BT: The Saga Continues…

 Computers, Internet, Life  No Responses »
Dec 182012
 

This is getting longer than the Star Wars Saga now*… Following on from my initial moan about BT and my second blog post about it I thought I’d give an update seeing as they have annoyed me yet again. And I still have no Internetz.

On Saturday morning (5 days after BT should have installed my broadband) I submitted a support request to @BTCare who had already said that if I didn’t hear from someone by Friday at 8pm to get in touch directly with them. This is what I sent:

Hi. Still waiting for my Broadband to be connected and not happy with being lied to multiple times with promised call backs that don’t materialise. Also been billed for broadband when you haven’t even installed it yet!

Full details can be found here: http://maft.co.uk/musings/2012/moving-to-bt-not-the-best-start/ and here: http://maft.co.uk/musings/2012/bt-bloody-terrible/

Sorry, it’s too much to rewrite it all again!

Hope something can get sorted. I am really not happy.

 

That same afternoon evening I received this reply from ‘Paul S’ of @BTCare:

Hi,

Thanks for getting in touch and sorry to hear about the problems, I’ve checked this out and the what happened is that the broadband part of the order was cancelled by Wholesale meaning it had to be reissued, if you have been told anything other than this then I apologise. The order has now been replaced and an expedite request issued, a response to that should be received on Monday and at that point we will know when the service will start.

I am hopeful that the response on Monday will be a good one based on the history here so I will let you know what’s happening then, you may also be contacted by another team that are monitoring the issue for you but that’s just so you know. Sorry this happened in the first place but chat soon, one last thing, we are aware of certain restrictions on dates so that won’t be a problem, take care.

Paul
BTCare

This actually got my hopes up. It was as though someone at BT actually cared that customers we being ignored, lied to and being treated like poop. The promise that there would be a (hopefully good) response by Monday actually meant I stopped thinking about it for the rest of the weekend and all day yesterday (Monday).

As the day drew on and I still had no call from BT I was beginning to revert back to thinking that they just don’t care… It’s now 8am the morning after I was supposed to hear back from BT and still nothing…

Last night I had a little whine on The Twitter:

To which @BTCare replied:

Forgive me for being cynical, but wasn’t I promised this before? You know, someone actually getting in touch with me about the service I’m paying for that STILL hasn’t been installed??!!

It’s getting beyond a joke now, I’m only sticking it out as I probably have enough ammunition now for a fairly hefty discount for the best part of a year!

 

*Footnote:  By my calculations the entire Star Wars saga is 797 mins (all 6 episodes). As of 8am Tuesday 18th December 2012 187 hours have passed since BT should have installed my broadband. In that time I could have watched the entire Star Wars saga 14 (fourteen) times.

BT: Bloody Terrible

 Computers, Internet, Life  1 Response »
Dec 142012
 

Follow on from this post

So 8pm came and went, I called them and spent 40 minutes on the phone to India but couldn’t actually get anywhere because the orders and billing departments were both closed. So they have requested a call-back for me between 10-11am tomorrow… I wonder if THAT one will materialise?

As you can guess, I’m pretty mad – even more annoyed at the number of broken promised from BT. I mean, really, how hard is it to activate a phone line before an engineer comes?! They managed to get the hub to me on time… not that I can use it…

Moving to BT: Not The Best Start…

 Home, Internet, Life  2 Responses »
Dec 142012
 

On Friday 23rd November we exchanged contracts and agreed a moving date of Friday 30th November. On that day I also ordered BT’s Infinity 2 60MB Fibre Optic Broadband Package as my previous supplier of 60MB broadband, Virgin Media, don’t do our new address. After ordering I was told they couldn’t connect it all up until Monday 10th December. A bit annoying, but I could live with tethering on my phone.

Monday 10th came and my son had been admitted to hospital the night before however Mrs-MaFt was at home for when the engineer arrived at 8.45am. This is when the problems started… The engineer couldn’t do anything because, it turned out, BT had not activated the phone line. He had another job to get to but said he would try get back later in the day or, at the latest, he would come the following day and get it all done. Slightly more annoying but I could live with a one day delay. So, later in the day I get a text message and an email confirming the phone line is now up and running… but no broadband engineer was to be seen. That’s OK, he said he would come back the next day.

The following morning I get this text message from BT:

BT SMS 1

What?! I missed the appointment? And you expect me to wait another 2 weeks??!! I was, as you may expect, pretty fuming. I could maybe understand having to wait another 2 weeks if we had actually missed the appointment, but considering someone was in all day even while our son was in hospital I think we did pretty damn well at keeping the appointment! So, I phoned them up to see what they were playing at. Basically they admitted it was their fault and they don’t expect me to wait two weeks until the engineer can come back. So they said they would fast-track it and try get someone out in the next few days – I confirmed that any day that week would be fine. They said they would check with the engineering people and get back to me later in the day.

‘Later in the day’ came and there was still no call returned – this was about 6pm. So I phoned them back. After going through the whole story again I was told that it was on my account that they would phone me the following day (Wednesday) so I queried why I was told it would be the same day when they called back. He also said there’s nothing he could do as it’s been escalated already.

The next day I got this:

BT SMS 2

Guess what? I was a little bit annoyed… Actually, no I wasn’t, I was VERY annoyed (with capital letters). As I was told not to phone them I went to The Twitter to have a bit of a moan to @BTCare who, to be fair to that department, seemed to be trying to be helpful. However as it had already been escalated and I’d been given a date/time that they would contact me by they couldn’t really do much else.

Yesterday to rub some more salt in my wounds they sent me a bill for my broadband services. You know, the one they haven’t actually provided me with. Remember I’m still not allowed to phone them so I went to their online chat to ‘discuss my bill’. Here’s the conversation I had (click to enlarge):

BT Billing Query

 

Five o’clock came and went with no return call from Syed Saaduddin. To be honest, I’m used to being let down by BT now that it didn’t actually annoy me that much. Perhaps this is their super new business idea – annoy their customers so much that they just drop dead in exasperation!

So now, here I am, sitting, waiting for BT to call me. They currently have just over 3 1/2 hours left to call me and give me a new installation date. And explain why they haven’t done anything that they promised. And why they are charging me for a service they aren’t providing. And why they seemingly don’t understand that the ‘T’ in ‘BT’ is, basically, for ‘COMMUNICATION’ – which they seem inept at.

I’ll update later tonight or tomorrow with whether or not they actually call me before 8pm. If you want a sneak peak though you can follow me on The Twitter via @MaFt where no doubt I will be doing some suppressed swears shortly after 8pm. When BT’s lines are probably closed…

 

FOLLOW UP POST: “BT: Bloody Terrible”