BT Package Problems - Need Urgent Help!!!!!!!!

Bunford69

Hi all,

This is my first post and I'm looking for some urgent advice (don't we all!).

On September 1st I was moving house. I couldn't take my beloved Virgin Cable package from my old house due to lack of coverage. I decided to take BT Vision package and the installer came on 3rd September. I signed up to a 24 month contract on the £32.99 per month package + line rental (making it about £45 per month in all).

It was all set up and my first direct debit payment went out on 20th September.

Toward the end of October I was due to go travelling for 5 weeks until end of November/beginning of December.

On the 16th October, I rung BT and asked if it'd be possible to change my billing date to the 1st of each month as it would be easier whilst I was away and in the future as I get paid on the last working day on each month.

During this call on the 16th October, the BT customer service rep said that would be fine. He then went on to offer me a better price of £24 per month. I was slightly confused as it was nearly half my package cost. I asked multiple times if paying that much would definitely cover all of my services. He repeatedly said it would, and even said I may build credit, which I'd get back at the end of the 24 months. I explicitly asked more than once if this would be for exactly tha same package that I had been paying £45 odd for and he said yes each time.

I then snapped him up on his offer (as you would!). He then proceeded to tell me to cancel my current direct debit with my bank and he'd add on their system that it's cancelled. He said he would set up a new one for the first of each month beginning on 1st November. AT the end of the call, he repeated the agreement of paying £24 per month on the 1st of each month for the package I was on and that I'd be paying more than enough to cover it without going into arrears.

With this call ended, I then proceeded to cancel my current direct debit with my bank, as instructed by BT.

I then received a letter dated 17th October than confirmed all of the direct debit details, including sort code and bank account number, amount of £24 per month on the 1st of every month beginning in November and it had my correct BT account number against it.

I proceeded to sign in the box and sent back to BT. I then went travelling for 5 weeks to South East Asia.

Upon my return, I have numerours letters from BT whilst I was away. These include threats of termination of contract and charges due to non-payment (which I was astounded by!). They also noted they'd already cut my phone line and I'd be charged for reconnection as well as non-paymnet charges.

They were saying I was in arrears by £203!!!!!!!!

On 7th December, upon receiving a termination threat letter, I telephoned them. I spoke to a guy called Vivek. I detailed the problem, agreement and that I had proof of the agreement. He had a word with his manager and agreed it seemed strange. He noted the person I'd had the call with on 16th October was no longer in the company and that he'd been sacked. He then proceeded to deny all knowledge of the agreement and there were no detailed notes on their system of the call on 16th October. He then let slip the name of the BT employee on 16th October as Ahmed. He also noted that BT have digital recording of all their calls and I could ask BT to check the recording of that call for proof. He also noted that "Ahmed" had not processed the new direct debit set up (even though I'd received the letter confirming it had all been set up and the correct details and figures that were agreed). Vivek claimed he could not see a copy of this letter nor any of the amounts I was noting.

Anyway, I paid £48 over the phone to catch up with what was offered to me and agreed to (£24 for 1st November and £24 for 1st December). I stated this was due to BT's error in not setting up the correct new direct debit in accordance to the agreement I'd made on 16th October. He agreed that was fair and note I'd be disputing the rest via a complaint procedure. He also said that any non-ayment and reconnection charges would be removed as it was BT's error and that my services would be resumed in a minimum of 4 hours and a maximum by midday on the 8th December. I settled for this and intended to dispute the other £155 as it was not what a BT employee had offered me and agreed to.

However, by the evening of 9th December, my phone line was still cut off. I decided to ring customer services to complain over the phone. After 15 minutes of merry-go-around through the automated system I finally got through to someone (only by chooosing the pay my bill option - conveniently!).

Anyway, I explained the situation to a first operator and he immediately put me through to his manager. However, I'd have to wait 10 minutes as he was already dealing with a complaint! Not the best setup after 15 minutes of talking to a machine when someone's already ringing to complain!

I explained the entire situation again. The person did not seem to fuly understand and said my services will be cut in a few days if I did not pay a £120 reconnection charge immediately and claimed my account was still £155 in arrears. I then proceeded to ask to speak to the most senior manager there or to be put through to their complaints department. He said "there's no point cos you'll get the same answer". I said it didn;t matter and I wanted to be put through.

Then, conveniently, at 8.59pm, a minute before the call centre shuts at 9pm, he hangs up on me without any warning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall here and getting nowhere. BT are trying to backtrack over and agreement that was made and deny all knowledge of any agreement.

However, I've a copy of the letter of the new direct debit confirmation with the details of agreement on. This includes all of the details agreed to on 16th October. This is to get the £32.99 package with line rental for a price of £24 per month, paying on 1st of every month. However, the letter only details direct debit arrangeemnt, not the package details etc. However, I've been told by a BT rep that BT will have a recording of that call that I can also use as evidence of the agreement.

I'm stuck now. I don;t want to pay as I'll never get it back. However, I don't want my services cut over Christmas. I believe that if the BT rep on 16th October made an offer and agreement (which I double, triple and quadruple checked was for same service I already had), then BT should stand by that. However, they are denying all knowledge and backtracking over it, claiming I have a HUGE arrears to pay, and they're making it sound like it's my fault.

Any ideas on how to progress? Ideally, after this I'd like to cut association with BT and move to some other provider due to them not abiding by the agreement that was made, i.e. possibly breaking the contract!?

Anyway, any tips HUGELY appreciated!!!!!

BT_company_representative

Hi Bunford69,

I would like to take a look at this for you. Please could you drop an email to the email address found in my profile? Please make sure to include a link to this thread and your BT account details.

Thanks

Paddy,

howburn

I am transferring to BT from SKY, see my other post regarding this.
We lost internet connection on Tuesday night, through no apparent fault of BT’s. We contacted SKY who said nothing to do with them as we were no longer a customer.
We were in the process of moving to BT, but the account had not been finalised and we did not have any BT hardware. But I had an email from BT on Tuesday saying my bill was ready to view online, and my account number was shown so I must have an account.
I called BT at about 7.30pm and eventually got to speak to a very helpful Scottish man, who told me providing I found another router, not the SKY one there was an engineer’s method we could be talked through to get the broadband on, I think it was a method that engineers may use in the field on repairs, we were allowed to do this as billing lines had been set up.
I found another modem (netgear) and called again and got to speak to another help full Scottish lady, who was able to read the details of my previous conversation but she was unable to help me as it was now after 9pm, so we agreed to call back the next day.
I called back yesterday evening 4 times in all. About 1 & 1/2 hours, and with great restraint remained claim and was not rude, all of my calls went through to a call centre I think in Dansak, India, where although the operators were friendly and promised they could sort the fault out were unable to help as ether they could not see the notes from the previous night, or when they could they could not do it, as according to them I was not a customer, I fail to see how this is progress on BT’s customer service program when different call centres and technical advisors around the world are unable to see what there colleagues in other countries are advising.
I still don’t know if the advice I had received the other night about the temporary fix will work or not.
By chance I met a BT engineer on the road today, he suggested to call again and this time not select any of the options as all calls still go through the old exchange, I will try this today.
The reason I had not finalised the transfer to BT, is I felt that near the Christmas period it would be difficult time to change due to the holidays, we sell children’s toys online and obviously we need the internet at this time of year.
So while my initial complaint is not aimed at BT, there subsequent handling has left me in doubt, should I even be changing to BT?

howburn

I thought my problems transferring to BT had been solved after my last post on here as I was contacted by a BT member of staff after I had posted on here.

Once again I used the email address provided on the BT representative’s home page on Friday last week to solve the issues outlined below.

As I have still not received any response I am posting on here again, it seems crazy that often the only way consumers can get a response from many utility companies is to post these sort of letters and opinions on public forums, surly the customer service should be better.

Below is a copy of my email sent on the 14/01/2011
HI a member of your team called me on the 20/21 December 2010 to help with all the trouble we had been having with setting up our account. I have just been talking to one of the BT agents from overseas and got cut off.

The man I spoke to in December also had a 3rd party on the phone a Scottish lady who was trying to set up my payment details, but could not complete as I did not have my bank details to hand. I agreed to ring back in January, She offered a fixed deal where we would pay a set amount each month, the lady we spoke to tonight was unable to find the details of this arrangement.

When we spoke to the BT people in December they gave us a reference number (blank)
We wanted a combined package for internet and phone. Twice now the people we have spoken to say we don’t have internet on the account, it has now become apparent that we have two accounts.

We also have a bill for £4.99 which was supposed to be paid by the 24/12/2010, which we have not paid, I am under the impression that this is for the postage and packing for the home hub we have not received this yet.

I had intended to send my bank details with this email, but I am unsure if I trust BT's system now and end up paying for 2 accounts.

I have sent emails to this address before after I had posted on the Money Saving Expert Forum; my user name is Howburn if you wish to see my post.

To help clarify the billing address and the household to which this line relates to is
(Blank)

I look forward to your response.