Bloody Terrible (BT) Service

Bloody Terrible (BT) Experience.

We have been waiting 7 weeks for the internet to be connected in our new home and there is still no sign of it happening. I think the service from BT is appalling.
Like many families the internet is very important to us – I work a lot from home , we live stream TV and music so without the internet we really struggle. Mobile phone signals are weak in the house and so we cannot even use a dongle and there is insufficient signal from neighbors to connect via their BT WiFi.
I have been a loyal BT customer for many years and contacted the removal service ahead of moving house. They confirmed disconnection of the old service on Feb 1 and that an engineer would come to the new house on Feb 1 to connect us. On January 29, the visit was cancelled and rearranged to Feb 4.
Although our house is new it is a single home, infill build within an established area of housing all of whom have BT WiFi that is working. The builder of the house had phone and broadband installed by BT for his own use during construction and on Feb 1 when we moved in both phone and internet were connected and working.
On Feb4 the engineer came and connected a new phone and disconnected the broadband telling me it should be back on before midnight. When the broadband did not come on, I called BT the following day. This was the first of many calls I have made to BT. The first question BT ask is for your phone number but the engineer who installed the phone did not tell us what is was and we received no communication with the number. The number was also ‘withheld’ so I could not check it myself. I managed to track the engineer down who installed the phone and he gave me the phone number but when I called BT and gave them this number they had no record of it and essentially told me that I did not have a phone line despite calling customer services with the house phone. After 3 days BT accepted I had a phone line but told me it was not connected correctly and as a result my ‘service’ would have to be reordered and the pathway mapped to the exchange.
Having to work in Waitrose car park is no fun and on Feb 11 I found the email of BT’s CEO, Philip Jansen and emailed him complaining about the poor service. On Feb 12 I received a reply from a person in ‘ executive customer resolutions’ who promised investigation and action. Having made multiple calls to BT and each time having to start explaining from scratch this felt like a breakthrough. I now had a named contact with phone and email details but although he has kept in contact and seems to be trying to help, it has essentially been a string of apologies. BT has to work through Openreach so it seems down to Openreach when ,if ever, I will be connected.
I have had a series of emails from BT thanking me for my order then cancelling my order followed by notifications of re-order. These orders must be being placed within BT as I have placed no orders myself since my initial call to establish to the moving service in January. I have received a total of 7 dates including Feb1 on which the internet is to be connected and on each occasion it has not happened and on each occasion I have received no explanation- no call, no email, no text just nothing. I received one email saying I would receive new equipment on March 13 and the service would be switched on the following day. The equipment arrived and it was a new Home Hub.I connected it but March 14 came and went just as all the other days BT has told me the service will be connected.
I have pressed my contact on ‘executive customer resolutions’ for an explanation of the problem but he has seemed reluctant to tell me finally emailing that it was a ‘problem connecting my service at the local exchange’. The last communication I had from him was last week when he promised me he would give me an update ‘early next week’ but it is now Frdiay and I have had nothing. He has also repeated emailed that he is ‘escalating’ the problem with Openreach but there has been no result of his efforts. He seems as powerless as me.
Ofcom tell me they cannot look into individual cases and in the situation where Openreach seem to have a monopoly on installations I cannot go to the competition, (There is no Virgin cable where I live).
This is a massively frustrating situation and it has really ruined our house move. Like many families we are very dependent on the internet and not having it is really very disruptive.
I don’t even really understand what the problem is and I have no date for when it will be fixed. Even if I got a new date having had 7 previously means I will only believe it when I see the blue light on the Home Hub.
I am close to retirement and have worked at senior levels in industry for many years and I have never, ever seen service as poor as this. The absence of broadband connection is of course the worst part but the failure to communicate what the problem really is and when it will be fixed is almost as bad and equally frustrating. To say nothing of disconnecting a working service and leaving me with none and installing a new phone line and not giving me the number Most frustratingly, there seems little I can do about it.
I am sure Mr Jansen (BT) and Mr Selley (Openreach) will not read this post .It seems their organizations do not put the customer first so I doubt they have any interest whatsoever in my experience. When organisations desert their customers then those customers desert those organisations but when you need Openreach to install and there is no competition you have almost no options. From this experience the customer is but an irritant . BT has not been rude but in this case they have been totally ineffective.
If anyone has any advice, I would be grateful. I recently learnt that there is a small, local provider, Zoom, which covers my area and provides broadband without using BTs infrastructure. Does anyone have any experience of this provider?
Martin Edwards

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