 BT re-activation shenanigans
While I'm no longer resident in these pestered isles, I still have very good friends in Britain. This little bit of trouble comes from one of them.
Recently, her relationship with her partner went downhill steeply, coinciding with her long recovery from a major operation. The partner decided it would be a good idea to, among other things, not pay the BT phone bill, and then walked out shortly before she was able to come home.
So my friend came home to a house with a disconnected broadband connection - somehow BT thinks that if the *voice* bill isn't paid, they should disconnect the *broadband* first. Funny logic if you ask me. From what I understand, the various unpaid bills are now either fully paid, or on agreed "catch-up" terms, so no real problem there.
My friend now has to support herself and her young daughter on a fixed income, without her partner's income to help. So one of the first things I suggested (and had been wanting to for a long time) was to switch away from AOL to a much cheaper (and, by all accounts, better quality) service from Eclipse. I think going down to £10/m from £30/m is a worthwhile improvement, yes?
The trouble is, when she called AOL for a MAC, at my direction, AOL said that they couldn't issue a MAC because the line wasn't active. They said to call back "in 10 days" when the line would be active, and they would issue a MAC at that time.
Obviously, she can't sign up with Eclipse until she has the MAC. I think that either AOL is trying to milk another half-month of subscription out of her, or trying to give her a cooling-off period in an attempt to retain her, or else BT is being it's usual deliberately-sluggish self.
I'd be very interested to hear about any plausible means to speed up the process. | 
