Major BT Difficulties - Advice Please!!

Dragonfly1

Hi Guys. I don't know where to start so I'll try to summarise the case so far. My grandmother has BT Basic Telephone Line for many years and has unfortunately - at her age of 94 - become increasingly vulnerable and lives alone, with some cognitive impairment but no formal diagnosis. We live a few minutes away and due to her poor memory, want to install some CCTV which she is in agreement with to help protect (& reassure) her.

Therefore we called BT on 24th November and they agreed to add on BT Basic Broadband [ADSL]  to go live on 1st December.
The order was automatically cancelled for reasons unknown on 30th November, and re-ordered to go live on 8th December.
I called on the 6th December to ensure no problems and BT said the 'go live' had not been confirmed by OpenReach and they would contact "the engineer". I duly received a text to confirm that the broadband had no problems and would go live on 8th December.
On the 7th of December, the phone line completely stopped working. I called and they raised a line fault which would be fixed within 48 hours at the latest. It was not fixed.
The broadband did not go live on 8th December and I received an email to call them. I waited on hold again for over an hour before they actually answer the phone. The person did not know why the broadband did not go live (initially thinking we had cancelled it our end....) and could not see any line problem but would book an engineer to visit within 72 hours.

In the mean time, my grandmother fell over and required an ambulance visit to A&E with a CT scan. She suffered in silence for just under 24 hours until she could call for help because there was no phone line. She has absolutely no idea how to use mobiles and wouldn't be able to learn due to the cognition not being great. I called BT and said 72 hours is unacceptable for a problem which they said should already be fixed. I asked to speak to a manager. This was refused as "They are working from home". He then insisted he would get the "welfare team" to call, and an engineer would visit the property the same day due to her vulnerability between 6 and 9pm. I waited at her house and of course they never showed up.
I raised a complaint on the BT website.
No reply to the complaint 48 hours later, I emailed the CEO of BT Group with a photo of her injuries from the fall explaining that they have abandoned her.
On 14th December they call to state an engineer will need to visit for the broadband installation on 15th December and I need to be at her property between 8am - 1pm.

Fast forward to 15th December @ 2pm and somebody from BT calls and explains there isn't actually a line fault, but they have accidentally completely disconnected her phone number from the exchange and the number is lost. He has no idea how or why this happened. He would now need to cancel the broadband [due to go live that day] and then place an order for a new phone line.  He says he will place the line installation request the same-day or 16th December at the latest and will call me to confirm this has happened and he will be handling the case from now on.  This morning I receive an email stating the broadband is now live! Except it cannot be, because there isn't a phone line connection. 

I called BT this afternoon as I am really worried and they sent an internal message to him to call me back, but he hasn't. The "Connections" person can see it says my Broadband is live but it is physically impossible to be live as there is no phoneline. There is no request for a new phone line installation at present - but it cannot be made anyway because the Broadband order has not been cancelled.

I literally have no idea how to proceed. She lives alone, is 94, and has already had one injury which could have been so much worse. Even the burglar alarm doesn't work because it is connected to the phone line. Sorry for the long post. I am just worried. I don't want her to stay at our house because some of the family do work on Covid wards.

JJ_Egan

her BT Members help page > community forum  and ask the basic question . Top level CS may get involved .

blue70

I sympathise with your problems. I've had ongoing issues with BT and Openreach since July with the relatively simple task of installing fibre at my address. Openreach are an atrociously run organisation, we've had numerous appointments cancelled, various levels of deceit, a complete lack of customer service and apparently the complete inability of their engineers to perform even simple tasks. BT, who are Openreachs customer, seem to accept all of this with a shrug of their metaphorical shoulder and a complete reluctance to change anything for the better or challenge this poor service. I eventually made some progress after I sent a 9 page complaint letter to the CEO of both companies but I'm still a long way from this matter being resolved. I've got to the stage now where I will only communicate with them over email as this gives me an indisputable record of our conversations whereas the details of any phone conversation I had with them was altered, denied, misinterpreted etc when I had the misfortune of speaking to them next time.

My advice is to escalate your complaint to this level, it probably won't resolve it quickly but you will (maybe) see some progress.
Some useful email address for you -  
consumer-resolutionteam@bt.com
philip.jansen@bt.com
clive.selley@openreach.co.uk

xlnc99

google bt management team. Email every person, someone will get back to you straight away.

jsmith9

cut and paste the description you wrote into the emails - it is very vivid.

also maybe contact the 'agony aunt' of your favourite newspaper

Dragonfly1

Well finally some good news!
The phone line is operating. The broadband is live!
The router that they posted out only contained the router and the power block - no ethernet cable & no telephone - to router cable & no micro-filters. The replacement that they sent out to correct this... was also missing the above! Anyways I got them cheap on Amazon.

Now they are calling tomorrow to discuss compensation.

The complaints person has said I am owed £84 (£7 x 12 days) - since the original order was never "Confirmed to go live" by OpenReach. Despite BT simply cancelling the order on the day it was meant to go live. The same with the 2nd order. So he calculates I'm only delayed from the 3rd order, and calculating the payment from the go-live date of the third order. As the automatic compensation only kicks in once Openreach confirm a go-live date (Despite me having numerous emails on ordering stating the Go live date....)

He says Engineers 'attended' on both occassions and therefore they did not miss an appointment -they simply didn't need to ever visit the house. So he claims they do not owe 2 x £25.

And there would be no gesture of good will / compensation for simply not having a phone-line and me being on the phone for so many hours with them / nothing for the fact she was unable to call for help for so long requiring hospital admission etc.

If I take this to the Ombudsmen, is it fair to expect considerably more compensation? He said £84, and I told him back approximately £200 based on the original go-live date, hassle, and 2x missed engineer appointments [which I waited at the property for, as instructed to].
He plans to call me back tomorrow with a final offer after he has "reviewed the facts of the matter again".

I would fancy my chances if it was a bank ombudsmen, but no idea how the broadband/telephone equivalent compares on matters of subjectivity of extremely poor service.

P.S. Not sure where he got £7/day from, I thought it should be £5/day. 

The_Fat_Controller

If you take it further, make sure you follow the process correctly.
https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/about-bt/policy-and-regulation/our-governance-and-strategy/codes-of-practice/customer-complaints-code/complaints-code.pdf

JJ_Egan

(If I take this to the Ombudsmen, is it fair to expect considerably more compensation)

No and it could be less .

Open Reach do not always need to attend any place bar exchange or local cabinet .

carol_wynne

I am so glad you are managing to get this sorted at last.
We are also having awful problems with BT , my mum is 90 and the complaints procedure for vulnerable adults is a joke - I will post my issue 

JJ_Egan

Vulnerable  is she registered with BT as such ??