BT Parental Controls Pop-up nuisance - anyone else had this?

Kittenonthekeys

Not sure if this should be in Consumer Rights(?) but here goes:
I am using an iPad, and since yesterday a BT Parental Controls pop-up has appeared out of the blue, nagging me to activate the service. I'm a big girl now, the sole user of my device and have no need for parental controls!
The pop-up ostensibly gives an option of yes or no, but whatever I do, it doesn't go away. At first I thought it was a virus but it's not, it does originate from BT.
It intrudes on every web page, making it impossible to use the Internet. It completely fills and blocks every page, there's no option to quit the pop-up or go back and I just lose the page entirely. It even appears when I go to BT's own site!
In desperation, I decided to activate Parental Controls via the BT site, in the hope that would finally stop it, but no, the pop-up nagging me to activate Parental Controls still appears!
I did eventually find a temporary workaround, involving having to manually type every single website URL that I visit into BTs 'allowed' list, but obviously this is ludicrous and unrealistic as a permanent solution - it's not even possible to cut and paste addresses into the 'allowed' list, so I have to copy them down by hand, then type them in!
This is not the service I pay BT for.
Tried deleting Parental Controls permanently via BT site - pop-up still appears.
Tried Live Chat, usual scripted response from the Sub-Continent, guy appeared to have no clue what I was talking about. He told me to reset my hub (Home Hub 3) which I did - pop up still appeared, then directed me to the Parental Controls Help page, where none of the advice has worked either. Pop-up is still there.
This feels like a hijack and a denial of service as I can no longer use the Internet properly.
BT either can't or won't help and refuses to even consider the fault may just lie at their end and not with my equipment. I can't seem to get through to anyone who knows or cares what I'm on about, and I'm tired of trying to explain the problem to someone on the other side of the world who doesn't know anything that isn't in their script.
My contract doesn't run out til next August, but my patience has actually run out now and I want to leave.
Please, has anyone else had this problem and is there anything I can do about it, or any higher authority I could complain to?

JJ_Egan

What browser are you using ?? have you cleared its cookies and history ??

>>>
My contract doesn't run out til next August, but my patience has actually run out now and I want to leave.>>>>

Requires you to pay your contracts remaining months .

Have you tried the BT support Forum ???

Kittenonthekeys

Using Safari. Haven't cleared cookies and history for a couple of weeks, but will certainly go and try that now.
Edit:
Yes I have tried it but it's not a very active forum and apparently you can only contact a moderator now if they actually invite you to, and provide a link.

bod1467

Have you logged in to MyBT to see what the Parental Controls option is set to? For me it says Inclusive and offer the option to Activate. (I never have).

I don't get any such popup and never have.

Kittenonthekeys

bod1467 wrote: »

Have you logged in to MyBT to see what the Parental Controls option is set to? For me it says Inclusive and offer the option to Activate. (I never have).

I don't get any such popup and never have.

You are lucky!
Yes, when I logged into MyBT (to access Parental Controls options to see what I could do)it was originally set to the same as yours - inclusive and with the option to Activate, as I had never used it.
So I 'activated' it, but still got the pop ups...telling me to activate Parental Controls, which I had already done.
I then tried 'permanently deleting' Parental Controls but the same pop up continued appearing, telling me to activate it.
Next, I went back and re-'activated' Parental Controls - and still got the pop up.
Since deleting my cache and cookies, so far, touch wood it hasn't come back.
Thank you for that suggestion to the first responder - sorry I can't see your name as I type this - this is never something I think will work ;)but at the moment it does seem to have done the trick. I hope it continues.

S0litaire

New laws were passed recently that forced the major ISP's to "offer" parental blocking services to all their subscribers.

Most have used "Browser Hijacking" to offer this choice! BT's is the worst of them as in you can't access the internet until you accept or decline their offer.

Other ISP's just show you a page you can ignore and navigate away from.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/19/web-filters-browser-hijack

Kittenonthekeys

Thank you for that interesting link.
After clearing my cache, all was fine for a while, then the pop up came back.
Phoned India and did the usual router reset as instructed - but this time it seems to have worked. The guy said the pop up was a 'known problem.'
Not sure if that really *has* fixed it - I'll reserve my judgement for the next 24 hours or so.

spenderdave

See also http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/general-computing-internet/57355-uk-isps-start-hijacking-website-browsing-push-censorship-filters.html which links to http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/12/uk-isps-start-hijacking-website-browsing-push-censorship-filters.html
I have not seen this yet on Sky but I remember a year ago when their Sky Shield first went live I went into my account and disabled it.
Likewise I am old enough not to need such filtering...

Chickereeeee

Had the same issue yesterday (on Firefox/Windows). Have not installed parental controls, and have no option for it on MyBT.

Complained about it on the BT Forum, no response but problem has gone away today..... Quite likely nothing you did stopped the popoups, and BT just fixed whatever had gone wrong....

Hugely annoying when it was happening though

Kittenonthekeys

spenderdave wrote: »

See also http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/general-computing-internet/57355-uk-isps-start-hijacking-website-browsing-push-censorship-filters.html which links to http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/12/uk-isps-start-hijacking-website-browsing-push-censorship-filters.html
I have not seen this yet on Sky but I remember a year ago when their Sky Shield first went live I went into my account and disabled it.
Likewise I am old enough not to need such filtering...

The problem with the BT one is (or was) that simply clicking on 'no' just froze the browser with nothing happening. In effect it refused to take 'no' for an answer. But neither did it take 'yes' for an answer because clicking on 'yes' just took you to BTs login page, where even if you logged in and activated the Parental Controls, exactly the same pop up still appeared!
Presumably there were enough complaints for BT to take some action, which hopefully is the case, and why the pop ups seem to have now stopped.
I too have no response from the BT forum, which is what prompted me to post on here and which has been very helpful as always. ��

googler

Do you get this when using your iPad away from your own router? Or do you always use your iPad within range of it?