BT Customer (dis)Service - Computer said NO!

thomcooper

OK,

Here's a rant about BT support. Late last year, I started experiencing broadband connectivity issues. I'm an IT Consultant & know that from time to time such things happen & gave it 24 hours to see if the fault got sorted out.

The next day, the same fault was apparent & so before I contacted the BT support team, I ran logical tests such as running directly into the test socket, trying out different cables & also a different router, to ensure that there was nothing at my end that was causing fault.

Still experiencing the same issues, I called BT & went through all of the same proceedures again. Eventually, either 3 or 10 days later (not sure if a week went by as I was busy working), having tested the line with the secondary netgear router with the telephone support, BT decided that an Openreach engineer visit was required.

The said engineer was booked in for a week or so later. Experiencing these faults occasionally professionally, I saw no point in leaving a router plugged in doing nothing & so I just turned everything off at the wall & left it - the Netgear Router still physically connected to the line.

When the Openreach engineer came out, he tested the line & reportedly recieved 0mpbs speed (as there was no equipment plugged in) before knocking on the door. When he came in, I talked through the problem above, we plugged back in the line from the Netgear Router & plugged it into the Homehub which promptly returned to service & has worked ever since.

Knowing that there was definutely a fault with the line when I initially reported it to BT, I asked the Openreach engineer what could have been the problem. He whipped out his laptop & pulled up a logging system that showed the historic status of the line in 1 hour intervals.

The system clearly showed that there was an issue with the line logged at the point when I was having the telephone conversations with the BT operative. However, it then went on to show that the line returned to a stable service 2 days after we had called out the Openreach engineer & I had turned eveything off.

For some reason, the Openreach engineer had failed to log this.

BT have debited me the sum of £129.00 for the half hour visit. I am argueing against this. They are saying that I am being charged this fee as the engineer had to umplug the netgear router telephone cable & plug it into the BT Hub, before re-applying power.

The only reason that the Netgear router was present was to rule out a fault with the existing router & was not in operation at the time the engineer arrived. It's like saying, they'll charge you if you've got a front porch as the engineer will have to walk through 2 doors.

I have spent nearly 1.5 hours on the phone regarding this point with 2 BT telephone support personell.

They are intimating that the reason for the charge is because the Netgear equipment wasn't working (which it wasn't because it was turned off) & that was the problem. The Netgear router may as well have been a bowl of fruit that the cable happened to be laying in.

As there is no record of the error log on their system, the computer is basically saying no.

I pointed out to the BT customer care operative that I am basically saying that there is a little more to the story than appears on the log from the Openreach Engineers visit & that if they contact Openreach, I'm sure they will be able to provide them with the same log that the onsite engineer showed me.

As their customer, surely they have a duty to chase this up with a supplier? It would probably take 15 minutes on the phone.

But, unfortunately they have "no means of doing this". BT must spend serious 8 figure sums with Openreach annually. I cannot believe that a customer of such importance cannot have a means of querying the service that they recieve.

On the same token, whilst I don't expect to recieve any different service fromt the next person, I must have directly influenced at least 10 of my customers to sign up with BT in the past year alone.

Unless BT can refund me the charge & provide some form of recompence for the wasted time on the phone, I am going elsewhere. They've probably lost an unpaid sales guy too.

The annoying thing is that if I had 2 million Twitter followers, a quick 140 characters would have seen the moneys refunded & a complimentary trip for 2 to the Bahamas for the inconvenience.

I was annoyed about the charge in the first place, but BT were following the response from the engineer, but I'm seriously racked off about their inability to at least bottom out my argument with Openreach. :mad:

I get a lot of customers personally who suffer from an inability to plug things in properly, but I (in this case anyway!) was not one of them. I had performed thorough & exhaustive tests, beyond what was expected & because some of this equipment was still around when the engineer came, I am being fined.

The telephone support operator even intimated at one point that had the BT Hub been left connected & switched off, the fee woldn't have been charged.

Its like a police officer pulling you over for doing 60mph & then you pointing out that you've passed a temporary sign that said 60 for the police officer to then tell you that he is not going to go back up the road to take a look for himself before saying that your car is red & so fining you - the Netgear being the entirely irrelevant car colour in relation to the fine.

Is it just me being bitter, or is this absolute nonsense customer (dis)service?

I'll keep you posted on how things go. If BT read this & want to do something about it, my name is Thomas Cooper & I live in Burton on Trent. You should be able to find me from that if the computer doesn't say no

jaybeetoo

I think your 'mistake' was not to leave a BT HomeHub plugged in and switched on.

If ever I get a broadband problem, I always connect the router supplied by the telecoms company (and hide any other router) so there is no argument that it could be down to my kit when the Openreach technician (he is not an engineer!) turns up.

kwikbreaks

Sounds like Openreach made a charge because it was a no fault found call. When that happens ISPs usually pass on the charge. Openreach are a part of the BT empire.

If an ISP ever annoys me I move on to another - usually getting cashback into the bargain. BT may be the UKs biggest ISP but they are far from the best and imo offer very poor value. Plusnet are owned by BT but give better service and are cheaper. They are also offering ~ £100 cashback (Quidco TopCashBack) and discounted broadband right now

Tiglath

I shall watch this with interest. Our BT Infinity and phone is intermittent today. DH called BT and some ditzy customer service woman told him to take a screwdriver to the white box on the wall and open it but that they'd charge us £129 if they classed it as damage caused by us. Sensibly he refused, and we've left the Homehub plugged in and switched on. It's phasing in and out of connection this evening - engineer's coming Tuesday.

thomcooper

Well,

Having spoken to the original customer service representative on my initial call to be told no refund, & then when asked to have the problem elevated I received a later call from a supervisor to be told the same, I received my final call today before having the complaint forwarded to the Ombudsman (I would have been willing to fund the legal bills to take it to small claims if necessary).

The call was short & swift from presumably one of their senior customer service agents who informed me that she'd listened to the recordings of what I'd said in the previous calls & agrees that we are eligible for a refund!

Common sense has prevailed. I guess they do have a lot of people who call when they've accidentally unplugged something & I agree that their lack of IT knowledge requiring an engineer to come out should not be at the expense of BT, but it would have been a little more comfortable for me if they'd have seen the idiocy of what I was saying earlier & even if the original call taker couldn't decide whether or not I was right, forward it directly onto a senior colleague.

I will make sure that I don't try to be overly helpful next time & just leave the supplied kit in.

Ironically, the internet dropped out again last night for a few minutes!

thomcooper

Tiglath wrote: »

I shall watch this with interest. Our BT Infinity and phone is intermittent today. DH called BT and some ditzy customer service woman told him to take a screwdriver to the white box on the wall and open it but that they'd charge us £129 if they classed it as damage caused by us. Sensibly he refused, and we've left the Homehub plugged in and switched on. It's phasing in and out of connection this evening - engineer's coming Tuesday.

They were asking you to plug into the test socket (this checks that there is nothing like phone extensions causing an issue). If its something thats broken down in the house - like an extension, thats your responsibility.

You shouldn't break it as theres nothing to it - just 2 screws that plugs one thing into the other.

Whenever I encounter similar issues I leave the internet connection for at least 24 hours as it often comes back up of its own accord.

Tiglath

Thanks - it's all working fine today, so if that's still true by Monday morning I'll cancel the engineer visit.

thomcooper

Good idea, otherwise they'll charge you a £6,000 doorbell ring charge! :rotfl:

macman

Tiglath wrote: »

I shall watch this with interest. Our BT Infinity and phone is intermittent today. DH called BT and some ditzy customer service woman told him to take a screwdriver to the white box on the wall and open it but that they'd charge us £129 if they classed it as damage caused by us. Sensibly he refused, and we've left the Homehub plugged in and switched on. It's phasing in and out of connection this evening - engineer's coming Tuesday.

Nothing ditzy about it, that's exactly what you need to do to determine if the fault is on your wiring or extensions-in which case you will indeed be charged the standard £129 for the call out. Not for 'damage caused'.
She was doing her job better than most BT agents.