BT is a total shambles !!

mardatha

:mad: I am SO angry, its a total waste of time trying to get any sense whatsoever out of BT. How do I complain about them ?
The daughter has moved to a house with an inactive line...and waited in all day today for her new BT line to be put in. I phoned BT at 5pm to see what was happening, and hung on until 5.40, when I got a moron in Calcutta who told me that
1) my daughter doesnt exist :mad:
then
2) she isnt on any list for an engineer today :mad:
then
3) BT will contact her to let her know whats happening.... on the number that they havent installed yet :rotfl:
then
4) if she hasnt heard within 2 days she is to call them back !:mad::mad::mad:
We want to complain. How ?

devon007

I sooooooooo understand where you are coming from. BT ought to come with the same health warning as cigarettes e.g. "Dealing with BT can seriously damage your health!" I have blood pressure and you can imagine what the following has done to my Blood Pressure over the past few weeks :-

I exchanged contracts to buy my new home in rural S Wales on 8th March 2010, to move in on 12th March 2010. On 9th March I went online and arranged a BT package for phone and Broadband. Online the acceptance said the activation date would be 23rd March. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to be told a couple of days later that the phone would be on for 12th March but sadly the date for the Broadband was then set to be 31st March.

I had already done my homework and knew the only line provider for the area was BT and that the Broadband was nowhere near the very speedy Virgin cable broadband I had at that time in Newton Abbot, Devon (take note BT - Virgin were always prompt, reliable, and sorted the only problem which I had in 6 years with them in about 6 hours - you would do well to go and study their ways!). I did not see the point in trying to obtain Broadband from another provider as I knew the line was not yet "split" for Broadband provision and thought it would be easier and simpler to get it all via BT - how very very very very wrong was I!

The Hub arrived on Weds 31st March and was duly installed (something I had done for other friends so no problem there!). No Broadband light (not even an orange one) but that did not worry me as I knew the from literature that it could be any time up to midnight. So I went to bed thinking all would be well in my world the next morning - sad fool that I am! Next morning, no change. Blue light for power, blue light for wireless, no light for Broadband = grrrrrrrr! The first of many calls to BT ensued. Lovely Scottish lady called Alison promised to look in to it and call me back. Which she did (full Marks to Alison, for courtesy, for efficiency, and for plain speaking - you have at least 1 employee who is good at their job, how amazing) and told me that there was a problem at the exchange and according to the records it would be "reviewed" tomorrow 2nd April. When I pointed out that that was a Bank Holiday she said she did not know whether there would be engineers working in my area or not, because she was based in Scotland and had no local knowledge. However, she promised to keep my file under review and update me. Which she did on the Saturday, well done Alison! But not with good news. Nothing had happened on the Friday and the review date was now 6th April. She would continue to watch out for me. She rang me again at the beginning of the next week - good news - they hoped to have everything resolved that week. Sadly she was off on holiday now but would ask a colleague to keep an eye on - said colleague appears to have fallen off the planet as no one rang me.

8th April 4 p.m. I get both an email and a text message to say my Broadband is activated and I should now be "online". But the Hub disagrees - still no Broadband light. So I switch the ADSL filters around - no change. So I move the Hub to another socket - no change. So I move the Hub to yet another socket - no change. So I put it back to the original socket and ask it it re-set, which it does - no change in the lighting arrangements. So I go to bed that night expecting it to activate before midnight and all to be well in my world - silly fool again!

9th April I ring BT again - this time an Indian lady (I do wish you would take note BT, it immediately puts your customers backs up if they cannot speak to someone to whom they do not have to say "would you repeat that" constantly through the call, or do you hope it will get so wearisome we will just give up?). She asks me what I have done to check it is not a fault with the equipment or the set up and I tell her I followed the manual to troubleshoot. She asks me to hang up whilst she tests the line. She rings me back and says the line is fine, it must be a fault within the house, she will get the engineer out to me, would tomorrow (Saturday) between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. be okay? I accept readily.

10th April I get up an hour early to walk my dogs earlier to be back home by 7 a.m. as the BT lady had said I would have a call an hour before the engineer arrives to say he is on his way. So I wait, and I wait, and I wait, and I wait (and so it goes on). 12.50 p.m. BT ring to see if everything is alright - no it damn well isn't. The engineer has not been and I have not had any call. I am exacerbated by the amount of time I am wasting and the money I am losing by not being able to work online (I am a self employed and the internet is vital to my work). She goes off to find out what has happened and then comes back to tell me that BT cancelled the engineer's appointment as they found there was work still needed at the exchange - WHAT!!!!!! And just why did no one think to tell me that I did not have to waste five hours sitting in my home waiting when the sun was shining and the sky was blue and I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE BEEN OUTSIDE IN MY BACKGARDEN DOING SOMETHING WORTHWHILE??? Yet again all I get is "I understand" "I am apologise" "I am sorry" "I understand". Of what use is any of that. So off she goes and checks again and comes back saying the engineers hope to have everything sorted in next 24 hours.

12th April - Well BT I have given you 48 hours and you still ain't got no blue light lit up on the Hub for my Broadband. 1 p.m. I ring you and after speaking to 3 different people and wasting yet another whole hour on the phone, a senior manager (Indian again) promises me he personally will take responsibility and ensure that an engineer is out to me tomorrow. He will ring me by 6 p.m. Guess what - it is 6.10 p.m. and no one has called. So another call to BT. Ask to speak to that particular manager - he is on the phone now to the engineers and has been on for an hour - he will call me back in 30 mins. Hey guess what - he doesn't! Finally at 7.30 I get a call - he says he has been on the phone to the engineers for the past 2 hours trying to get a specialist broadband engineer to come tomorrow as he wants it sorted out properly tomorrow and hey presto apparently I have someone coming between 1 and 2 p.m. - we'll see. I will NOT be holding my breath (but probably will be holding a very strong whisky!)

Is it any wonder that I am now furious, tearing my hair out (and it was thin before) and actually thinking of taking my phone and ramming it down some senior manager's throat. Do BT not realise in this day and age many of us rely on our Broadband not just to communicate with family and friends but to actually earn a living?

I was given a complementary dial up to use for free whilst this fiasco wobbles its weary way but guess what - that is even slower than the contract mobile dongle I have had to rely on! In this day and age, whilst I watch countless adds for BT on the TV stating how marvellous they are and how State of the Art I am having to resort to a dial up with a speed of 23Kbps.

BT GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER . OR VIRGIN COME AND LAY MORE FLAMING CABLES AND PUT US ALL OUT OF OUR BT MISERY - PLEASE

macman

You don't necessarily receive an engineer visit for an inactive line, however OpenReach may ask you to be in on the day in case a home visit is necessary. Have you actually checked that the existing line is not now active? They won't physically install a new line if the existing one can be reactivated.

mardatha

I wish we had somebody else, like Virgin. I actually hate BT with a passion !!

BT_company_representative

Hi Mardatha and Devon007

Really sorry to read of your individual issues and would like to offer some help to try to resolve them for you.

Drop me an email to the email address in my public profile and I can have this investigated for you.

Thanks

Stuart

staggered

Sorry, Stuart, but these aren't "individual issues". My experience with BT has been just as bad. I have never dealt with a company anything like BT. They are appalling, absolutely appalling, shambolic beyond belief.

I was moving to a new build flat. Like the OP, I work from home and need broadband to make a living. I opted for BT because they promised free line installation and because I assumed they'd be able to install broadband quickly. Big mistake ...

To be honest, I can't be bothered telling you the full story. BT have wasted too much of my life as it is.

The highlights are ...

BT send me an email, telling me the line will be installed on a certain date. Then, I get a text message, telling me it'll be installed on a different date to the one in the email. Then a phone call, telling me it'll be a different date again. The engineer never turns up on any of those dates, turns up on a completely different date altogether, he can't get in and we have to re-arrange.

I finally get the line installed. BT charge me £125 even though I was promised "free installation". They refuse to refund the charge - apparently, the order was put through incorrectly (like that's my fault?)

Trouble is ... I'm moving again. I rang BT tonight. I was on hold for 15 minutes, finally speak to a guy who says you need to speak to X Department. The guy he put me through to says he doesn't know why the guy put me through, he'll transfer me back. I get cut off. I ring again, on hold for another 15 minutes, speak to a guy who says I'm on the "wrong system", he's not been trained on that system, he'll have to put me through to someone else. On hold for another 15 minutes, finally get told the lines have closed, ring back in the morning.

I WILL ring back in the morning. I'll cancel my account. I know for absolute certain that the home move would be a shambles, it'd cause me untold stress, be delayed for ages and stop me from making a living.

I've got 15 months left on my contract that I'm going to have to pay but, to be honest, it's worth that to avoid the stress of having to deal with BT any more.

As far as I'm concerned, BT can go to hell.

mardatha

I totally understand how you feel !!

devon007

BT rep I certainly will email you because I STILL DON'T HAVE BROADBAND!!

BT are far far far more than a shambles - they should carry a health warning like cigarettes!

After throwing my toys out of the pram on Monday afternoon this week and spending over one and a half hours on the phone I finally got someone who arranged for a specialist engineer to come on Tuesday between 1 and 6 p.m. I needed my Broadband on for 6 p.m. Tuesday evening for several hours to do work online with a total income of £250 to me. I was PROMISED he would not leave till my Broadband was up and running AND STABLE.

The specialist engineer arrived at my home 12.30 a.m. Within just a few minutes he announced there was no active Broadband signal coming in to the house and he had to go to the exchange to investigate. Less than half an hour later (I am only 3/4 mile away from the Exchange) he came back to say he had found the problem but sadly could not fix it - in layman's terms he said my line is analogue and I need digital to receive the Broadband - now someone explain to me just how BT can say my Broadband is activated when very very clearly they have NOT checked the line!!!! Is it just me, or would that not be a commonsense approach to take at the outset of activation - to check whether the outgoing/incoming line is capable of taking the Broadband signal???? Oh sorry, I forgot - BT has no commonsense or logic whatsoever!

On Wednesday I have a call (yet another Indian voice who is hard to understand) who calls to check the situation, when told he goes away and rings later to say he has checked and my line has a DATS?DAX or something like that (I told you he was difficult to understand) and he has spoken to the engineers who say it will be 48 hours and then should be okay. Well it is more than 48 hours since I spoke to him and I still have no Broadband light (whether orange or blue - nada, nil, nothing!).

This on an order made on 9th/10th March and having told BT countless times that their delay costs me hundreds of pounds each week in lost income.

If only there was another provider BT would soon be out of the picture and out of business I reckon!

macman

devon007 wrote: »

BT rep I certainly will email you because I STILL DON'T HAVE BROADBAND!!

BT are far far far more than a shambles - they should carry a health warning like cigarettes!

After throwing my toys out of the pram on Monday afternoon this week and spending over one and a half hours on the phone I finally got someone who arranged for a specialist engineer to come on Tuesday between 1 and 6 p.m. I needed my Broadband on for 6 p.m. Tuesday evening for several hours to do work online with a total income of £250 to me. I was PROMISED he would not leave till my Broadband was up and running AND STABLE.

The specialist engineer arrived at my home 12.30 a.m. Within just a few minutes he announced there was no active Broadband signal coming in to the house and he had to go to the exchange to investigate. Less than half an hour later (I am only 3/4 mile away from the Exchange) he came back to say he had found the problem but sadly could not fix it - in layman's terms he said my line is analogue and I need digital to receive the Broadband - now someone explain to me just how BT can say my Broadband is activated when very very clearly they have NOT checked the line!!!! Is it just me, or would that not be a commonsense approach to take at the outset of activation - to check whether the outgoing/incoming line is capable of taking the Broadband signal???? Oh sorry, I forgot - BT has no commonsense or logic whatsoever!

On Wednesday I have a call (yet another Indian voice who is hard to understand) who calls to check the situation, when told he goes away and rings later to say he has checked and my line has a DATS?DAX or something like that (I told you he was difficult to understand) and he has spoken to the engineers who say it will be 48 hours and then should be okay. Well it is more than 48 hours since I spoke to him and I still have no Broadband light (whether orange or blue - nada, nil, nothing!).

This on an order made on 9th/10th March and having told BT countless times that their delay costs me hundreds of pounds each week in lost income.

If only there was another provider BT would soon be out of the picture and out of business I reckon!

There are dozens of other non-LLU broadband providers-why did you go with BT?

Mark_In_Hampshire

What it sounds like you have is half a phone line. Or one sixth of a phone line.

Imagine your street is served by one pole which has 10 phone lines for 10 houses.

Your neighbour wants a second phone line. So BT have a choice of laying another line (there is no capacity for it) or simply splitting one of the existing ones in two - called DACS.

The two lines operate at different frequencies so you don't hear each other. I think one line can be split up to 6 ways if I recall... however despite this money saving exercise, it means that none of the lines which are split can have ADSL.

So you order the ADSL and what then happens is that the new line has to be laid and the DACS box removed so you then have a "clean" line. Then the broadband can be applied.

BT do not have any obligation to remove the DACS box. If the cost is prohibitive they can simply say that the line is not serviceable for broadband and you're stuck with it. BT's only obligation is to supply a line for voice and dial up internet.

However BT have had a programme of removing these boxes on an as needed basis, but they quote a lead time of up to 40 days to do that. You order, then the exchange detects the new line needs putting in, that gets scheduled, when that's complete they can then apply the ADSL assuming the new line is suitable - the tests can then be done.

So until the new line is sorted out, you won't get any ADSL.

Your ISP should be able to give you an update on that.

If you go to www.bt.com and find the broadband checker, then put your phone number in, you can confirm all this by trying out the speed checker. It will usually come up with a box saying "the line needs to be de-DACSed which can take up to 40 days"

Any ISP would have been able to see that message at the time of placing the ADSL order and is supposed to communicate the timeline with you.

macman

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

What it sounds like you have is half a phone line. Or one sixth of a phone line.

Imagine your street is served by one pole which has 10 phone lines for 10 houses.

Your neighbour wants a second phone line. So BT have a choice of laying another line (there is no capacity for it) or simply splitting one of the existing ones in two - called DACS.

The two lines operate at different frequencies so you don't hear each other. I think one line can be split up to 6 ways if I recall... however despite this money saving exercise, it means that none of the lines which are split can have ADSL.

So you order the ADSL and what then happens is that the new line has to be laid and the DACS box removed so you then have a "clean" line. Then the broadband can be applied.

BT do not have any obligation to remove the DACS box. If the cost is prohibitive they can simply say that the line is not serviceable for broadband and you're stuck with it. BT's only obligation is to supply a line for voice and dial up internet.

However BT have had a programme of removing these boxes on an as needed basis, but they quote a lead time of up to 40 days to do that. You order, then the exchange detects the new line needs putting in, that gets scheduled, when that's complete they can then apply the ADSL assuming the new line is suitable - the tests can then be done.

So until the new line is sorted out, you won't get any ADSL.

Your ISP should be able to give you an update on that.

If you go to www.bt.com and find the broadband checker, then put your phone number in, you can confirm all this by trying out the speed checker. It will usually come up with a box saying "the line needs to be de-DACSed which can take up to 40 days"

Any ISP would have been able to see that message at the time of placing the ADSL order and is supposed to communicate the timeline with you.

Any decent ISP would. Unfortunately in this case we are talking about BT Retail.