BT complaints

emmaglet

emmaglet wrote: »

So sick of dealing with this!

I lived in a house share, we cancelled with BT because we were moving. We were advised that if someone wanted to take the phone line with them, we wouldn't be charged. So we did exactly this. I then received a bill almost a month after we'd moved (thank goodness I took out a Royal Mail redirection or I wouldn't know) with the cancellation charge. Cue a phone call, the operator said it was all fine, they saw what had happened on the account, and the credit would be applied to my house mate's account.

And then I received a "late payment" notice last week. A four letter word then followed by "off" seems to come to mind.

Got on the phone again on Saturday 12th, spoke to a supervisor who assured me he'd look into it and call me in 24 hours.

Today is Wednesday and I've heard nothing.

Have emailed BTcare so let's see if we get anywhere.

More than a week later and nothing.

Really BT? I consider this matter closed then!

LeedsCountyCard

I have no idea how much good this does, but it's worth a try:

Dear Sir/Madam


Complaint re financial loss due to BT and complaint handling.


In April of this year I spoke to a BT representative with a view to changing my telephone and internet from Virgin, and agreed to change over, I specifically asked the representative if my accounts with Virgin would be cancelled as part of the changeover and was told that they would be.


My BT telephone and internet was put in a few weeks later, and all was well until the end of May when I received a bill from Virgin for my telephone and internet for the prior month. At first I just assumed they were being a bit cheeky and trying to bill me for a partial month, but when I rung them on 10th June I was told that I still had an account with them and they had not been notified of any change. I then told them to cancel my account, however I was then told there was a 1 month cancellation period which I would have to pay for too.


I then rung BT and was told by the operator I spoke to (Jahid or Jazid) that everything to do with the cancellation had been dealt with and this was a problem at Virgin's end. I then rung Virgin back and was told that this was not the case, that BT reps would tell customers anything to get a contract, and was also told by them that if I cancelled my direct debit they would set a debt collection agency on me.


I then rung BT back and contrary to what I had been told about 20 minutes earlier, I was then told that anything to do with Virgin was nothing to do with BT and that they could not deal with anything to do with Virgin for data protection reasons and that the rep who assured me that everything with Virgin would be dealt with had misinformed me. I then requested to make a complaint about being misinformed and incurring financial loss as a result, as I was now paying for 2x telephone and broadband contracts for 8 weeks, a loss of £80. This operator told me that the original call between myself and the rep had been recorded and could be retrieved to verify my story, so I old him to do so. I was then put on hold for around 10 minutes, and had to put the phone down as I needed to go out to attend a medical appointment.


I called back later and found that my complaint had been logged and was given the reference number VOL011-34315277489. When I asked the first operator I spoke to to put me through to the complaints department they put me through to another operator who knew nothing about this case.


When I pressed this operator he indicated that he would speak to the complaints team on my behalf, and after putting me on hold he came back and told me that my complaint had been resolved and that as compensation I was being given my first 3 months broadband free.


I pointed out to him that I already had the first 3 months of my broadband free and he acknowledged that. I then spent around 10 minutes trying to explain to him that there was no purpose to giving me the same 3 months free twice as I would still pay the same, however he did not appear to be able to see anything wrong with that. He then told me that he would ring the complaints team again, put me on hold, and then came back to tell me that my complaint had not been resolved after all and that someone would call me back on Monday.


I was not called back on Monday 21st June, and when I rung up on Wednesday 23rd to try and find out what was happening with my complaint I was passed between 3 operators all of who attempted to get me to explain what the problem was even though they could do nothing about it, and if I requested to speak to the complaints department I was passed onto someone else. It was also acknowledged repeatedly that my complaint was now outside the 5 working days target to deal with complaints, but no-one had any idea what to do about that.


After repeatedly insisting to the 3rd operator that I wanted to speak to someone who knew something about my complaint and that I did not just want to be passed to yet another operator, I was without any warning disconnected.


I then rung back and told the operator I spoke to that if we could not resolve this matter I was going to issue a County Court summons against BT. Unfortunately the lady I was speaking to did not know the word 'court' and kept asking me if I wanted or had a problem with some kind of card(!). I tried this about 6 times with no better result, and also requested on at least 3 occasions to be put through to someone in the United Kingdom, but the lady would not and kept insisting she could deal with my problem.


As ringing up does not appear to do anything besides leaving me very cross after spending perhaps 45 minutes being passed around 3 or 4 BT operators who do not appear to understand sufficient english to have a conversation let alone bring my problem any closer to a resolution, I am making this complaint, complaint about a complaint and request for financial compensation for £80 loss resulting from being misinformed by BT, directly to you by mail.


If I have not heard within 28 days of the date of this letter being received by recorded delivery, I will take this matter to Ofcom and then to where-ever necessary from there.


I will say too that I am incredibly disappointed with your customer services, and the really quite surreal conversations that I have had with them, which might be amusing were they not in context so disturbing.


Yours faithfully

Mark_In_Hampshire

Unfortunately the customer remains ultimately responsible for the cancellation. So it was up to you to cancel the Virgin service.

BT told you that they would do it on your behalf, but what you'll need to do now is to cancel with Virgin yourself assuming you haven't done so already, and then pursue BT for compensation (the overlap charges).

If the Virgin service was a landline service and the BT service is coming down the same physical landline, then BT might well have been able to sort the cancellation for you; if it was a cable service, given that the delivery of the service doesn't use the same shared line or technology, I'm not actually sure that BT could ever have cancelled that for you. Perhaps someone else can comment here.

Broadband can be migrated provided that both the old and new are ADSL (phone line) based by way of a MAC code, but that involves you getting the MAC code from Virgin and giving it to BT, not the other way around.

In any event you remain responsible to Virgin for paying them and cancelling, and BT remain responsible to you for giving you incorrect information or not acting as stated.

Always cancel your own accounts, don't rely on someone else to do it for you...

The biggest problem you're facing is trying to do this over the phone with BT. It won't work, as you've seen.

What you need to do is to send an online query, get the reply and if that doesn't satisfy then copy and paste the entire email - both your original question and the response - back into a new online request to BT keeping the "thread" intact, and keep going that way until you eventually get an answer to your question. It saves your time repeating the same thing over and over verbally.

Whether or not you should have to do that is something else entirely.

LeedsCountyCard

Most of that i'm rather more than well aware of at this stage!

Is there any value to doing the email thing over letter by snail mail plus Ofcom threat?

I suppose i can always try one and then the other.

Beanys_2

:mad:I have just spent 20 minutes on the phone with BT customer non services trying to get a billing query resolved after logging it as an email enquiry a month ago and getting no reply! We left Tiscali broadband as soon as we knew Talk Talk were taking them over as we knew of their bad reputation. We diced to go for the all in package of phone broadband and tv with BT. We got their top all inclusive and unlimited packages so everything would be all enclusive regardless of useage and so we knew what our bills would be every month / quarter.
All of my bills since have inlcuded charges for calls!
I emailed a query to them about this and apart from a call acknowledging the query and saying it would be looked into I have not had anything from them apart form a bill reminder! Today I tried to resolve it over the phone but I have lost my temper holding for so long and being told "just one minute please" so I have again logged another email query and have another reference.
Apparently according to the drone at BT it is because we are using the hub phone and not a plug in phone! This really does beggar belief and is not clear at all from their sign up pages. How can they charge for calls when we have unlimited phone and broadband?
Can anybody offer any advice or shed any light on this before I explode. Many thanks.
P.S. They also did not cancel our Tiscali broadband like they said they would so we have just had a six month fight with Tiscal / Talk Talk about this!
What is happening here!!! If I ran my business like this I wouldn't last a week.

Mark_In_Hampshire

LeedsCountyCard wrote: »

Most of that i'm rather more than well aware of at this stage!

Is there any value to doing the email thing over letter by snail mail plus Ofcom threat?

I suppose i can always try one and then the other.

The OFCOM threat usually makes suppliers take notice, since cases referred to them cost the supplier money.

A letter delivered to the Durham customer service centre and CC'd to the London head office address might be more effective than an email, especially if you've already written it and can just pop it in an envelope (send recorded delivery).

You need to spell out precisely what compensation you're requesting e.g. the exact amounts and what for e.g. "my issue is.... and I consider the resolution to be..."

BT_company_representative

Hi LeedsCountryCard,

I am sorry to hear of the problems you have had with BT recently. I understand that this is being looked in to by our complaints team. I would like to take a look at this for you. Please could you email me your BT account details, along with a link to this thread? My email address can be found by clicking on my profile.

Cheers

Paddy,

metra_2

I was with BT BUT THEY WERE CRAP as for Customer Service in my case it was non exsistant even the "Oh yes there is a complaint logged but it takes time DESPITE HAVING SENT IN FOUR COMPLAINT'S THEY ONLY LOGGED 1 mmm...I don't think 6 months is good enough and still nothing. I changed to another server and told BT 2 NEVER contact me again EVER. Guest who called me on my new line :-o

BT adjust your screens and take note :
This old customer has a permanent sign saying "DO NOT DISTURB" JUST 4 U.
Now my mate is having problems with BT DO U think that BT have decided to enshrined in their honour a concept so whenever U think of them it's "BT MAYBE FAST BUT DON'T COMPLAIN AS NOTHING WILL HAPPEN JUST STATIC .SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH!!! LOL

Still some people R having better luck so who know's maybe they R just lucky. I'm glad 2B rid of them :-)

BigBumpaGirl

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi LeedsCountryCard,

I am sorry to hear of the problems you have had with BT recently. I understand that this is being looked in to by our complaints team. I would like to take a look at this for you. Please could you email me your BT account details, along with a link to this thread? My email address can be found by clicking on my profile.

Cheers

Paddy,

Paddy,

I have just sent you an email with details of an order I had booked for a new line installation that never took place. Could you please look into this for me as I am struggling to get a response from BT.

Thanks

BigBumpaGirl

BT are the biggest bunch of cowboys!
All I want is to speak to someone who knows what is going on with my new line, how hard can it be.