BT Braodband Complaints number or e-mail?

Fwalter

Hi- I am after a telephone number or e-mail for BT head office. Their customer service is absolutely shocking!! My husband and I actually fight over calling them because we both hate it so much and you lose the will to live during the hours on end we spend on the phone and/ or being cut off again and again and again and again.....

We should be getting 20 MB download speed, but are not even getting 3! DP and I both work from home and it is making it impossible! After finally speaking to someone at the BT call centre, they told me I have 17MBs, but after checking with the IT department at work, they told me that what they mean is 17 kbps which does not equate to 17MBs.
BT say they cannot help any further...

Please help me!!!! I have 3 kids under 3 running around too so patience is running out today!

Hammyman

Your IT department morons want sacking. 17kbps is 3 times dialup speed and believe me, you'd notice if you had that as you waited 5 minutes for MSE front page to load.

The speed is "up to" 20MB and depends on how far you are from the exchange. One thing that makes a massive difference is how much crap you have on the same phone line. Say you've two phones, your Sky box, a fax machine all running off extensions fed to the same master socket and you're likely to notice speeds getting a hammering because of the noise on the line. Even a dodgy microfilter can hammer speeds. And if you've got others using the internet at the time you're trying to do a speed test, that'll affect the results as well.

BT are rarely wrong in their speed estimator. Unplug absolutely everything that plugs into a phone socket and put your broadband router on the master socket and see what happens then.

BT_company_representative

Hi Fwalter

I have just seen your post in relation to your broadband service and would like to look into this to see what speeds you are getting and if there are any issues with the speed. If you check out my profile section you will find my contact details.

Regards David

Idiophreak

Fwalter wrote: »

My husband and I actually fight over calling them because we both hate it so much and you lose the will to live during the hours on end we spend on the phone and/ or being cut off again and again and again and again.....

I can sympathise with this. Me and my OH had a bunch of squabbles due to the stress of dealing with BT. Do yourself a favour and get out - find someone else, anyone else, to move to and stop paying BT a penny. They have the worst customer service I've ever dealt with - the further up the chain you go, the less helpful the people become - and that's saying something. Seriously, just go somewhere else.

LittleMissMPB

Have to agree about the customer service, but if you persevere and are nice to them, you do get somewhere.

My OH was on the phone recently to them (funny enough about the slow speeds, supposed to be getting 8mb, got 7mb for a while, and it suddenly dropped to just over 1mb). They honestly thought for about 10minutes he was trying to say he wanted to upgrade the package so we could download more things (the 40gb limit is more than enough for us). The guy on the other end of the phone actually said to him "I dont think you're listening to me"... .so he replied very calmly saying "no, I think it's you who's not listening to me, if you had listened to me you would understand the problem instead of assuming and trying to sell me things". It got sorted in the end, but you really do have to just be patient and polite to get anywhere.

Idiophreak

LittleMissMPB wrote: »

The guy on the other end of the phone actually said to him "I dont think you're listening to me"... .so he replied very calmly saying "no, I think it's you who's not listening to me, if you had listened to me you would understand the problem instead of assuming and trying to sell me things". It got sorted in the end, but you really do have to just be patient and polite to get anywhere.

I spoke to one guy, who said straight up that I was lying and that what I claimed to have done was impossible. So I talked him through the buttons I'd pressed on the web site and showed him what came up. There was a long, long, silence on the line...Then he hung up on me. Huzzah!

Fwalter

Thanks for your replies. I have replied to the BT representative above, although the first contact info given comes up with an error page! Nice! I just don't understand how BT can operate like this, it seems like everyone I spoke to has some sort of gripe with them, especially their customer service.

Idiophreak

Fwalter wrote: »

Thanks for your replies. I have replied to the BT representative above, although the first contact info given comes up with an error page! Nice! I just don't understand how BT can operate like this, it seems like everyone I spoke to has some sort of gripe with them, especially their customer service.

They're still acting like they're a monopoly. Monopolies don't have to *do* customer service by definition.

Sadly, all too many people in this country still think that they have to rent from BT.

macman

What speedtester are you using? This one is usually reliable.
www.speedtest.net.
You will not get 20MBps anyway, or anything near it unless you are very close to the exchange.
As Hammy says, the test is only of relevance if you use the master socket with everything else disconnected, or use the BT test socket behind the master socket split faceplate.
Also you must do this using ethernet, not wireless.
If the problem disappears when using ethernet, then have you tried the simple expedient of changing the default wireless channel on the HomeHub? Which version of the HH are you using?

The_Real_Mr_Bob

Need to correct something that Hammyman has said... the speed of the broadband is not relative to the distance from the exchange, but the length of the line. We have two lines in our property, both from the same roadside box. One has a run of 4.2 miles, the other just over 6...!
Having said that, if you want something done, put it in writing to them, send it recorded delivery giving them 14 days to respond. If they drag it out which they invariably do and it gets past 8 weeks, go straight to the Ombudsman...

This week we have encountered two companies who claim to have 'the highest levels of customer service', yet in reality they honestly couldn't be any worse. BT was one of them.
Now, if there are two options available and one is 50% more expensive than BT, I would still take that one rather have to waste another breath telling their 'customer support' people more about the technical operation of my broadband line than they know!

Idiophreak

The_Real_Mr_Bob wrote: »

go straight to the Ombudsman...

As I understand it, BT use Alternate Dispute Resolution agencies, instead of an "ombudsman" as such. Makes it harder to escalate things - especially as BT refused to give me their ADR details about 4 times...