In praise of BT

[Puggit]

Lost our broadband last night - raised a call with BT at 8pm as it was clear the line was at fault. Spoke to someone in a UK callcentre, who passed the fault on to OpenReach to fix, eta tomorrow.

Engineer has already been and gone and fixed the problem.

I'm in shock

[dwilkie]

Must be coincidence surely? It sounds like when I fixed several of a customers servers that went down in the middle of the night. By flicking the circuit breaker I'd leant on back on!

[Puggit]

Well - he fixed it accidently while bungling about in the junction box.

He never found the fault, but seems it was 2 wires touching in the junction box (interference on line, phantom phone calls).

It's working now though (13 hours without PH!)

[anonymous-user]

If used BT for ages and never had a problem with them. Even on the rare occasion something has gone wrong they've been really quick to fix it.

Most people you speak to seem to think they're rubbish.

[Beefmeister]

Orange - couldn't be any more different.

6 days - 6 calls - no service still.

I politely told them that as this is the 3rd outage in 6 months (the other 2 lasting c.3 weeks each) that they will be giving me my MAC code and not chanrging me for the rest of my contract.

They agreed, and i'm now thinking of eother Sky broadband or O2 broadband...

[corrado 1990]

Expect a 'one off fee' on your bill for £65 next month for the pleasure.

Then when you query it expect no response even after several written complaints sent by recorded delivery.

Then find debt collection agents letters in your letter box once a week for several months even though you have raised a complaint with BT via 3 methods (written, email and phone) and now through the ombudsman and alerted said agents of your methods to resolve the problem.




They are a bunch of bullying, profiteering w@nkers who will try on their 'one off fee' tactic with anybody just to raise a few extra quid. This is my second time they've done it to me, I won the first time and I'm now waiting the ombudsmans descision on the second. Its only £65, but how many people just pay it via DD then can't be arsed to claim it back? I realise this may be affecting my credit rating, but when the ombudsman makes his descision I will make sure BT but right all their wrongs by one way or another.


I will never, ever deal with BT again and i hope ALL of their spineless, responsibility-dodging employees get made redundant for 2009.

[spitfire-ian]

el stovey said:

If used BT for ages and never had a problem with them. Even on the rare occasion something has gone wrong they've been really quick to fix it.

Most people you speak to seem to think they're rubbish.

I've never had a problem either. Quite often the people complaining are the ones shouting the loudest.

[OJ]

I have to agree, on the multiple occasions I've had to deal with BT they have been exceptionally useless without exception

[fatboy b]

Puggit said:

Engineer has already been and gone and fixed the problem.

No, he's not an engineer, he's a technician.

[dwilkie]

corrado 1990 said:

I will never, ever deal with BT again and i hope ALL of their spineless, responsibility-dodging employees get made redundant for 2009.

Actually, technically, if you use copper lines on some level you're almost certainly dealing with BT now. Sorry bud

[corrado 1990]

I've no phone line at home (mobile phone and broadband do me just fine) and I believe all work work phones are VOIP fibre optic jobbies

[Rower]

Beefmeister said:

Orange - couldn't be any more different.

6 days - 6 calls - no service still.

I politely told them that as this is the 3rd outage in 6 months (the other 2 lasting c.3 weeks each) that they will be giving me my MAC code and not chanrging me for the rest of my contract.

They agreed, and i'm now thinking of eother Sky broadband or O2 broadband...

Be very carefull..... I had a similar problem with Orange a year or 2 ago , told them that their service was not as their contract and that i was moving to another provider , they were very sympathetic and said just stick with them for a bit longer and they would provide a period without charge , I told them no and changed over. A few weeks later a bill for £40 or so arrived , when queeried was told it was for the 'free' period but as I did not stay it was no longer free !! Without going into all the numerous calls after we forgot about it......until last week when we got a letter from a debt collecting agency !...............watch this space!


Guy

[dwilkie]

corrado 1990 said:

I've no phone line at home (mobile phone and broadband do me just fine) and I believe all work work phones are VOIP fibre optic jobbies

Smooth. Well aren't you Captain special

[fatboy b]

Rower said:

Beefmeister said:

Orange - couldn't be any more different.

6 days - 6 calls - no service still.

I politely told them that as this is the 3rd outage in 6 months (the other 2 lasting c.3 weeks each) that they will be giving me my MAC code and not chanrging me for the rest of my contract.

They agreed, and i'm now thinking of eother Sky broadband or O2 broadband...

Be very carefull..... I had a similar problem with Orange a year or 2 ago , told them that their service was not as their contract and that i was moving to another provider , they were very sympathetic and said just stick with them for a bit longer and they would provide a period without charge , I told them no and changed over. A few weeks later a bill for £40 or so arrived , when queeried was told it was for the 'free' period but as I did not stay it was no longer free !! Without going into all the numerous calls after we forgot about it......until last week when we got a letter from a debt collecting agency !...............watch this space!


Guy

Pay it. You won't win. I had a very similar experience with Vodaphone a few years back. They were complete tossers over it.

[Beefmeister]

fatboy b said:

Rower said:

Beefmeister said:

Orange - couldn't be any more different.

6 days - 6 calls - no service still.

I politely told them that as this is the 3rd outage in 6 months (the other 2 lasting c.3 weeks each) that they will be giving me my MAC code and not chanrging me for the rest of my contract.

They agreed, and i'm now thinking of eother Sky broadband or O2 broadband...

Be very carefull..... I had a similar problem with Orange a year or 2 ago , told them that their service was not as their contract and that i was moving to another provider , they were very sympathetic and said just stick with them for a bit longer and they would provide a period without charge , I told them no and changed over. A few weeks later a bill for £40 or so arrived , when queeried was told it was for the 'free' period but as I did not stay it was no longer free !! Without going into all the numerous calls after we forgot about it......until last week when we got a letter from a debt collecting agency !...............watch this space!


Guy

Pay it. You won't win. I had a very similar experience with Vodaphone a few years back. They were complete tossers over it.

Ah, luckily i only have a month left in my contract, and that one is free because of a previous outage they're compensating me for. So they're not losing any money from it this time.

So hopefully it should all be okay, though i will be keeping an eye out!!

Anyone know if i have to send the Livebox thing back to them after the contract is up? I remember someone saying a while ago that you never own it...

[Rach*]

BT are very quiet at the moment (up here in Yorks anyway). People not moving house means no new lines, just faults to rectify. At the local exchange last week, 22 engineers and 20 "jobs on"
Redundancies were being discusses recently.

[The Black Duke]

corrado 1990 said:

Expect a 'one off fee' on your bill for £65 next month for the pleasure.

Then when you query it expect no response even after several written complaints sent by recorded delivery.

Then find debt collection agents letters in your letter box once a week for several months even though you have raised a complaint with BT via 3 methods (written, email and phone) and now through the ombudsman and alerted said agents of your methods to resolve the problem.




They are a bunch of bullying, profiteering w@nkers who will try on their 'one off fee' tactic with anybody just to raise a few extra quid. This is my second time they've done it to me, I won the first time and I'm now waiting the ombudsmans descision on the second. Its only £65, but how many people just pay it via DD then can't be arsed to claim it back? I realise this may be affecting my credit rating, but when the ombudsman makes his descision I will make sure BT but right all their wrongs by one way or another.


I will never, ever deal with BT again and i hope ALL of their spineless, responsibility-dodging employees get made redundant for 2009.

Isn't that like saying I hope all Corrado Drivers crash and all their worldly possessions fry in the fireball because one cut you up on your way to work? I am sure there are many thousands of good BT employees as well a few bad ones so wishing that on them is in my opinion a little bit sick!

Edited by The Black Duke on Wednesday 14th January 10:42

[corrado 1990]

dwilkie said:

corrado 1990 said:

I've no phone line at home (mobile phone and broadband do me just fine) and I believe all work work phones are VOIP fibre optic jobbies

Smooth. Well aren't you Captain special

[Puggit]

Beefmeister said:

Anyone know if i have to send the Livebox thing back to them after the contract is up? I remember someone saying a while ago that you never own it...

They sent a man in a van to collect mine - I hesitate to use the word courier as he really was just a man in a van.

He turned up as we were packing the house up, and it was already loaded in the lorry. Came back next day (only moved a mile away) and picked it up

Apparently he didn't have a very high collection rate, I think they factor in losing the boxes.

[corrado 1990]

The Black Duke said:

corrado 1990 said:

Grrrrr

Isn't that like saying I hope all Corrado Drivers crash and all the worldly possessions die in the fireball because one cut you up on your way to work? I am sure there are many thousands of good BT employees as well a few bad ones so wishing that on them is in my opinion a little bit sick!

Not really. I have never ever dealt with a company like it. No-one will accept any responsibility, no-one has the power to take action, they just pass you to the depatment you spoke to 5 mins previously every single time.

You're right I know, its not the individuals fault; I'm positive that all their procedures set out for the call centre staff have been done so to confuse or frustrate the customer into giving up. When you do provide them evidence of their own ineptitude, they don't speak to you and get debt collection agencies involved or use other bully tactics.

Sorry if you work for BT, but I can't ever see it changing until someone else develops a nationwide communications infrastructure and offers some real competition. Only then will the execs have to think about customer service as well as generating profit.

I would suggest re-nationalisation but then that would assume some amount of trust in the government to get things right.......