BG telling deaf customer to phone in

CJ123

Hi. Just wanted to say a friend of mine who is deaf has been told to phone in to set up a payment plan.

She has previously authorised me to be on the account until further notice but when I have had to call up which is many times, every time they will only talk to me if she is with me.

Their live chat advisors who we have spoke to (about 20 so far are totally useless. Either don't give a jot or have not been trained.

elsien

Does she have a textphone idea or sign language? Either of those would allow her to make contact directly. 

CJ123

She doesn't no.

CJ123

How is she supposed to do sign language with them on the phone?

elsien

They have a video sign language set up for people to use.

cannugec5

CJ123 said:

Hi. Just wanted to say a friend of mine who is deaf has been told to phone in to set up a payment plan.

She has previously authorised me to be on the account until further notice but when I have had to call up which is many times, every time they will only talk to me if she is with me.

Their live chat advisors who we have spoke to (about 20 so far are totally useless. Either don't give a jot or have not been trained.

Unfortunately I think you will need written evidence of your entitlement to act on her behalf. As in Official Power of Attorney documents that need to be sent in and a copy retained for their records .
This is to protect both the company, the customer and yourself. 

Something as important as a payment plan really can’t be left to a friend to just help with. It needs a formal and legal basis. 

I have needed to do this in order to deal with a friend’s electricity account. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Relay UK is a service that can be used like a textphone but using an ordinary smartphone/tablet/laptop/PC
https://www.relayuk.bt.com/

(I don't have personal experience with it but surely worth a try for the potential independence it might enable.)

CJ123

cannugec5 said:

CJ123 said:

Hi. Just wanted to say a friend of mine who is deaf has been told to phone in to set up a payment plan.

She has previously authorised me to be on the account until further notice but when I have had to call up which is many times, every time they will only talk to me if she is with me.

Their live chat advisors who we have spoke to (about 20 so far are totally useless. Either don't give a jot or have not been trained.

Unfortunately I think you will need written evidence of your entitlement to act on her behalf. As in Official Power of Attorney documents that need to be sent in and a copy retained for their records .
This is to protect both the company, the customer and yourself. 

Something as important as a payment plan really can’t be left to a friend to just help with. It needs a formal and legal basis. 

I have needed to do this in order to deal with a friend’s electricity account. 

There was signed documents and was accepted a few times (she's not fully deaf so can answer some basic questions on the phone) via telephone, but every time after even just to access the account details, they stated they had no record of it.

Even via the complaints route we were both told to contact their payments team via telephone for any kind of payment to make.

It took 20ish requests via webchat and 2 complaints over 6 months to do a simple homemove update.

I had to ask for a complaint after 20 X contacts. I know I should have done it much earlier, but you just keep thinking someone would have some competence. Even then they just raised and closed the complaint saying it was because of the number of times of contact and not because they still had not updated correctly.

CJ123

Basically they just tried any excuse to fob you off. Clearly never listened to what you actually say.