Our experience with BT

Bebi · Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject: Our experience with BT

We'd been running AOL Gold broadband through a BT line for about two years before we moved house. We did everything right and informed everyone that we were moving in due course. AOL told us it takes 10 days for BT to enable the ADSL line and offered us free dial-up in the meantime. I can't remember the exact date, but I know for definite we should have been on broadband by June 1st. Four weeks later the ADSL still isn't enabled and we have moved to NTL. During this month AOL tried their best to get us up and running, sending us a free modem (latest model, worth £90) and crediting our account with a free month of service. They also offered us Broadband Platinum for 12 months at Gold prices, with free McAfee antivirus and a free wireless router. BT, however, were less than helpful. The company that owns the ADSL side of the line is called BT Wholesale/Openreach. BT claim this company is "absolutely nothing to do with them" and just stated over and over again that we had to call AOL and get them to sort it. Around the 18th June AOL told us that BT Wholesale had reported a major outage in our area on 17th June and it would take some time to fix. We explained in turn that our problem had been going on for almost three weeks previously to that. We spent around four hours on the telephone for the best part of two weeks trying to convince BT that BT Wholesale had instructed AOL for us to call BT as there was a problem with the telephone side of the line. Here is an example:

vincent · 0 - 9 Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 4

Bebi · Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:11 pm Post subject:

Ha! Look what I saw when I took the kids to feed the ducks by the canal...

And to add insult to injury they'd parked the vans across the entire pathway and my children and I had to walk in a busy road to get past Smilie_PDT

_________________
It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:39 pm Post subject:

Well, we went with NTL for a bit, and are now back with BT (long story...)

We decided to go for the BT Broadband this time, as BT can offer us 8mb and any other provider using the BT line can only offer less than 1mb. Also, we assumed that using BT’s own service would get us connected and up and running faster. How wrong were we…

The five day waiting period was up on Wednesday (27th) and we waited until 8pm as instructed before calling and asking why we weren’t on. The ADSL line to our house was completely dead. We were advised that the account may not have been activated yet, and to wait 24 hours. Andy asked them to do a line test, which they did and the line was completely fine, according to them it was simply an administration thing.

We called Thursday during the day and the representative told us it was down to BT Wholesale (them again!) to activate the line. She tried to get through to them for us but they weren’t answering she said, and to call back after 8pm for an update.

We called back Thursday evening after 8pm and were told again that it was an administration problem and to talk to accounts, who by chance weren’t available after 6pm. We were told they were open until 10pm by the last accounts rep we spoke to, but obviously she was mistaken, as it’s only the technical help who are there until 10pm, the account section leaves at 6, as we were advised by the technical help rep. In all we called them four times Thursday, ranging from between 14 minutes and 17 minutes on hold each time.

This morning Andy called them to be told that there is a problem with our line that BT Wholesale need to find and fix. Andy was then told to call back Monday and they hung up on him. He’s spent the best part of the morning trying to get back through and keeps getting a recorded message saying that due to high traffic the help centre is working Sunday and to call back then. Hmmm…

I said to Andy yesterday as soon as BT Wholesale were mentioned that this feels like déjà vu, and he agreed. We now know for definite that the reason we cannot get broadband is all down to BT. We also did a search for BT Wholesale online and came up with the following website. http://www.btwholesale.com/index.jsp Please note the very clear “BT Telecommunications” copyright notice at the bottom. Here’s their broadband homepage: http://www.btwholesale.com/get_broadband/index.html

We are currently writing to BT and putting in an official complaint regarding this. We’re disgusted with the way we’ve been treated. Believe it or not every single call we’ve made from our new system is to BT, apart from three calls. The best thing is we keep getting advised to call an 0845 number for support, which won’t be classed under our free evening and weekend calls. We’re half expecting a call/letter telling us we’ve exceeded our monthly call limit and are being placed onto incoming calls…

Andy’s just got some information from an accounts rep. She’s spoken to BT Wholesale and they have said “it has been assigned to an engineer and will be sorted out by Monday”. They’ve not told her what the problem is or anything, Andy asked and she said they didn’t give out that information. We’ve now got to call back after 8pm on Monday if it isn’t on. Somehow I don’t think it will be…

This problem has actually been going on since the very first time we applied for broadband at this address, way back in June. As Andy’s just said, ”we’d better get some serious compensation for this shit” because that’ all it is – shit.

Here’s what the BT Wholesale website has to say when I entered my telephone number to query if we can get broadband…

Bebi · Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:31 am Post subject:

Sunday, at 13:30, we received a phone call saying our BT broadband was “working perfectly”. I called them this morning at 8:45 to hear a recorded message saying the phone lines open at 9am. Okay… I called back at 9 on the dot, and received the same message. Eventually at 9:10 I managed to get in a queue to be cut off after 10 minutes on hold when I reached the end. I had time to say “hello?” before the dial tone. I rang back and again was in a queue for 10 minutes. After I’d explained everything (all over again) the operator asked me to wait on hold while he “checked it out”. The display on the phone said 15:39 when I was put on hold. At 19:06 I was again cut off. I was so mad I went and stood outside for a few minutes with my coffee or I’d have ended up throwing the phone… I called again and after 15 and a half minutes I reached the end of the queue. After giving my details I told the operator I wanted to know exactly what was going on and why we’ve been told four times now that the broadband is working when it isn’t. I was put on hold and when he came back he told me that this time they’re going to send an engineer on a home visit. At last!

Watch this space Smilie_PDT

_________________
It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness