Update 08-07-07

Hi Guys,

Sorry its been a while. Just a quick update. After the ongoing battle I had with BT I decided to cancel my contract with them, because I had a engineers report saying the line wasnt compatible I wasnt held to the contract. I have now moved to Thailand. Bit drastic I know. But better life style out here and guess what I now have a stable 2mb internet connection.

John

BT Nightmare Update - 26-01-07

Just a quick update. I have had my call back from BT. It's took them 9 days to do it and guess what! I had to explain my circumstances again. The guy I spoke to now wants to run yet another line test. I asked him why and he said its proceedure. I told him well BT's done this proceedure 20 times now and it hasn't resolved anything. I told him all I want is compensation and reassurance that they will not cut me off at the end of the month. I was passed to another department and then they cut me off. Thanks BT!!!

I then called them back with the bright idea of upgrading to business, because I know with business broadband you can get compensation. Again I was cut off. It's a great way of dealing with customers that you dont want to speak to!!! Anyway I decided enough was enough today and I was really determined to get an answer to the problems I had faced over the last 7 weeks, so I went on to BT's site and got their number for business broadband and called them back. I decided maybe when BT is having to give me compensation for loss of service they might start to listen to me. I proceeded to call BT and started to go through the circumstances surrounding my broadband issues. Finally I had someone who was actually listening to me and wanting to sort out the problem for me. Well that's what I thought until she transferred me to technical support in India.

Again it was another frustrating conversation with the India technical support. If I had a £1 for everytime they promised to fix the problem I would be rich by now. Anyway we went through the rigmoral of them trying to troubleshoot the homehub, line, etc. In the end I told her that I just wanted compensation because of the loss of service and I wanted to know if my line would be cut off. My first request just was washed over by some standard script they had, but she did transfer me to the order management department in the UK.

Once through to the order management department in the UK I went on to tell the girl about what had happened. She did sympathise with me. However the time for that was well and truly gone. All I wanted to know if I was going to lose my broadband connection. I was put on hold whilst she found out about this. When she came back to me I was indeed going to have my line ceased at the end of the month. Obviously I was not happy about this and I still needed a broadband service to operate my business. Luckily the girl understood this and she took the cease off my line. However she did inform me that I may receive another cease from BT wholesale in the future. I said do you guys not read the others notes. She said yes, so I asked why is it they will not pay attention to your note. She informed me BT wholesale are just like that. I thought that's good I am going to have to go through this proceedure every month.

Anyway I managed to sort that out the next thing was the price I was paying. I refused to pay for option 3, as there is no way I could utilise that option with a 160kbps downstream. I explained this to the girl and she put me through to the options department. I think I had a newbe because I could hear someone in the background guiding him through the call. I explained the situation and I wanted some compromise on the billing. However I was informed by this guy that I would have to pay to downgrade. I took this really personally, as it was adding injury to insult. First of all BT mis-sold me the option then they were telling me I had to pay to downgrade, because they had some customers abuse the system in the attempt of getting the BT homehub for free. I was really mad by this stage and proceeded to give the guy a real ear full of how I felt. I highlighted that I was not abusing the system and that the homehub doesn't even sync with the exchange, because its crap.I also highlighted the speed issue and he tried to side skate this one by saying the option does not influence the speed of the service. I told them that this was a weak argument, because obviously it did otherwise they wouldnt have the options there plus they must have a level of service in place and they is no way they are meeting it with the current connection speed I was getting. Finally they admitted this and they waived the charge and placed me on option 1.

I am still left with a 160kbps downstream. I have accepted this and finally BT have as well. I am just going to have to work with what I have unfortunately until BT rollout their fibre optics. During the course of the conversation they did mention their BT Onspeed, which basically compresses the data. They said that they would provide this free for me. However this is yet to be seen. I will keep you posted.

BT Nightmare Update - 17-01-07

Just a quick updated for you. I haven't heard anything from BT even after they said they need to have a "live interaction" with me. Such brilliant customer service!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BT Nightmare Update - 14-01-07

Just a quick update for everyone. I have gave up trying to deal with BT over the phone. I have gone down the route of writing to them now, as I want to have something in black and white I can show them.

Customer Comments:
I placed an order for broadband on the 24th of November. I was promised that ,the line was fine for broadband and I would be activated on the 10th December. The 10th December came and went and the line was not activated. It actually became active on the 13th Dec. However the downstream is still only 160kbps. After numerous calls to your technical support and billing I have accepted that this is the speed I am now stuck with. I have even had an engineer out and he has confirmed my line is not suitable for broadband. However your technical support seems to think they can get it faster when I know in my heart they cannot, because there is too much noise on the line and the exchange is too far from my premises.

I have now accepted this speed. However I would like some compensation for the service, as it not what I was promised. In addition I have lost a considerable amount of money due to the Internet not been live when you said it would.

In addition as a final point. I would like to complain about your technical support. They have got no idea what they are talking about and just seem to pass on the blame to other people and when I call back I have to go through my story again and again. It is extremely frustrating. I am not a common user. I am an IT professional and I know what I am talking about, but your technical support cannot help me because they are reading from scripts and there is confusion with our accents. I understand about outsourcing to save money. However when something is customer facing like this it should not be done, as they never can resolve the issues and results in a bad customer experience.

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Response (Supraja) - 01/11/2007 07:11 PM
Dear Mr. X,

Thank you for your e-mail dated 11th January 2007, your e-mail has been logged under the reference number VOL011-2837922356.

I understand from your e-mail that you are having a very slow broadband speed on your line since it was activated. I also note that you have contacted our technical helpdesk and had an engineer visit which has not resolved the issue. You would like to get a refund for the loss of broadband service since it was not activated on the specified date. I am sorry for the inconveniences you have faced in this regard. I also apologise for the poor customer service you received.

Please note that I have checked our records and found that the slow broadband speed is due to the long line from the exchange to your premises. I also found that your broadband line will be ceased on 30th January 2007.

Thank you for using BT Total Broadband.

Supraja
BT Total Broadband Support Team.

Customer - 01/11/2007 06:10 PM
This e-mail has been 'redirected' to you from the BT Kana E-Mail Team.

e-Mail reference 9482758
Received 1/11/07

For your information the customer's details as provided are:-
Account no:
Tel no:
Contact no:
e-Mail Address:

However, if we have sent this to you in error, please return to us at BT Broadband

Thank you for your assistance,
Dominic Paine
Kana e-mail Handling Team

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Customer - 01/12/2007 02:40 AM
Ok thank you for your understanding. I have tried to explain this to your technical support several times. However they were insistant on that they could improve the speed. I have accepted this. However I would like some compensation for the service that you have under delivered and all the wasted time through telephone calls I have endured. In addition why is the line been ceased I have never asked for this? I still need broadband. Why are you continuing not to listen to the customer!

Regards,


X

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Response (Lavanya Lawrence) - 01/12/2007 04:17 AM
Dear X,

Thank you for your e-mail dated 12th January 2007, your e-mail has been logged under the reference number 070111-003302.

I understand from your e-mail that the speed of the broadband connection is slow. I also infer that your line has been ceased. Further, I infer that you need compensation. I apologise for the inconvenience caused. I am happy to assist you.

The initial test on your line indicates that you should be able to have BT Total Broadband with download speeds up to 2Mb. Please be informed that BT is working to lay underground cables (Optic fibre) all over UK to improve the connection speed. It would take a little time to do this process. I apologise for any inconvenience this may caused to you.

Please be informed that I found from our records that you line is active and it is not ceased. I would like to inform you that compensation will be provided only for loss of broadband connection.

If the above information does not resolve the issue, please send a reply to this e-mail. Please include the current status, ADSL number and alternative contact number with a convenient date and time (09:00 hours to 21:00 hours) to arrange for a callback.

Thank you for using BT Total Broadband.

Lavanya
BT Total Broadband Support Team.

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Customer - 01/12/2007 02:55 PM
Dear Sir/Madam,

Your emails are very contradictary. I know you must be very busy because you never answer a customers questions properly and seem to think that you are offering a satsfactory service by reading from scripts and pasting from templates. I would appreciate it if you can take the time to write me a proper email and not try and get round it by pasting from a template, as it does not answer my questions and it just infruates me that I am wasting so much of my time to get this resolved. I have two questions
that I need answering, so please make sure you read them and answer them.

1) I have received loss of service and bad service (you cannot expect me to pay £22.99 a month for 160kbps downstream). I STILL NEED BROADBAND. HOWEVER I DONT WANT TO PAY £22.99 FOR A 160KBPS DOWNSTREAM, AS IT IS NO WHERE NEAR WHAT YOU HAVE PROMISED?

2) Why are you telling me that my broadband will cease on the 30th January? I have not requested this and this is breaking your own contract?

Please answer my two questions personally and not paste from a template, as I have spent my time to write to you personally and have not pasted from a template.

Regards,

X

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Response (Gopinath Vilvanathan) - 01/12/2007 06:10 PM
Dear X,

Thank you for your e-mail dated 12th January 2007, your e-mail has been logged under the reference number 070111-003302.

I understand from your e-mail that our previous responses did not answer your queries. I also note that you need compensation for the loss of broadband service due to slow connection. Further, you need explanation about the line cease date. I understand your queries and apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.

We need a live interaction to discuss about this issue. Hence, please let us know your convenient date, time (between 09:00 hours and 21:00 hours GMT) and alternative contact number to arrange a callback.

Thank you for using BT Total Broadband.

Gopinath
BT Total Broadband Support Team.

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Customer - 14/01/07

Hi,

I am still unsure what is going on. You are the ones telling me that you are going to cease my broadband at the end of the month. I never requested this. I have took the libity of documenting everything for you now, as I will have to repeat it again when you call, so I would appreciate you reading it, so that you understand where we are up to. It is at http://btbroadbandnightmare.blogspot.com/. You can call me on 07808 xxx xxx

Regards,


X

The Aim of this Blog

I am starting this blog to convey BT’s lack of commitment to deliver broadband in rural areas. My aim is to make someone at BT sit up and listen to us the consumer. In addition I would like to detail the horrendous problems you will face in trying to get things rectified if you have a problem with their service.

My Background

I feel it is appropriate to first give you a little bit of background about myself just to reinforce that your technical knowledge will mean nothing when dealing with BT. I graduated from UMIST with 1 undergraduate and 2 postgraduate degrees in computation. I have worked in the IT sector for13 years. The last five years I have worked freelance as an IT consultant specialising in networking, so I know a little bit about cabling and broadband as you can image.

My first experience of a fast internet connection was 9 years ago when BT launched their ½ meg ADSL service. I had an engineer come out to get everything installed and configured. It was fantastic. Within an hour I was on the Internet with my new connection. I even had a complementary upgrade a few years later to 2 meg. To say the least I was more than happy with the service and the technical support I received during outage periods was good and conveyed to me on a technical level, which I always appreciated due to been technically minded.

Eventually I moved house and went with Freedom2Surf for my Internet connection. Again BT was good in getting the line installed and me up and running. They were a few days late in installing it, but it wasn’t an issue at that time. Shortly after getting the connection my work became more Internet based and I depended heavily on it, even a short outage would have caused me serious issues. However during the time I was at this property I had no problem at all and a rock sold connection of 2 meg.

Both the above connections were in the Manchester area.

I have now relocated to a small village in Workington, Cumbria.

My Initial Phone Call to BT

A few months prior to moving I spoke to a few neighbours in the area I planned to move to regarding broadband. They informed me that they had horrendous issues trying to get broadband. However I arrogantly put it down to them been a common user and their lack of technical knowledge on how to rectify these issues. Nevertheless I took onboard their comments and decided to call BT.

I foolish thought I would go with BT because if I did have any issues then I would be able to get them rectified more quickly due to BT owning the backbone. This was the case a few years ago, but I have recently found out that is not the case anymore. I will tell you about this later.

Anyway I called BT and spoke to sales. I told them that I was interested in getting a broadband connection at my new property. The sales guy I spoke to was adamant that I could get a connection up to 8mbs on their DSL Max service. I was sceptical because of the stories I had heard from my neighbours. However due to the area I was moving to not having cable or 3G coverage I didn’t really have a choice.

I placed the order on the 24th November and was told activation would take place on the 8th December. There was going to be a slight delay due to a DACS unit been on the line. BT didn’t pick this up initially and I had to highlight this issue with them.

The Activation

The 8th December came and went and there was no activation of my broadband service. I was particularly worried about this, as my work is now heavily dependent on Internet access and not having access to the net for just a short period of time would cause serious problems for me. I got on to BT the next day. However I was passed around from department to department like you would not believe. I was then transferred again and spent 2 hours on hold without even speaking to anyone. I was furious that BT could keep a customer on hold for this period of time. This resulted in me making a written complaint and until this day they have not come back to me regarding this.

The 10th December came and I called BT back in the morning regarding the activation. After about 40 minutes on hold I got through to their technical support in India. I was then told by their representative there was an issue with the exchange and my activation would now be the 13th December. I was not happy about this because it meant me losing 5 days of work. However there was little I could do but accept it.

The 13th December was now here and I was looking forward to having my broadband connection, so that I could catch up on my work. I plugged the BT Homehub in and waited for the broadband light to go green. This wait was in vain as it just kept blinking. Fortunately I have seen this problem caused before by the internal wiring of the sockets. I opened up the master socket and disconnected the extensions just leaving 2 and 5 connected. I plugged the router back but still nothing. I changed the filters and still nothing. I then proceeded to get on the phone to BT to see what had happened. They told me that there was a fault on the line and someone would contact me in 24 hours.

Activated or Not?

Over the next couple of days I received intermittent connections to broadband. Probably 15 minutes at a time. This led me to believe that the router was faulty. Being a consultant I had loads of spare routers lying around. I pulled one out and within a few seconds it had synced, but at 160kbps downstream. I got on to BT yet again and told them about this. Again I was passed around like a rag doll. I was told that there was still a fault on the line and they would call me back in 24 hours. Again they called me back and told me it was fixed, but I was still left with a 160kbps. In addition my call quality had gone down and I couldn’t connect with dial up anymore.

The Run Around

Over the next few days I was given the run around by BT regarding this mysterious fault that kept surfacing and then been fixed. During the course of this run around I had some very heated conversations with them to no avail. I was just getting scripts read to me with no one actually resolving the situation. I had already did some investigations myself and found that we were 6.08km from the exchange with 70db of noise on the line. From experience with a fixed broadband service you wouldn’t be able to get sync with this. However with a variable broadband service the DSLAM will compensate and sync at the most stable speed it can, which in my case was 160kbps. However trying to convey this to BT is absolutely useless, as they don’t listen and when you put the phone down your conversation just disappears in to thin air, because next time you speak to them you will have to go through exactly the same things again.

40 calls later and I get an engineer

Since the 24th November I must have made about 40 calls to BT. Shortly after my so called activation I was adamant that I wanted an engineer to come out to run a compatibility test. However to get to this stage it takes a lot of ranting and raving and BT to go through the same procedure about 20 times.

Yesterday (28th Dec) I had the engineer visit my home. He confirmed what I suspected from the start and that was the line is not compatible for broadband. He couldn’t even get his modem to sync with the exchange and he was shocked that I was able to get it sync. However he informed me even though I was getting it to sync we were on the limits and I would not receive anything faster than 160kbps. I asked him even if they were to upgrade the exchange would it make a difference. He said not at all because you are physically too far from the exchange and the noise on your line is too much.

I also found out during the course of our conversation that the engineers that come out are no longer part of BT, as they now have to be impartial and not favour one ISP. I found this ironic seeming that he had the BT logo plastered over the side of his van. However my experience with BT over the last few weeks is that no one in the company likes to take responsibility for anything.

My Current Situation

After the engineer had left I called BT, as I wanted some sort of compromise on my billing due to them offering 2% of the service they promised me. However it was another frustrating conversation to no avail. They were still insistent that they could improve the speed and someone from their line faults department would call me back.

Today is the 29th December and I have indeed had a call back. Again having to go through the same rig moral of repeating what has happened I was very pessimistic of anything positive coming from the conversation. The girl informed me that they have had the report from the engineer. However they have just totally discounted it, even after the engineer has said the line is not suitable, and are insist ant that they can improve the line speed. I have told them this is physically not possible unless they move the exchange closer to me or build a new one. However the girl was insistent and wants another 24hours.

I have now accepted that I will not get a faster speed and I am just looking for an apology from BT and some sort of compensation. However I am not holding my hopes too high, because BT has fundamental problems in listening to what the customer wants and will not admit fault.

Conclusion

Do not deal with BT. I have been totally mislead by BT and have received a substandard level of service with respect to customer service and broadband. They have given me the run around and I have lost a considerable amount of time and money due to BT refusal to accept that they cannot provide me with the service they said. I find it totally disgusting how they treat customers. I do not think they have our best interests in heart, because I am having to repeat my story each time, which basically means they are not recording it.

In addition their technical support is little more than people reading from scripts. I also totally disagree with them outsourcing their support to India. I don’t want to run into a racism argument here, but I find it very difficult to communicate with them and their blarzay attitude just infuriates me. I understand about outsourcing. However it should only be done with things that are not customer facing, such as manufacturing.

The United Front

If you have had similar problems you will know how hard it is to get BT to take any notice. If we unite on this and get enough people linking to this blog surely BT will sit up and take some notice.

Please help by using the below html code to link to this blog:

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