time I called there was no record of the complaint).
I am trying to raise this again with them and have been doing some sums... its quite surprising how it adds up.
between the date I moved and the time the landline was finally setup, I had paid around about £50 for a landline where I no longer lived, and been out of a landline at my new address for a similar period so its reasonable to call that worth £12.50 a month as well, I had made about £60 quids worth of phone calls most of which got nowhere on my mobile, and also spent about £150 more on my mobile than I would have otherwise (normal spend about £5-10 a month and over those months nearly £200.) my broadband provider nearly banned me from using their service because I was unable to transfer it (now sorted but costing me £5 per month more than before.

the connection charge thing of £122.50 seems reasonable, but when you add the other costs associated with getting them to actually do it, its not so good! I cant remember if theres other parts I'm missing but I worked out the total cost about £465! (on top of the £122.50!)

the consistency with which people on their call centres contradict each other is also quite impressive, last time they even managed to contradict themselves (no there were no call charges on the old line after you moved.. then a few minutes later oh yes theres £16 worth)

where am I best going with this from here?

BT_company_representative

Hi Casla,

Sorry to see that we have got things wrong, please can you PM me your details and I will get the ball rolling to ensure everything is fixed before the 24th.

Thanks,
Jon

BT Support.

kellyward_2

Anyone who needs to complain about BT, I'd say go to Ofcom!! You can call them on 02079813040. (They are really helpful).
It worked for me got through to a UK call centre to a man in High Level Complaints (Ofcom give you a ref and the phone number) and got a callback 2 hours later!
Seems BT listens once you go to a regulator.
Although my issue wasn't resolved in the way I would like, I am now getting a "deadlock" letter so I can go and complain to Otelo.
Personally I think it's the only way to go but then I will not let BT take the "mick" out of me!

Mike_Samuel

Hi
As a newbie to MSE I would like to add my own problem with BT.
I have had three weeks of deadful hassle with abysmal service since deciding to put in BT Broadband. I have made 45 telephone calls and 5 emails to BT and I have kept a record of every one of my communications.
The initial problem was I was only getting .48 MBPS download speed ( 1/2 meg ) BT stated that "MY AREA" would have a 3MBPS download speed.
The first problem was BT wants to wait 10 days for problem resolution eg "the line to settle down", or "give it chance" ? ? ?
After 20 telephone calls to the helpdesk the fault was diagnosed as a problem on the incoming line, 3 days later an engineer fixed the problem. The download speed went up to 1 MBPS download speed ( not 3MBPS), another 15 telephone calls and they diagnosed a problem with the new home hub that BT supplied, a change of Home Hub and I get 2.7MBPS. I now have another home hub but I have a different problem whereby the IMAP connection keeps dropping out.
The problems have been really frustrating and no one within BT takes responsibility.
I eventaully emailed the CEO's office and the executive complaints team, what a absolute waste of time.
I have been told by the executive complaints team that the speed I have I will have to live with and they will look at the problem of the system dropping out - it was really a "take it and thats what you are getting" attitude.
I have telephoned OFCOM and they have contacted BT but the attitude is still the same.
I have one last issue, I have had three telephone calls from BT, not to solve my problem or to pacify a very dissatisfied customer, but asking if I want a BT VISA card. They have not supplied their core product to an acceptable standard or resolved any issues in an acceptable manner, but they want me to have a BT VISA card.

FannyHill

When I first got broadband years ago there was a 10 day period to assess the most stable speed for my line.It would vary quite a bit during the test period.
My broadband was with ADSL 24.