BT Broadband

dagrowler

Oh my lord...this is a long one, so apologies in advance

so, I moved house on Thursday the 5th July, 3 weeks prior to this my boyfriend had rung BT to tell them that we were moving and that we'd like broadband exactly the same just transferred to the new address, they said fine, it will be connected on the 5th, probably about 8pm. the reason we needed it so quickly is that we both have jobs that mean we have to work from home quite often.


On the 5th I logged on on the off chance at about 4 to see if it would work and it did!! :j I was so so impressed I couldn't believe it! fantastic service I thought, I was on the verge of calling them to tell them how amazed I was! Then at about 9 my boyfriend tried to log on but couldn't (I assumed he was being the technophobe I'm used to and dismissed it as user error). then on Friday we went away for a wedding, came home on Sunday and tried to log on and the same thing happened.

So we bit the bullet and called BT... this is where the fun begins! they got us to check the micro filter, check the router, turn off the router, reset the router, log in with a million different IDs, plug in the Ethernet cable to check it wasn't the wireless, etc etc. eventually they decided it was nothing to do with them and gave us the number for the telephone exchange, who we rang, who told us they had no idea when we'd been asked to call them, the line was fine which was how we were managing to talk on the phone

so Monday morning comes around and happily I have a day off so I call them at 8am, they make me do all the same checks we'd done last night, check the micro filter, check the router, turn off the router, reset the router, log in with a million different IDs, plug in the Ethernet cable. nothing works.

the lady tells me to unplug everything from the router and leave it idle for 2 hours, and she'll call me back (ace, I think, they're going to be doing something while its unplugged - ha ha). two hours later the lady does call me back, I plug everything back in and she makes me go through all the checks again. she then is baffled and puts me through to someone else who makes me do exactly the same thing. he's baffled too and tells me he's escalated the issue and we'll have a call back from an engineer within 24 hours and it will be fixed by then...

27 hours later, (Tuesday) no phone call so I call them back...the lady on the phone tells me she can't help as I'm not at home so she can't go through the troubleshooting steps, don't worry I tell her, we've been through them and we know they don't work, can I speak to an engineer please? no she tells me, she can only send us an engineer who we'll have to pay for... errrrr no thanks. she assures me that she will call me back at 5pm when I'm home...

6pm comes along and no phonecall so we decide to call them ourselves. my boyfriend spends an hour telling them "we've done this before and it didn't work, let me speak to your supervisor" after an hour he gets a supervisor.... blah blah.

at 9.15 pm (yes more than 3 hours later!) after a slightly heated rant from me, I'm told that the engineers go home at 9 so there's nothing they can do.... ahem, I spend another hour on the phone to one of the supervisors telling me that he's expedited our issue and it will be fixed - we even have an issue reference number. whoop whoop.

my boyf is meant to be working from home today, he's meant to have started at 8am and they haven't phoned us yet. I am pulling my hair out! anyone got any advice on how I can get ANYTHING done at BT?

RatherGutted

Hi dagrowler

I have a very similar story to tell. I've been without broadband for 2 weeks now. The only difference is that my provider is Zen. But they blame BT. Apparantely it's "a problem at the exchange". Unfortunately no-one seems willing to do anything about it. Zen says their hands are tied but when i call BT, they tell me to contact my service provider because there's no problem with my voice line.

As it is continually explained to me, the problem is that BT are essentially split into three different companies - BT retail are the people you order the voice line and i'm assuming the broadband from, BT wholesale provide the broadband to Zen and BT OpenReach are tasked with physically providing the broadband and fix any problems. But the public can't ring BT OpenReach.

Now, I work in IT so I know i've set up the router correctly and I've checked the microfilter, changed the cables etc etc but it still doesn't work. Once i got through to someone helpful who told me that the clicking noise i could hear on the phone line indicated it was a problem at the exchange, possibly misjumpering of the wires.

So far I've done the following to try and get someone to take some notice and possibly even care about my problem:

* I call every day to hassle them
* I've threatened to cancel
* I have requested a MAC code so it's very easy to move to another provider
* I demanded to speak to a manager who is supposed to be solely in charge of my problem.

But all to no avail i'm afraid. I think the next step will be to cancel my direct debit.

Dagrowler - you're not based in West London by any chance are you?

I hope you have better luck than me!

dagrowler

hi, no i'm based in sunny swindon... I have an update as of lunchtime though.

Following on from the huige rant last night and me telling them this wasnt a joke, that it was for work and that the service was disgusting (which i said over and over again until they finally listened) they told us this morning that it would be fixed by 6pm (no use to us as that's another days work lost).

then at about 11.30 two english blokes rang and then came round to tell us a fuse had gone in the exchange apparently... anyway, its working... for now... will keep you posted on the rest of it... six hours in 3 days on the phone can't be good for you.

pinkshoes

BTs help line is utterly useless. A collegue told me he'd phoned 5 times and they'd gone through the check list with him (unplugging and replugging stuff), and that they couldn't send an engineer until 2 days later, and if it turned out not to be a line fault, then he'd have to pay the hefty engineer call out fee! He'd spent HOURS on the phone to them (i at least gave him the freephone number from saynoto0870 web page).

I asked him what was wrong, so he told me what it said on the error screen, so I went on the BT Broadband web page and looked up that type of error. It had a procedure of what to do, which he tried when he went home at lunch time, and sure enough his broadband was working again!!

It seems that BT don't even go through their own problem shooting stuff from their own web page, which he couldn't access from home because his broadband wouldn't work!!

10/10 for stupidity to BT!!

RatherGutted

hmmmmm, I still don't have internet access - I call Zen every day but they're still blaming BT. BT blame Zen and I'm going round in circles!! Can anyone offer any advice? please?

dagrowler

RatherGutted wrote: »

hmmmmm, I still don't have internet access - I call Zen every day but they're still blaming BT. BT blame Zen and I'm going round in circles!! Can anyone offer any advice? please?

go mental at them, you're paying for a service and they're providing you sweet FA!

seriously just get angry, thats how i got results, call them, tell them you're sick to death of the phonecalls and refuse to speak to anyone until you're put through to a senior employee. then make sure they know that you're majorly unhappy.

BT are a huge company and to be honest i'd expect better from them, if they were a little company who were jsut starting out i could kind of understand it (i wouldnt put up with it but it would be more understandable IYSWIM).

let me know how you get on.

RatherGutted

Thanks. I'm awaiting a "senior manager" to call me back within the hour. I'll let you know how i get on...