BT complaints

...cherry..._2

Cooler- this doesn't surprise me at all. Their customer service must be the worst I have EVER experienced. I received a phone call this morning from them about an ongoing dispute and they started giving me someone elses details over the phone! I had to correct them with my own details. I certainly hope they don't go giving out my details to all and sundry.

BT are currently attempting to force me to pay a call-out charge despite the fact I was specifically told by the engineer that I would not have to pay this charge, in future I think I will record such conversations so I can provide BT with evidence. I have continued to question this charge and have now received a total of THREE different versions of events from BT, each time claiming a different reason why I must pay this charge. I have asked for a copy of the engineer's report which has been refused so I am unable to see for myself what has been written.

I do actually feel for the people that work at these call centres as they don't seem to be given any authority to cancel the charge even when it must seem obvious to them that it has been unfairly issued. The lady on the phone has told me I can take this further with BT which I fully intend on doing, I am losing hope of a speedy resolution but hopefully I will eventually be put in contact with someone who can take action. I wish you all the best of luck with getting your complaints resolved quicker than myself.

Cooler

Ah, tried the broadband again, still suspended. Then, and I'm unsure why I tried, but I tried the telephone. Wow ! Outcall worked ! So the service I don't use that often is now working, but the service I use a lot is still unjustifiably out. Just in case it was to do with me not being informed I'd need to reboot the router, I cycled the power on the router. But to no avail, it is still coming up with the mocking BT page.

Cooler

Yay, broadband FINALLY back.

Now one thing that puzzles me, why is the offer of one month free connect next bill (after I brought up the subject of being off line due to BT action) a, "goodwill gesture", and not, "the least we could do" ?

Ah well I suppose it is sorted, I hope. I also hope they revert their procedure changes back to a system that works, rather than victimises.

JuicyJesus

I'm not going into the details of my complaint with BT (which is "resolved" by giving me back half of my sunk costs, while still welshing on an offer of theirs... had to accept because it seemed like I'd get nothing better, even after emailing the CEO) because the last time I thought about it too hard I woke up four days later in my bathroom covered in my own blood and being resuscitated by paramedics who diagnosed what happened as "a sort of hearty-bloody-explody thing we don't really know what it is". I - only just - managed to stifle the red mist after reading the first 20 pages of this thread, but it still brought back horrific memories of my experience getting my broadband service with them (which, to their small credit, has been decent and reliable since it was hooked up), which bring forth not only weird aneurysmy-haemhorragey things but also references to great literature - great literature which sadly (for BT) is limited to Catch-22, Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Trial. This is, actually, a tad unfair - Winston Smith might have been living under a hardline Stalinist dictatorship that arrested and brutally beat people who spoke out about it, but at the very least there was some cause and effect in play (speak out against Big Brother -> get beaten), a quality that BT notably lacks. And while Yossarian of Catch-22 might have been constrained by the titular Catch-22, but unlike BT's behaviour Catch-22 can be iterated in logical terms.

This, by the way, is the first thing I have said about British Telecom in a long while without becoming very, very, very profane.

I have two things to say, because Mark_In_Hampshire made an excellent post about a year ago explaining in cogent and clear terms exactly why BT are a bag of rotting rhino genitalia, and he missed off these three points:

1) I called the call centre, they couldn't do anything. I emailed the dedicated complaints team, they couldn't do anything. Then finally I emailed the CEO and something got done. My question is this: if the only effective complaints team is the one underneath the CEO, why can't they be the first contact for complaints and cut the other lot out entirely? The executive complaints team were the only group that bothered to look at my issue in any great detail, and they did so quickly and efficiently. Surely BT could solve an incredible amount of customer dissatisfaction just by making sure that the people who deal with complaints do so that well every time?

2) How on earth do BT get away with such crappy service and not have Ofcom dance on their fingers with horseshoes on? If an FSA-regulated business dealt as dismissively with complaints as BT seem to then there would be regulatory action. After all, the FSA insist that regulated businesses deal with complaints promptly and fairly, and by and large most complaints with financial institutions do. BT seem to want to ignore you up until you contact Ian Livingston. Moreover, why do they employ someone to go through MSE to answer complaints when they wouldn't have to if they actually dealt with complaints properly in the first place?

3) Their back office is a Byzantine mess of different systems and departments which do not seem to communicate. All orders placed seem to go through a back office team called the "offline team", whose official function was never disclosed to me but who seem to go through the actual grunt work of putting the orders through with BT Openreach and who in my case are the ones who caused all the issues with my order. I can bet they were the ones who caused a lot of the problems people have posted about on this thread. The end result is you can never speak to the people who actually deal with your order, and if they do something wrong it's hell to sort out.

/rant over

ruthiebabie_2

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi ezhiks

Of course I can look into this for you, just check out my profile section were you will find my contact information.

Regards David

Hi - I've also completed the online form. Short version of my issue

Never had more than 2 meg download due to distance from exchange but accepted that. Was persuaded via a phone call to upgrade from Option 1 to Option 3 plus Homehub. I now have download speed of around 250K since the day I switched to the Homehub!

The fixes are not working, the information I am getting contradictory and the contents of my online complaint form ignored.

Any help appreciated.

Enquiry ref 110622-009340

Mark_In_Hampshire

Cooler wrote: »

Just an update for my own "amusement".

I received a call from BT last night. The guy said he had taken off the phone/Internet restriction, it should be achieved within minutes. Come this morning the restriction is still on!

It turns out they do NOT send out reminders any longer (which is why I could neither find one, nor recall having received one), but have decided that should a bill go missing in the post they will try to call you, appearing to be, for all the world, like one of those irritating cold calls from some company that will not take notice of any registration with telephone preference. A call that will obviously either be ignored, or have the receiver lifted and dropped on them.

So the only conclusion must be that either for malicious joy, or a total inability to see the obvious problem, BT now opts to go from not getting their bill to you, to deliberately cutting you off without warning, apparently as per to their own new procedure. (And what is it about, if they create and stick to their own defective procedure then that is supposed to allow companies to think they're in the clear? And exactly what sort of mental problem does a manager have to suffer from to think this new procedure is even remotely a good idea?) Apparently the feeble excuse is that they don't wish to cut down any more (presumably sustainably grown) trees for use as paper for bills, because they are on the green bandwagon (presumably because Finance see an ability to up BT's bottom line) and I suppose that's something to boast about to the easily impressed.

Well: still waiting for the service we have agreed upon to be restored. Still most annoyed.

I think the billing behaviour is deliberate, because I don't think it's actually plausible that any company is that incompetent.

It's designed to convince you that you're unable to pay your own bills in a timely manner and bully you into putting your debit card in the post to them with the PIN number written on the back and a note that says "take out what you like when you like" (otherwise known as a Direct Debit mandate).

Was like this 6 years ago and seems to have been the same since. I recall receiving calls from a BT call centre to "inform me" that the bill is overdue for payment when it only arrived the day before and is still in my in tray unopened. When you check the due date, it was the day it arrived and thus impossible to meet. So BT can then levy a late payment charge. Nice work if you can get it.

My take on it is that they would rather get rid of customers who don't pay by direct debit by walking all over them so they either sign up for that or go elsewhere. Or stay and pay fees and fines and have their service cut off.

Just an opinion.

sunderlandlad74

Evening everyone. I recently left bt, and today received my final bill. it included a fee for canceling my contract. i had previously had a letter saying my contract was up, and would renew on june 5 if no action taken. My final bill includes 35.20 for canceling my contract, they state i requested to cancel on june 6. i have a "sorry you're leaving" letter dated 28 may.
Predictably the call centre say the charge stands, and gave an address to write to.
Any advice?
Thanks in advance:D

JessieMG84

Is the bt rep out there?!?!? There are a lot of us awaiting your help. We have filled in the appropriate form as you asked and nothing has been done. I have not been contacted at all about my issue.

I would appreciate a response.

Kind regards

Jessica

BT_company_representative

Hi JessieMG84 / ruthiebabie

I have looked and I have been unable to locate the details that you have advised that you have sent to me, if you could both please submit your details again via the link contained in my profile section and on receipt I will gladly look into this for you.

Regards David

fmacd

Excuse me, but this is a much-needed rant...I registered with this forum today having seen that others are in the same boat as me with the infuriatingly useless level of customer service from BT. A month ago, on the back of having been told by a BT chap that if we switched our broadband and phone to BT, we would enjoy a much quicker service (Quote: "because BT has priority over the lines"), I did just that. Good grief. We can't even have two computers online at once, never mind a playstation as well.
As a result I phoned BT after 10 days and said I'd like to cancel my contract because I'd been misinformed and, that as a BBC journalist, it's crucial to have semi-decent broadband for sending sound files. Simple request. They said they would have to listen through to the phonecall that had sold me the service in the first place and would get back to me within 5 working days. They didn't. I rang again, complaining more loudly and was told they would listen and phone back within 5 blah di blah. They didn't. This time I made an official complaint and was told, yes, they would phone back in 5 working days. They didn't. I spoke to some chap for 42 minutes and let rip. Only then did he get his manager who told me exactly the same thing about listening to the call and 5 working days.
Surely this is taking the !!!! on a massive scale? Is Ofcom the answer or is there another public body who can act on our behalf?