BT Broadband Nightmare

[wobbles]

I was disconnected from BT Broadband for not paying a phone bill, I rang them the following day to pay the bill and they agreed to waive the BT Broadband cancellation fee of £200 if I re ordered the phone line and the Broadband. I agreed to do this and paid the amount of the bill less the £200 charges and re ordered the phone line straight away, I was told I would have to wait till the phone line was back up and running before I could order the Broadband.

I rang them back 3 days after the phone line has been re connected to order the broadband and was told that the broadband would be active on the 13 September, that date came and nothing.

I have rang them everyday since then only to be fobbed of by some one different each time in a call centre in India, I can not understand what they are saying as someof them have very strong Indian accents and they get very agressive with me when I have to keep asking them to tell me again slowly as I cant understand what they are saying, they have did a line test every day for the first week I was ringing them and found nothing.

This saturday just gone a BT engineer turned up at my home un arranged, He came in plugged something into the main socket and then went outside up the telegraph pole with a laptop and returned back into the house about 10 mins later unplugged his machine that had been in the main socket and said he needed to check one more thing and he would ring my landline in 5 mins to let me know results.

He rang me back and said the line was fine and he could find no fault and that the internet should be working no problem.
I rang BT later that day to inform them that I still had no internet connection and the engineer found no fault. They said they would sort it out.

Sunday arrives and still no internet, then BT rang me to say if the broadband was not working by 3-30pm on monday to ring them, (everytime i ring i get told to give it another 24 hours and ring back).

Surprise surprise still no broadband today, I have been on the phone to them again this evening for over an hour again, explianing the same things to yet another person in the call centre in India.

Now they are saying an engineer needs to come out again on wednesday between 8am and 1pm. Don't know why as I have explianed to them that the engineer has been out and found nothing wrong with the line.

Im now at the end of my tether with them, the kids use the internet to research home work and course work for school and college and we are having to pay at the local library for internet use when I am paying BT £24-99 a month for a service I am not receiving.

What can I do?

[Tezcatlipoca]

A cancellation fee of £200? That seems a tad steep, even for BT. I'm sure others will be along soon to give you the benefit of their expertise regarding your situation with BT and whether or not you are contractually obliged to remain with them...

...in the meantime, and assuming I am correct in thinking that you have a landline service but just no broadband, might I strongly urge you to forget the idea of having BT as your ISP and try going with a real provider?

There are a wide range of ISPs out there, but I personally use - and and can recommend - Eclipse. I've been connected with them for over 18 months now, and never had a single instance of connection dropout, or any problems. Plus, their service uses an existing BT landline, so you'll have no connection issues. Oh, and their packages are cheaper than the price you'd be paying to BT.

I'm sure others will be able to extol the virtues of other providers; the salient point being to ditch BT for everything but your phone line as soon as you can.

[wobbles]

good news, I emailed the CEO at BT and my broadband was reconnected yesterday, a lady from his office rang me to say they have cancelled my first bill and will ring me tomorrow to discuss putting a credit onto my account, she was really helpful.

[callumsgran]

Originally Posted by wobbles

good news, I emailed the CEO at BT and my broadband was reconnected yesterday, a lady from his office rang me to say they have cancelled my first bill and will ring me tomorrow to discuss putting a credit onto my account, she was really helpful.

Congratulations!!!!
To be honest emailing the CEO is the only way to complain to BT at the moment
He gets things done and quickly
Always go the the organ grinder, never mind the monkey

[alfwithhair]

Originally Posted by wobbles

good news, I emailed the CEO at BT and my broadband was reconnected yesterday, a lady from his office rang me to say they have cancelled my first bill and will ring me tomorrow to discuss putting a credit onto my account, she was really helpful.

What is the CEO email address please. I too am having problems with their broadband service, or lack of it shall we say.

Pm it to me if you don't want to post it on an open forum

Thanks
Alf

[Ell-enn]

Can I have the CEO's email address also - I've got a nice 3 page rant I can let him have

[wobbles]

The email add is ian.livingstone@bt.com

I have had the nice lady phone me back today and they have waived the first bill for £37 and will be giving me 3 months free broadband.

[alfwithhair]

Originally Posted by wobbles

The email add is ian.livingstone@bt.com

I have had the nice lady phone me back today and they have waived the first bill for £37 and will be giving me 3 months free broadband.

How long was it before you received any response to your email?
I sent one to the above email address 03 October, heard nothing as yet.

[wobbles]

I had a phone call from them within about 3 days of sending the email.

Maybe try sending another one.

I put my subject line as poor customer service

Good Luck

[alfwithhair]

Originally Posted by wobbles

I had a phone call from them within about 3 days of sending the email.

Maybe try sending another one.

I put my subject line as poor customer service

Good Luck

Yes I too used the suject line 'customer services complaint'
Still not had a reply or a call.
I will do as you say and re-send it
Thanks

[me_ben]

ven I am facing the troubles with this Broadband. Can You tell me how to contact the CEO?

========================= =====================

[Bignayf86]

I have also had massive problems with BT, they terminated my line as there was a remaining charge of £29!! a payment towards that had been made 3 days previously, and the money was happily taken for the complete next bill, up to december, then they told me I had to re order the line. this didn't work, and after about 4 hours trying to get through to someone, I finally got told the original line would be reconnected within 24 hours. Was this done? Was it heck!! so the whole line was terminated, and I have incurred charges to cancel the line! In short I paid for the service up to december, a balance of £167.88 and I'm being refunded a pathetic £41.67. What are my chances of getting the money back for the whole bill? I'm writing to queries as we speak and also to the CEO to see if anything can be done.
Anymore advice?

Cheers, Nathan

[Bignayf86]

Update, I just received a reply from the CEO's personal assistant.. this is the best customer service Ive had from BT. Ever.

[Lula]

Well dont forget to write back and tell her so, they know, then they can do something about it

[alfwithhair]

Originally Posted by Bignayf86

Update, I just received a reply from the CEO's personal assistant.. this is the best customer service Ive had from BT. Ever.

You are very lucky. I have email twice now and had no reply. It seems to be I can get now responce from anybody at BT not even the CEO

[Bignayf86]

I got a phone call now, along with another reply from the Executive Complaints department.

BT: broadband, TV, phone, home & business networked IT services is the email for the CEO's PA. give her a line and inform her that you have emailed twice to no avail. leave a phone number too.

I just send a 2 page, 750 word letter in reply, furiously explaining what happened.

[Banks1978]

I've had a similar problem with BT. Yesterday, my broadband stopped working so I called the support line...after an hour of to-ing and fro-ing they finally told me my account was deactivated. I was given a number and this time they said that my account had been disabled due to non-payment of a bill for last month and told to call the billing department. I called the billing department and they told me that my account had been CANCELLED (without any warning at all) and if I wanted the service back I could reorder broadband, be sent a new homehub and have to pay for installation etc. Within 5 minutes I'd ordered Sky Broadband!

Yes, I missed a payment and would have understood if they'd suspended my account until I'd paid them the out-standing sum of £24.99 but to cancel my account completely is just plain stupid. Do they really treat all of their customers like this? They must lose them hand-over-fist and I for one will never use them again.

Other ISPs must be laughing heartily during this credit crunch because I'm sure there must be quite a few BT customers missing payments.