BT Complaints & Escalation

Linegeist

Tiring of BTs antics, I divested myself of them some years ago and signed up to Zen Internet for the whole telecoms package – broadband, ‘phones – the lot. Zen, to date, have performed absolutely faultlessly and frequently over-delivered.

Unfortunately, BT (or one of its chameleon-like subsidiaries) still owns the lines and exchanges and, when these started playing up last year, I was back at the mercy of the, now infamous, BT customer service shambles.

With the help of Zen, I collated and collected times, dates and even obtained some of the fault logs generated by BT. These written records showed that BT not only failed to turn up to 3 appointments to fix my line, but also lied quite brazenly about the reasons to my ISP and me, contradicted themselves serially in the process, and even marked the job as 'completed' when it wasn't, thus resetting the time-to-fix clock back to zero - and they knew it.

After the usual run-around (I'm lucky, as a techie I simply rigged a 3g system for my broadband needs while BT faffed about and desperately made as much smoke as they could) Zen admitted they couldn't do any more - so I took the step of passing the whole case onto my MP - last year.

After nearly a year, numerous letters and a whole slew of meetings between MP and BT senior managers, with BT promises to make urgent calls to me (which, in that great BT tradition, never materialised) and promised high-level investigations into the situation (ditto the previous comment in brackets) I'm still no further along than when my line first went geriatric.

Now, by means of simple attrition, BT have managed to stall the Anglesey MP, leaving him essentially dead in the water with no further actions available to him (apparently). Interestingly, BT also now refuses to talk directly to me, stating I must address any service issues through my ISP - who they've already bludgeoned into submission and parked in one of their neat procedural cul-de-sacs – just like my MP.

So, I have documentary evidence of BT deliberately lying, a printed audit trail of their serial failures and evasive tactics in avoiding responsibility, copies of their own logs showing their own failures - and yet I can do nothing about it. I can't even get an apology for the loss of 3 days work – yet no-one can touch them or hold them to account it seems - they are big enough to flout the rules, and then get away with it - repeatedly.

To add insult to injury, BT has somehow cornered the broadband rollout contract for this area, and is busily delivering as little as possible for as much as it can charge. No wonder Anglesey is stuck in the mid 20th century, when average speeds out here are sub-2meg - and often falling.
A truly nasty company with mafiosi-like levels of omerta and untouchability. I detest them with a deep and visceral loathing.

Linegeist

captainhindsight wrote: »

Hello i need some help with BT, I am a business and I am moving premises.

I am worried that if somebody does turn up will they actually fit the line, because if they don't my business will have no phone line and no broadband. I have allowed a 6 week cross over period to allow for things like this but it clearly wan't enough.

I can't even get a temporary voip line without broadband and i am going to make serious losses if i don't have a phone and broadband and i am getting very worried for me and my staff.

Any help on who to call and how to get this sorted is very much appreciated

I insured myself against this kind of thing by taking out a mobile phone contract with Three. They have a package that, for about £15 a month, gives you 'all you can eat' broadband access via your mobile. Check for a signal before signing up but, if good, you've a viable alternative/insurance policy.

By simply hooking up my mobile phone to a USB port on a PC and installing a driver for it, I am able to access the internet at up to 4meg on a good day - and 2 on a bad one ... better than BT's best cabled attempts. I can also share that internet connection with other PCs on the home network if required.

This gives me total independence from BT and their vagaries when they have one of their collective seizures. If they decide to embark on one of their regular faffings-about (such as reconnecting swathes of village phones incorrectly so numbers are randomised overnight - deep and frabjous joy!) I can continue surfing and emailing regardless.

I suspect that, once people cotton onto this - and the faster 4g service goes mainstream - the bottom's going to drop out of the wired broadband access market.

Sam9114

Placing a phone call to the BT customer service department can be stressful. It might be that you are looking to speak with them about the contract you are currently receiving but you work Monday-Friday and feel that you may not be able to call the BT number at a time when there are advisors available. The BT number 0844 800 3114 is available to be called seven days a week so it doesn’t matter what sort of work schedule you conduct, you should be able to contact BT and discuss whatever you desire. Hope this helps!

nickcc

Can honestly say that when I contacted BT at one of their outsourced call centres I believed that my problem would be resolved, what a hope as it never happened. Just because someone assures you that, in my case, a credit will be raised doesn't make it happen.

saraj12

I have never, ever had such poor service from any supplier!Firstly they could not locate my existing line when I tried to transfer to BT.Then I discovered that the YouView box I signed up for does not support theSport channel that I also signed up for! Their two USP offerings that attractedme to transfer are totally incompatible??!!

Having finally (after several texts and 3 calls I had tomake) I got connected, just over 2 months after I applied.

Initally the broadband speed was intermittent, but that wasto be expected. Once settled it was running VERY slowly so I called tocomplain, was transferred to another department who told me I needed to callfrom the home phone, not from work. By the time I arrived home the speed hadmiraculously trebled.

To add insult to injury, I then applied for the £100vouchers...

I have now called 4 times and been told that I need to wait21 days, 45 days, 60 days and 45 days, respectively. Finally after more than 60days I lost my patience, called AGAIN and demanded a resolution.

The result? An email stating that I now need to wait AGAINfor 21-45 days for £50 vouchers.
Timespent on calls to BT so far? Approximately 5 hours to date ...

schmee_2

I'm going to apolgise if this is long winded but I'e had a few issues with BT and sent this to their complaints:

In my old house I had BT Infinity, BT Vision and BT phone line rental with Talk (account number: **********). However due to my severe back problems last July we moved to my wife’s parent’s house as she needed help looking after me.

My parents in law’s house is not in an Infinity area (despite our local exchange being active for years) and so when I was planning to bring my BT services with me I accepted that I would have to drop down to normal broadband. As the internet download speed was fairly slow I also had to lose the BT Vision.

I was informed by BT that it would be a simple takeover of the current line. However this proved not to be the case. For weeks I had calls from BT informing me of different problems they had encountered which finally culminated in me being informed that they had messed it up too much and nobody was exactly sure where the order stood and so they stopped my account completely as it would be easier to simply start again.

So this led to a new phone and broadband account starting August 2013 (with the new account number: *********). In the days before this started I received a new ‘contract’ (the one they send you that doesn’t need signatures) detailing what I would get, what I will be paying etc. In that it stated that my internet speed would be between 0.8 and 2.5 mb download speed. I thought this was about right as my in laws had been getting around 0.8/0.9 mb speed through their previous service providers. As it turned out that was exactly the speed that we started off with on this new BT account.

However since the start of January 2014 our internet speed started to slow down drastically. By the start of March it was barely usable. It was taking minutes to even get a page opened. It actually took me a few days to get a speed test page opened as by this stage pages rarely opened. When I did a speedtest I found that the speed given was 0.109 mb.

I contacted BT’s technical team and worked with them to try and find the cause but after the best part of the week they told me that they could confirm that it was extremely slow but they did not know why.

Therefore on March 11th I called up to complain about the situation. I was informed that not only was my speed slow but that the terms of my ‘contract’ had changed (without my knowledge) so that BT now stated I should be getting between 0.25 and 2 mb speed. I would never have agreed to if those speeds were the ones mentioned when we were setting up the account, especially since a few different internet service providers had not only been getting speeds a lot higher than 0.25 mb but also had never stated that it could possibly be as low as that. What was even worse was that the speed I was getting was nowhere near even that speed.

The BT adviser that as far as they were concerned as long as I received any internet speed at all BT considered their part of the contract to be fulfilled. According to him it didn’t matter if I could actually use the internet to even browse properly most of the time or not. He informed that that as there were times when we could at least browse then BT had kept its end of the bargain. As I disagreed with this I asked to speak to a manager which he refused. After about 5 minutes arguing with this man he agreed to get a manager to call me back.

When the manager did call me back he basically called me a liar and informed me that if “somebody somewhere told you that you could get a speed of 0.8 to 2.5 mb and you’ve written it down” that didn’t count as any agreement with BT. I informed him that that wasn’t the case and asked him to look at what BT had sent me dated July 31st. As I had it in front of me I was even able to tell him exactly what page of the information to look at.

His response was to tell me that I was correct and it did state that (no apology for insinuating that I was a liar though). He agreed that as BT couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my broadband that he would cancel my service, with no cancellation fee as it was BT’s fault, and so put me onto my notice period.

However when I didn’t receive a confirmation letter within the next week I decided to call BT again to double check that my services had actually been cancelled. I spoke to someone on 19th March who told me that there was two live cancellation orders, one for my free BT Sport package and another for my line rental and broadband package. Both of these I was told were to end on April 10th.

I then explained to him that I was going to try out a local wireless broadband provider that a friend of mine who lives nearby had signed up to as they could get me a speed much higher than BT could (I’m currently using them now with a speed of 7.5 mb) but that they didn’t provide a phone line rental service. I asked if there was a way I could keep my line rental for an extra month and stated that, as I didn’t want to change my number again, if the local ISP could get me a decent download speed I would just keep my phone package with BT. However if the local company weren’t able to get me a decent service I would need to get a line rental package and a broadband package from another provider as I would only be likely to get any deals if I got them both together. The adviser I spoke to said that wouldn’t be any problem but that he couldn’t help. He gave me a number for the open orders department and told me to call them the next day (as this was in the evening and they weren’t in the office at this time).

So I called the number the following day. When I explained my situation the lady I was talking to informed me that my BT Sports package had indeed been down to stop on 10th April but that nothing else had been cancelled. Despite me getting it ‘confirmed’ the night before I was told that neither the phone nor the broadband account were in their cancellation period and neither were due to stop. What she did then was set my broadband service to stop on April 10th as was agreed but she kept my phone service going but changed it so that I would be able to cancel it (without charges) at any time in case the local internet provider couldn’t help me.

I came out of that conversation very annoyed at being told the wrong information twice beforehand but happy that it had been resolved. However when we woke up on the morning of March 25th we found that neither our phone nor our broadband worked. We called BT from my mobile and asked what had happened and were told they went to cut off our broadband ‘as we requested’ but accidently stopped our phone service too.

Now apart from the fact I was angry they had stopped our phone service we had never requested our broadband stopped that early. The date agreed with BT was April 10th. We didn’t have any arrangements for our broadband to stop so early so we couldn’t work out exactly why BT had cut us off. When we asked nobody could tell us why this was done over two weeks early. What was worse was we were told that our phone number had been reclaimed by BT and that the only way to get it back was to sign a new agreement for BT line rental and recommit to another contract.

I informed the person I was speaking to that there was no way I wanted to commit to BT again. I told them that there was no chance I was going to start a new account with them again. I didn’t want to have to change my phone number again but I informed them that if that was the cost of getting rid of BT that I would accept another new phone number. I told them I was tired of being told one thing by someone and then something completely different happening. I was tired of being lied to about things and was mostly tired of their awful customer service relations. I asked if I was free to sign up with another phone line rental service and was told that because they accidentally took everything off our line than I was.

So I spent the next few days checking out different offers. As I needed to go online to do this I went to my parent’s house. Unfortunately I left my mobile phone there whilst doing this and didn’t get it back for a few days. I got it back on Saturday 29th and found that I had a missed call and an answering machine message from BT from two days earlier. In the message they informed me that they had started my new line rental account and that they would have us put back onto our old number by the Monday! Now I’m not certain but I thought one of the legalities about these things is that the customer has to agree to having an account set up in his name especially if he’s going to be charged for it. However this was not only done without my consent, it was done despite me stating that I did not want a new account started.

I tried calling back straight away but gave up after 45 minutes on hold waiting for an adviser. At this stage I’d given in. My back problems mean I spend the majority of my days with in bed or on the sofa in pain (hence why I use the internet so much). My wife is due to have our first child in May. We simply don’t need the stress of having to deal with BT. And so we decided that if we got our old number back on the Monday we could just admit defeat and let it run.

However when Monday evening arrived and the number hadn’t changed I called BT yet again. I was met with someone who really didn’t bother listening to me and simply repeated over and over again that my number would change back to our old one within 24 hours. As the conversation was going nowhere I agreed to wait the 24 hours.

24 hours later and I checked to find our number had been changed. However it has changed to yet another completely new number and not our old one. I called to complain yet again and was met with the same situation as the night before (it actually even sounded like the same person) where the Bt representative on the other end of the call refused to discuss anything with me and simply repeated that the number would be changed within 24 hours.

So 24 hours on from that and I received a message on my mobile telling me that within 24 hours my number would be changed. By now I simply could not take anymore and so called BT once more. I demanded to talk to someone about getting this phone line stopped. I spoke to someone and informed them of everything that had happened and stated that as this phone line was started against my wishes I wanted to have it cancelled. The gentleman spoke to said he understood and that he would get it cancelled. He said that it would take him a day to get it sorted but that he would get it done and that I obviously wouldn’t be charged to cancel it as I hadn’t agreed to it in the first place.

Unfortunately when he called back I was at a midwife appointment with my wife and so my mobile phone was on silent. When I returned home I immediately called BT to check that it was cancelled. To nobody’s surprise I was told that it hadn’t been cancelled. Out of all my dealings with BT it was this person at their cancellations department who was by far the most ignorant person I’ve ever had the displeasure speaking to. Ignoring her tone or attitude what she basically told me was that it wasn’t going to be cancelled, that I had no right to get it cancelled and that I had no clue as to what I was talking about. She told me that if I wanted to go to someone else I had to sign up with them and get them to take over the line. When I stated I didn’t want to do this as I didn’t want to have to pay BT line rental in between then and the changeover and that I didn’t trust BT not to charge me for cancelling the account that way I was told that it stated on my account that there would be no charge for stopping my phone line rental and as for not wanting to stay with BT in the meantime she basically told me that there was nothing I could do about it.

As soon as I got off the phone to her I called BT billing and cancelled my direct debit. I explained to the lady I was speaking to that although I had it confirmed on numerous occasions that I wouldn’t be charged a cessation fee for either the broadband or the line rental that I no longer believed anything that anyone from BT told me and that I was certain you would put the charges onto my bills. She told me that I would incur a £2 charge for not paying by direct debit to which I informed her I would rather pay a £2 charge than pay whatever charges BT ended up putting onto my account. The lady double checked and got back to my reiterating that no charges would be put onto my bills but eventually stopped my direct debits.

I signed up with another company to take over my phone line as I was fed up having to deal with people from BT, even though I really did not want to have to continue to pay BT line rental charges for an account that I never wanted started.

Then a few days ago I received a letter from BT telling me that my phone line will change to the new company on 24th April. However the letter also informed me that I’ll be getting charged £61.02 as a cancellation fee- despite numerous people from BT telling me this wasn’t going to happen. I then went online to check my latest bill as it would have dealt with the time when all my services were stopped (it shouldn’t have been on that bill except for the fact they were stopped earlier than agreed) and found that BT has also charged me with a £30 fee for cancelling my broadband, despite the fact that it was cancelled due to BT’s problems in meeting the terms agreed to.

I am writing this as a final complaint. Since last summer I have been constantly mess about with, lied to and harassed. I’ve been called a liar. I've had numerous people hang up on me for no reason except to force me to have to go through the whole process of calling again. In all I’ve spent hours upon hours trying to get through to BT, getting switched between departments and trying to explain my situation each time trying to deal with issues, none of which were my fault. In the past number of weeks I’ve averaged about 4 hours a week on the phone to BT trying to sort out problems that were all caused by BT yet which I’ve suffered because of.

I will make this very, very clear. I am not paying those charges. To be honest considering my latest bill was somehow inflated to over £100 for services I couldn’t use I am wary about accepting anything on that bill. God knows how much you are going to try and bill me for next month. The fact that you’ve charged me £91.02 in fees when the fault for all of these things lies at your feet is scandalous.

I wish to be contacted by a manager who has the ability to sort this out properly. If not I will be contacting a solicitor as I feel I have been a victim of harassment by BT since last summer. If for any reason my credit rating suffers because of my refusal to pay fee’s that were added for no reason other than trying to scam me out of money then I will definitely press charges.

I am so happy I have left BT, or will have by the 24th April. The amount of stress and unhappiness I have had whilst trying to deal with you has been ridiculous. For such a big and well respected company I honestly never thought you would provide services, and customer service, this appalling. I have had nothing but trouble when dealing with BT. I want it to stop. All I’ve wanted is to be treated fairly. If BT was able to provide me with a decent service none of this would have happened. If BT had competent staff dealing with these issues it should have been sorted a long time ago without having to put me through all of this.

Deepfatfriar

This may the wrong forum if so I aplogise.


I have BT Cloud as part of my Infinity package. I have loaded it on my desktop and backed all my photographs to it. Several thousand in fact.


I have loaded the BT Cloud app on my Ipad which works in that I can access pictures, big snag they are all in reverse order, ie First is last and last first in the folders I interrogate.


Tried reporting to BT, got all the way through to an "operative" who took all the details and then said I had to contact the vendor as it was not a BT product !!! Not what it says on the Appstore.


As far as I can tell there is no sort button on the Ipad app only on the desktop.


Anyone else got this problem or is it me ?


Have deleted and reloaded the app several times, no change.

PabloST

Hello all,

This is the first time I've used a forum.

I run a small business and we have a problem supplier, BT.

Having so far explored all options, and requests for resolve through their internal complaints department (which were ignored), I was advised by OFCOM to seek a solution through the Comms Ombudsman. This process, whilst of some assistance, didn't go far enough toward providing a resolution which as a business we felt would be in our in best interests. So we have elected not to accept the Ombudsman's proposal.

We're now looking at presenting BT with the options of either making good on their ongoing, and continuing service failures. And ongoing and continuing overcharging/double charging dating back to 2011 for services and telephone lines which are not ours or even in our building (as brought to light by their own data clearing team). Or the prospect of taking legal action, and/or publishing the full contents of our files on this matter (to include full transcripts of recorded calls we've had with their staff), through social media/TV which highlight the full catalogue of their mistakes and behaviour which we believe to be at best dishonest and at worse verging on the fraudulent.

Does anyone have any experience or examples of similar legal cases brought against BT broadband?

captainhindsight_2

Hello an update on what I decided to do, i cancelled bts install after three mist appointments. As a bt business customer they promise better service than domestic customers but its still c**p!!!

Taking Linegeist advice, I have a 4g mobile wifi device from EE which provides fast internet access (faster than bt estimate in our area for broadband)

And for the phones I have set up a ip phone system which goes over the internet connection and has been working well with 10 phones on the same connection and also removes the need for having an expensive PBX and also our phones call are so much cheaper over voip

At just under 1ppm with no connection charges and we have an 0800number which we paid bt around 5ppm and we now pay 1ppm. This has meant we no longer have to rely on BT for anything and have much cheaper calls. The mobile wifi on first look is quite expensive but still over all much cheaper than what bt can offer.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

I complained about this some weeks ago and my post was deleted.

Well here I am again, so tough on those reading who have feeble minds and no doubt will get the urge to defend the corporate and shoot the messenger again.



So, until then, I'd just like to reinforce the point that BT make me feel physically sick when I think of the disgusting management that suck money from those vulnerable citizens who think calling directory enquiries is safe like it was when they were young.

Calling 118 numbers is a deliberate trap and an unfair commercial practice but no-one with power dares do anything about it.