BT Complaints & Escalation

Moss11

Many thanks JBond007, I am hoping that response was aimed at me!

It's now 11 days since my email and still no response. I will indeed follow your suggestion.:)

dulcieb

Hey -- think I posted something in desperation somewhere else on here. Not sure what the best place is.

Overall though I've been through a few horrible days with BT after finding that my calls had gone back to them -- when I got bills for £70 or so for a month. I am now waiting for their 10-day "listening" turnaround despite wanting basic advice to help me cope with having to deal with an international family crisis. Nothing forthcoming, many staff sympathetic...but the central silence is frustrating and annoying!

I've had to work out what happened and why and educate BT staff (basically get BT Infinity and lose your carrier pre-select). I think that this has happened as a result of ignorance on the part of staff but according to Ofcom it still counts as slamming.

I've never thought of BT as perfect -- far from it -- but their sheer size has meant that you could normally get hold of someone and be assured that there would be a central point of contact. That seems to have gone now for whatever reason. Instead I've been faced with a rather undignified process of having to repeat personal information (often to the embarrassment of staff) and no doubt looking like a stalker! My other provider have told me that there's been a sudden spate of such issues arising with BT, lack of communication and apparently ignorant staff. It's a pity that there's no way of at least alerting BT to this failure while they look into my complaint. (So BT person, if you're reading this, do feel free to get in touch!)

In my work I deal with complaints and similar things. BT's earlier approach, although imperfect, was good at retaining customers. (The experts note that companies who listen to those who complain and work honourably with them tend to retain the complainant as not only a customer but also as an advocate. It seems that BT have fallen victim to unfortunate IT and contact "solutions".)

Writing this has been quite therapeutic. Sorry if I've bored anyone or stated the obvious!

Moss11

Totally agree Dulcieb! I have occasionally had things to sort out things with BT in the past. It has always been dealt with in a professional and helpful manner. This time absolutely no response and they expect me to remain as a customer. They seem to have totally lost customer care in their effort to falsely extract money. I think we will vote with our feet!

dulcieb

Well thank you for feeling my pain, moss11!

I've now had an e-mail noting that yes, indeed they've got it wrong and they want to sort it out urgently. Which should be a good thing. But there's no contact number...no reply to e-mails...and when I rang the call centre I was passed around from sales to billing to sales to attempted technical help. They denied that anyone had tried to contact me.

It's past ridiculous.

Reed_Richards

Has anyone here taken a complaint against BT to the ombudsman and been successful?

studentsaver166

So since my last post on the 23rd August, I have received exactly no response from anyone at BT, despite promises from 3 separate individuals that SOMEONE would contact me.

I ask again, Mr BT Representative - when can I expect a response?

Today, I have received a letter from the BT Business Team stating that they have exhausted their complaints procedure in investigating my situation, and confirming all the details of the order that I originally placed. Frustratingly, I have always agreed with all of the details that they laid out in the letter. I have never contested any of it. The problem is that the bills I received were not in line with what was agreed. So even after a month and a half of trying to get a resolution, it appears that we are still at square one. The individual who sent the letter gave a phone number and said to contact her for further clarification as necessary. Of course, the phone number provided was the generic number that puts you through all the automated system and I finally ended up with the Billing department. AGAIN. I asked to be put through to the specific member of staff who signed off the letter. I was told that her line was busy but that they would send an email to request that she call me before the end of the day. I stated that I would only accept that if she would actually call me, seeing as I have been fobbed off with this line a ridiculous number of times already, and that if she wasn't likely to call me back today then I would rather hold for as long as necessary. They promised she would call. This was first thing this morning.

It is now after 5pm on a Friday and I have had no call.

Every single time I have to drag up this issue again, I think that the situation cannot possibly get any worse, and it does. Every time the level of incompetence of BT's 'customer services' reaches new heights.

I am utterly at my wits end with this. Mr BT Representative - I AM TRYING TO PAY YOU WHAT I OWE. WHY, for the love of all that is holy, is your company intent on making it so infuriatingly impossible?

Others in this thread - have you actually received any result from attempting to contact the 'BT reps' who appear so helpfully in this forum? Or are they fobbing you off just as every other member of BT staff is also doing?

somguy

I knew BT had bad customer service, but this thread is something else!

I'm looking for somewhere to vent my frustration/get advice, but from reading the above I think my issue is relatively minor:

Moved home 10 weeks ago. 9 weeks of complaining but still no working phone line or broadband. I've tried repeated calls and online chats, but it's just impossible to progress past square one - reporting the problem.

I'm essentially paying £30 p/m to spend hours on hold every few days. Apparently step 1 is to change the ADSL filter I have. I'm sure this won't solve the problem but it might mean I can progress with my technical complaint.
However, unfortunately BT are not capable of physically posting the replacement ADSL filter to my home. It's been 4 weeks - no ADSL filter after several attempts (address always confirmed etc).

Has anyone managed to terminate a contract with BT having received no working service for a significant time? I'm reluctant to do this and receive a huge invoice, as has been mentioned above. It would be a dream to terminate my contract with BT, though. The next question is, if not BT, then who? What a horribly captive market this is.

They really are the most awful company I've ever had to deal with.
Any advice appreciated, sympathy welcome. Good luck to other BT haters out there - I hope you get your situations resolved.

dulcieb

Well I have an update of sorts for you, studentsaver166 and somguy.

After sitting through similar unfulfilled promises I followed up on advice elsewhere about e-mailing the Chair and CEO of BT. Ridiculous but mechanistic procedures tend to respond to downward requests from their offices...I got quick replies promising attention.

Someone else called me the next day (when I said I wouldn't be available) and offered me a refund of the outrageous call charges arising from their unauthorised and presumably illegal slamming activity.

I noted that this would be a good start but that there were other issues to follow up on.

I then got a reply from the individual who had failed to keep promises to contact me noting that my complaint was closed. It certainly isn't. I've had advice from Ofcom about what to do. I'm on hold again at the moment trying to work out the status of the complaint. They don't seem to know, but it does seem that the promise to refund me had not been put into action.

I pity the BT reps who claim to help here. I followed their links and put what seems to have been a more focused complaint in through yet another online process. I haven't heard from them.

So what does this tell me? Apart from the fact that BT seem almost determined to undermine any attempt at re-establishing trust, it seems that going all outrageous and e-mailing the Chair and CEO elicit some sort of reaction. But this also results in a unilateral and mechanistic closure of the complaint, leading you to further efforts...Fortunately Ofcom seem on the case and will not be impressed by what is an evident lack of co-ordination. BT have failed to follow guidelines (and perhaps the law) at several stages. They don't seem to mind having such things reported or indeed discussed in the most critical terms on their own forums.

If things work well they work well. If they don't you may as well give up your life to go through automated menus and staff who, while generally polite, can't really offer any help (but see below).

I'm trying to find out who "high-level complaints" are now. I've been on hold for 30 mins.

As I'd noted earlier the way that companies deal with complaints has a huge effect on their reputation. BT were shockingly bad, got very good but now seem to have slipped back.

So hey -- no contact from BT reps and not quite at escalation yet. But I'm getting ready to and am confident that my endless reasonable attempts and their failure.

As I've finished writing this, a manager came onto the line and has offered me another part of what I'd been asking for. He's going to e-mail me confirmation and has told me that the mis-selling complaint is still open. He was amazingly helpful and a model of how people should respond.

Where this leaves you, I don't know. Keep records (ask for e-mails and letters) and escalate!

dulcieb

studentsaver166 wrote: »

I work for small charity where we are signed up to BT for all of our comms.
A couple of months ago, I called to resolve a billing query and at the same time was roped in to renewing our contract for a further 3 years. Huge mistake.
The first set of bills we received for the new plan were almost 3 times the amount I was expecting but I couldn't fathom the gobbledegook that is the bill breakdown and so I called the Billing department to attempt to get an explanation and, perhaps, some amended bills. I wasted nearly 2 hours of my time being passed from department to department, with each person telling me something different and often contradictory to what someone else had said. No-one seemed to be able to explain to me why the costs were so high. Eventually, after much frustration, I was able to ascertain that I had been mis-sold a call package that had been applied to the accounts. I was reassured by a manager in the Billing team that the accounts would be on hold while the issue was investigated by the back office team, who would then call me to confirm what was going to be done to resolve it, and then that same manager would call me once again to ensure I was happy with the resolution.
The back office called a few days later, and confirmed the amount that they would be crediting back. It still didn't bring the bill down to what I was expecting that it would be, having previously established what the real costs should be with the Billing team manager. They were unable to explain to me why this was, and said that they would have the Billing team call me again to investigate further.

After all of this frustration, I filled out a customer survey form and gave very negative feedback.

The Billing team never called me back, the manager I had spoken to never called me back. A few days later, however, a woman called me from another department, having received my negative feedback, and wanting to resolve the issue. She looked into our accounts and said that she could see that not only had we been charged for a call package that I had not requested, but we had also been incorrectly charged connection fees on all the lines that we have had for the last 3 years. She said that she could not understand why Billing had not noticed this in the first place. She assured me that she would personally see to it that the original bills would be cancelled (not credited; cancelled) and reissued at the correct value. She assured me categorically that the issue would then be concluded and that I needn't deal with it any further.

Fast forward to this week, and I logged on to the online billing system to download what I hoped would be the amended bills, plus the new bills for this month, in order to pay them.
They are still not correct. There are still charges being applied for call packages that I did not request, there are credits showing for arbitrary amounts that do not seem to tally with any figures that I have been given by BT and the overall totals are just not correct for either the past month or this month.

I called the Billing team AGAIN and asked to speak to a manager. The person I spoke to was evasive and unhelpful and would not put me through to a manager. I insisted, she resisted. Eventually, she assured me that a manager would call me back the same day. They didn't call until today.

Now I have spent a further 2 hours on the phone to Billing to be told that there is no record of the conversation that I had with the woman who promised to resolve everything and that, seeing as I cannot provide a reference number for it, they have to assume it never happened. There is apparently no record of cancelling the call package that was mis-sold and this now has to be passed over for further investigation. Basically, I am back to square one. I am now waiting for a credit note to be issued for the incorrect connection charges and apparently must then wait 7-14 days for a different department to call me about the call package and to hopefully be sent a separate credit note for that, and an amended invoice. Who knows what that will look like!


It also seems that the bills I am being sent on the online system are not the same bills that the Billing team are looking at when they talk to me, despite them having the same reference number. The Billing team cannot tell me why this is, nor can they apparently look at the bills that I am looking at. I have to wait 7-14 days before calling the Online Billing Team to ask what the hell is going on there.

This is an utter shambles. I have NEVER received such appalling customer service from any organisation that I have ever encountered. It is beyond disgraceful and yet no-one at BT will give me any information about how to make a formal complaint.

I am disgusted. Avoid this company at all costs.

I've just looked at the whole history of yours, studentsaver166. Oh so familiar in so many ways!

BT apparently record and keep recordings of all calls. If necessary you should be entitled to get copies of the recordings (it's a data protection thing). I too have had denials of calls. Alas they don't keep specific records of 0800 calls, but they should have times and dates. So if you know more or less when the call they deny existing took place, you could ask them to listen to that and provide you with access.

The current situation looks like one of "deadlock" then, although they may have opened up multiple complaints, so ramshackle are their systems. If they have decided that it is deadlock, you can carry on to the next stage involving Ofcom, I should imagine. They may take that more seriously.

BT make a lot of other companies mis-selling. It's a pity then that their staff seem to do the same thing, whether consciously or not. But Ofcom take a dim view of such things.

Good luck with it!

Moss11

Well done Dulcieb on getting a response from the CEO department, I too emailed there but as expected nothing. studentsaver166 my problem is almost identical to yours, charges on new contract which were never mentioned, actual contract agreed totally changed and increased and unreadable bill made of of non understandable charges plus pretend credit, for charges that should never have been made in first place. I have been trying to sort this out for almost the 8 weeks so am now preparing to involve Ofcom.
It unfortunately does seem to be rather selective who gets help from official rep! Personally I think BT's problem with me is that they know they are wrong and have behaved in a most unprofessional and fraudulent manner!