BT - a week without internet

nomaddjs

Decided to take advantage of their Black Friday offer. I explained to the salesman that I rely on the internet for pretty much everything, thus could not possibly take out the deal if there is any downtime. Salesman assured me that internet wouldn't be down for longer than a couple of hours whilst the changeover from my previous provider happened.

On 12th of December. Having waited all morning, still no internet. I phone them up guy number 1 informs me that I have to wait until midnight.
On 13th of December. Still no internet. I phone first thing in the morning, lady tells me the order hasn't been closed. Closes it on her end and says it's now up to BT wholesale to close on their end. I raise a complaint and ask for call back from a manager. Get told I'll get a call back the next day.
On 14th of December. I wait all day, no call back or internet.
On 15th of December. I phone in first thing in the morning, a guy number 2 tells me that whilst the request to close my order (for service to begin) did go out on the 13th of September, BT Wholesale didn't bother to process it. I am told he has escalated it with their management - they promised him the Internet should be live within 24 hours.
On 16th of December. The guy phones me back to tell me he has spoken to their management, internet will not be going live this week. It won't even go live Monday morning as that's when their standard 48 working hours expires, so I have to wait until midnight Monday. He will phone me back on Tuesday. So escalating it to their management seems to have added on another 24 hour wait to my order to go through.

So this guy tells me there is no way to fast track it, no way to put in a complaint to wholesale, no way of contacting them and no way of getting any sort of acknowledgement that they will review or do something about this. He tells me no point speaking to a manager about my complaint until the service goes live to arrange compensation. When I mentioned that I rely on the internet for pretty much everything, including it being a source of income - he says only BT Business can reimburse for that and as I am a personal customer - they won't. He tells me his manager has a slightly higher threshold than what he can offer to the customer as 'goodwill gesture'.

Has anyone had a similar experience with them? Is there really nobody senior or higher up the food chain - I can complain to? If my service ever goes live (frankly I have zero confidence it will be live by midnight on Monday) - what should I demand from them as means of recompensing me?

jaybeetoo

You've posted this today but are talking about events of 3 months ago.

Do you now have Internet?

When did you get it?

Browntoa

You are entitled to no compensation as it's a residential line not a business line other than the possible refund of line charges. If you need the live for your business pay a business tariff and get the enhanced service levels it gives you

Took them 3 weeks to get my phone and broadband working when I moved

nomaddjs

Apologies, of course I meant December, as I did mention the black Friday offers. I am quite dazed right now. I don't run a business so why would I need a business line? But I do get some income from things such as eBay and other little ventures for me to get by. I am largely housebound due to long-term illness and rely on internet for almost all my needs. I have had to ask to stay over at relative's house for the weekend.

Even the customer rep on the phone said I am entitled to compensation, just not entitled to be reimbursed for loss of income (that is for business customers only). Was just wondering what the goodwill gesture includes?

Browntoa

It's not a goodwill gesture , it's a set minimal amount a day

victor2

You have an alternative way of accessing the internet as you've posted on here.
If a business line, with it's corresponding service level agreement, is not realistic for you, make sure you can do all your essential stuff on whatever alternative you have, or look for something, possibly using the mobile networks, that will keep vital things running.
Compensation for lack of service on domestic customers is rarely more than what you have paid for the service to be there.

iniltous

It sounds as though the rectification to the problem is in hand, just that it isn't as quick as you would like, but just for clarity, who was your previous provider ?, do you have dialtone but no broadband , or no service at all ?
Obviously , when you call another provider and ask ' will the changeover be quick and painless ?' they are going to say 'yes' , in the vast majority of cases this will be true
As far as compensation is concerned, you should at the very least get a refund for the days you had no service , and they may offer something extra ,( a month free rental etc) but as you have already been told, they wait until the service is working before having that discussion, and don't expect too much, it's a business that operates on tiny margins as it is, also as others have said, business critical applications should have business level service and pay business level rental ( but get business level response to problems,) if someone really does rely totally on the internet then a residential service is not really suitable

warehouse

I had BT internet until it went wrong, then it took them over a week to fix it including 4 engineer visits. They are absolutely beyond useless. And then some.

The only way I got them to do anything positive was to be a complete and utter pain in the backside to them. I refused to be fobbed off and stayed on the line for hours, then called back straight away again, until someone took ownership. Take control and don't believe a word they say.

As soon as they fixed my fault I left and joined Virgin.

nomaddjs

Genuinely cannot understand why I am getting such a hostile response from a couple of people on here. I was told I would be connected on the 12th of December and promised that I wouldn't be offline for longer than a couple of hours. My previous contract wasn't running out until September next year and really the only reason I switched was to get a slightly faster connection. So I was sold a package under false pretences. They can't even log it as a fault because their supplier which is still BT hasn't bothered to close off the order. But frankly it can be anything as there is no way to verify or prove anything I am being told.

It is now the 27th, 15 days after my internet was meant to go live and I still have no access to the internet in my house. The bloke that is handling my case, is off on holidays - so there is nobody available to speak to me. I have phoned them up and they keep saying that they are not allowed to speak to me, not allowed to redirect me to a manager as my case is with a complaints person already. I have tried to make a complaint about him because he mocked me and failed to put the questions I have asked to the relevant department, but it would appear he closed that complaint.

I have been staying at my relatives for the last few days. So the situation has forced me to leave my own house just to get some normality back in my life. And yes maybe to an average person they would be fine without internet for over 2 weeks, I rely on the internet for nearly all of my needs and cannot function without.

If only they were as prompt at connecting me as they were at taking money out of my account for the service I am yet to receive. The wait goes on.

Browntoa

Email the ceo

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/sep/18/customer-complaint-ceo-better-than-customer-services