BT Broadband fault & billing issues

wantagooddeal

Hi, new poster but a fan of the forums for a while!

Sorry it's so long but the problem has been ongoing for nearly 6 months and is difficult to condense any further!

I've been having ongoing issues with broadband speed since January. Service is fine during the day but slows to typically 5 kbps after dark, ie. virtually useless every night.

I made BT aware of this on 3 January and after 11 engineer and expert visits, plus numerous tests done by me on their behalf, they have only just discovered the possible cause and suggested that my line's maximum speed be capped to solve the problem. They advised that this speed limit has now been applied but a day after this was done, the connection speed had increased again and the fault comes back at night.

I advised during February that I was not willing to pay further money to BT until reliable service was provided. I have paid nothing since and BT agreed to suspend billing until a resolution was reached. BT cancelled my direct debit arrangement but issued further bills which included fees for not paying by direct debit. A late payment penalty was applied, despite their agreement to suspend my bills and their confirmation that no payment had to be made.

I was assured on numerous occasions that as bills were suspended, there was no risk of service being cut off. Nevertheless, broadband was cut off on 22 April but reconnected when I complained about this.

There was a point during the middle of March where it looked like the fault had been cleared and I reluctantly agreed to a goodwill payment of £89.98. The fault recurred a few days later and investigations continued. I was informed that the credit would be placed on hold but my understanding and acceptance was that this would be an interim payment credited to my account on resolution.

This saga has taken up over 100 hours of my time so far.

BT are now of the opinion that the fault has been rectified and are adamant that the complaint be concluded. They have written to me saying that this is their final position. They are offering the same goodwill payment as they did back in March, despite the further inconvenience of a further three months with virtually useless broadband in the evening, a further four engineer visits (all in the evening and some into early morning), continued frustration and ultimately time that I have had to spend trying to have my issues addressed.

Given the charges that have been added since I last made payment, they are claiming that even after accounting for their goodwill offer, I still owe them around £41. I have advised that I consider any outstanding charges to be in dispute but have said that on provision of satisfactory service, they may reinstate my direct debit for future charges only. This has not been acknowledged by BT and they say that my services will be disconnected if I don't pay all outstanding charges, as I'm not accepting their offer, even though we already agreed on an interim credit in March.

Finally, they have now sent a bill which is for an even higher amount than their final letter states.

All I want is for the promised solution to be put in place, an assurance that this will solve the ongoing problems, payment of the credit already agreed in March, removal of further charges for service that has not been provided and an appropriate goodwill gesture in respect of the inconvenience, time and effort experienced by myself and my family.


Thanks for reading and I would appreciate any advice on how I might proceed.

agrinnall

I had some success with BT when I managed to get my issue looked at by the Executive Level Complaints team following intervention from my MSP. It wasn't wholly satisfactory, and I did have to go to the Ombudsman to get an apology and some compensation, but they did at least deal with refunding charges. I won't give the email address in public but if you take the 3 initial letters of the team name followed by @BT.com you should come up with the address I was given .

bod1467

I thought the best address was cceo? (@ etc.)

wantagooddeal

Thanks both.

Believe it or not, most of what I described above was after me emailing the Chief Executive directly and his delegation of my issues to his Technical Complaints team.

Is the Executive Level Complaints team different to this though?

Also reassuring to know that somebody's had success through the Ombudsman - my worry was that they'll side with BT as that's where their funding comes from.