BT...a cautionary tale

johannis

I thought I'd share my current nightmare with BT as a cautionary tale to those thinking of switching.
I recently decided to switch my tv, phone and broadband to BT from Sky. I wasn't unhappy with sky but I was paying £95 a month and an offer from BT could see this half and my BBC speed increasing.
I ask q's here, understood the customer service issues BT has and the potential difficulties that may arise. I enter into this with my eyes open, but frankly even I'm surprised by what a mess this is.

21st Nov, ordered BT package. Don't need to inform sky, they'll do it for me
28th Nov, router, youview box and connectors arrive
2nd Dec, received email saying an engineer would come on Dec 5th
Same day tracked order, it said my bb had been 'cancelled'
Rang BT, not to worry they said, it happens, will delay your bb by a day.
6th Dec, engineer been, waited the extra day...no bb?
7th Dec, no bb, no joy with BT help
8th Dec, try BT help number again, rings for 2.5 hours, no answer
Same day a nice lady or 'handler' as I like to call them rings to apologise, they've ballsed up, but they are trying to make it right, BBC will be up in a couple of days.
(This is all very well, we expected a couple of days before disruption, but now my wife who normally works from home has had to travel to London two days in a row and childcare costs on top!)
Dec 11th, no bb another handler rings, she has personally taken up my case and we will have be by the 13th! Then everything will be fine and we will discuss compensation.
13th bb working...yes! Plug in tv box etc...nothing I ordered is there?
15th different handler rings, is everything ok? No I said the TV isn't working...she checks...when the bb was reordered they cancelled the TV!!! Don't worry though it'll be right soon.
18th another different handler rings, turns out they can't fix it until the 29th of December? I go off the rails
19th a new handler rings, identifies himself as a manager, taking charge of this case now. He is sorting everything out and it will be working properly before Christmas...he will send me an email to confirm
20th, got email, they are sending me another box and charging me postage!!!!
24th different handler...is everything alright...NO! She goes though everything, it appears I have two different accounts set up!
She is going to sort it out...
I'm not confident, I had to explain to her what AMC was

I then gave up for Christmas...

Rang today, first chance I'd had, spoke to a chap called a Darren at their main help desk.
The last woman had done virtually everything wrong, he was now looking after the case...

Today I also found that Sky are still charging me...they haven't cancelled my sky...

6 weeks+, hundreds of pounds out of pocket, still not sorted

I knew it wouldn't be straightforward, but this is silly

I will keep you posted...
Be wary of a BT deal...I haven't even thought about the pain of claiming the reward credit card yet...

DazJames90

I have a similar case ongoing with Sky, not as bad as yours but my previous provider wasn't notified i was switching and because of that I incurred a huge charge. I don't really know how to deal with it. I've logged a complaint but I just keep being passed from pillar to post.

johannis

To be fair to my 'handlers' they offer information about compensation procedures, but I can't really go down that route until I know where it ends.
They are all as useless as each other, I found sky's help desk ok, but if anyone is thinking of BT, track the order early and if anything is amiss dial 150 and ask for easy assist, at least that saves the farmed out helpdesk.

boatman

I joined BT, had 3 weeks without broadband, that was moving from Plusnet who are owned by bt. They are useless. Got a mobile contract and been waiting 4 months for the Amazon voucher that was supposed to arrive after a month..

AndyPK

I does seam best to avoid BT, even if they do a good deal for 12months

[Deleted User]

I don't understand why anyone trusts any company to "cancel" the services of another provider?

Basically, only the account holder can give notice of cancellation.

johannis

I spoke to Sky about this today, the way BT sells its package suggests they do everything, but in fact all they do is cancel the bb and phone, you have to cancel the tv.
...only BT actually failed to terminate the BBC and phone too because they allocated me a new phone number...it's really incredible
They really don't make the procedure clear, and while Sky have backdated my termination date and waived the 31 day notice period I'm still going to be out of pocket.
More grist to my compensation mill!
I should've been more savvy mind, should've checked with sky when I ordered the BT package.

sportsarb

What is the BBC you keep referring to?

[Deleted User]

sportsarb wrote: »

What is the BBC you keep referring to?

Looks like an autocorrect on BB, so broadband rather than British Broadcasting Company

There are regular cases of failures on the part of new providers to successfully "cancel" the original provider reported here on the forum.

As I said in my earlier post, I would never rely on such a "service".

johannis

sportsarb wrote: »

What is the BBC you keep referring to?

Sorry, iPad autocorrects everything, I can't keep up.
As stated BB is broadband.

littleboo

johannis wrote: »

I spoke to Sky about this today, the way BT sells its package suggests they do everything, but in fact all they do is cancel the bb and phone, you have to cancel the tv..

When you migrate phone and broadband, you are normally replacing one providers service on a pair of wires with anothers, so there is an interaction between the two. They cant co-exist at the same time.

The TV part is totally different, its quite possible to keep Sky TV and have BT or TT TV in addition so yes you would need to mange the TV part. I doubt that Sky would action a TV cancellation from BT.