BT broadband woes

[kevcam]

Hello,

I recently moved house and explained to BT when moving that I would be working from home and that I required broadband in order to carry out my work.

I was assured that broadband would be available on moving to my new home. I reapeted that if there was any problems could they let me know as I could put off moving date. I was assured it was OK.

When I moved in my telephone worked but no broadband signal. I phoned BT and they insisted it was working. Spent whole day on phone, and they eventually confirmed a problem with the line.

We had advised BT after speaking to neighbours who had a similar problem that we had to be routed to a different BT cabinet because of damaged cables in a nearby street.

To cut a long story short it took 2 weeks of this before an engineer finally came out and moved us to a new cabinet.

I spent two weeks on the phone to BT and was unable to work losing income which has put me under financial strain.

I want to raise a small claim against BT for this. Can I do this? If so how should I word letter or Particulars of Claim.

[blacksheep1979]

Did you have home broadband or business broadband, if it was the former you don't really have a claim I'm afraid

[kevcam]

Home broadband.

However we did tell them it would be used for business. In fact we asked for telephone to be business as well and were advised by BT sales against this.

Why should it make a difference?

Regards

Stuart

[blacksheep1979]

They will respond with home broadband is suitable for home users and is not guaranteed and as such we take no responsibility for any professional loss whilst using this service kinda thing. Whereas if you had a business version you could hold them to business expenses and losses and there guarantee that it would be ready by a certain date would be held against them

[blacksheep1979]

also I would write and put your point forward to BT before jumping straight in with any legal action, they may offer you some form of compensation.

[blueskies]

I agree with Blacksheep.

I had major trouble with BTbroadband when I moved house (incidently it was all caused by the main arm of BT connecting the wrong property)
After going round the houses a bit on the phone a really helpful girl took the problem on and rang me everyday to keep me informed of progress.

Afterwards I wrote two letters to them. One to the main customer services address and one to the girls line manager (took me a while to persuade her to tell me her managers name and address as she insisted that it was no problem and not worth writing about) praising her professionalism and help. I copied both letters to both addresses.

after 6 weeks they refunded me my line rental for 3 months, and £5 per day disconnected for internet cafe usage. (the internet cafe I used just happened to be my mums house but hey.)

£160 in total was sent to me by cheque.

Complain first, I would never have got that at court.