@btcare Bt High Level Complaints Address Please

[legalpickle]

Still not resolved prob wth BT (see my post 26 Mar 2009). Do I detect a certain ennui and dissatisfaction amongst BT subscribers?. More and more have been badly served by BT's non-technical staff. This includes incompetent "engineers" who are sent in response to a fault report and log in an imaginary diagnosis which results in overcharge for unneccessary repairs being added to the bill.

Anybody who likes British Trouble hasn't experienced them!

 

Your post of 26th March didn't give any details of your complaint. I suggest you start your own thread in the telecoms - mobile or fixed part of CAG, detailing your problems and hopefully somebody will come along and help you.

[swindoed]

Landline Phones -

Customer service issues, quality of service and phone repairs

 

Openreach is a new part of BT which has been created to install and maintain phone and internet connections to Britain’s homes and businesses on behalf of most telephone and internet service providers.

You will notice that if an engineer needs to visit your home to fix any wiring he or she will be an Openreach engineer, whether or not you are a BT phone or internet customer. All Openreach engineers will carry identification. If you are in any doubt about an Openreach engineer visiting your home, please contact your phone company.

For more information on Openreach please click here. Link to www.openreach.co.uk

 

Openreach was created to form a BT company over which OTELO has NO JURISDICTION OR AUTHORITY. If You report a faulty telephone to the 'service provider' ie BT Retail.they (Openreach) may send a young partly qualified person who is not qualified to climb a pole or mount a ladder! and you will be charged a call-out fee and a charge for imaginary 'repairs' indoors which, if you dispute it will result in your phone being disconnected or the service restricted and you wont be able to phone out. Openreach will send an invoice to BT Retail who will send you a bill for uneccessary repairs.

Complaints to OTELO therefore are a complete waste of time since they will uphold the interests of BT rather than the complainant. Compensation usually termed 'a gesture of goodwill' is niggardly and does not adequately represent the expenses incurred in making a claim. OTELO's powers should be extended to encompass the activities of ALL BT GROUP COMPANIES AND ORGANISATIONS concerned with telephone service. I am extremely disappointed with the result of my claim having been electronically shunted between BT call centres from Durham via Cairo, Bangladesh, The Phillipines and probably Timbuctu and Newcastle. It has taken a year for the ombudsman or ombudswoman to wade through all all the other BT customers who have complained and I have had enough. I am going to agree to his/her terms just to get rid of it!.

[legalpickle]

Landline Phones -

Customer service issues, quality of service and phone repairs

 

Openreach is a new part of BT which has been created to install and maintain phone and internet connections to Britain’s homes and businesses on behalf of most telephone and internet service providers.

You will notice that if an engineer needs to visit your home to fix any wiring he or she will be an Openreach engineer, whether or not you are a BT phone or internet customer. All Openreach engineers will carry identification. If you are in any doubt about an Openreach engineer visiting your home, please contact your phone company.

For more information on Openreach please click here. Link to www.openreach.co.uk

 

Openreach was created to form a BT company over which OTELO has NO JURISDICTION OR AUTHORITY. If You report a faulty telephone to the 'service provider' ie BT Retail.they (Openreach) may send a young partly qualified person who is not qualified to climb a pole or mount a ladder! and you will be charged a call-out fee and a charge for imaginary 'repairs' indoors which, if you dispute it will result in your phone being disconnected or the service restricted and you wont be able to phone out. Openreach will send an invoice to BT Retail who will send you a bill for uneccessary repairs.

Complaints to OTELO therefore are a complete waste of time since they will uphold the interests of BT rather than the complainant. Compensation usually termed 'a gesture of goodwill' is niggardly and does not adequately represent the expenses incurred in making a claim. OTELO's powers should be extended to encompass the activities of ALL BT GROUP COMPANIES AND ORGANISATIONS concerned with telephone service. I am extremely disappointed with the result of my claim having been electronically shunted between BT call centres from Durham via Cairo, Bangladesh, The Phillipines and probably Timbuctu and Newcastle. It has taken a year for the ombudsman or ombudswoman to wade through all all the other BT customers who have complained and I have had enough. I am going to agree to his/her terms just to get rid of it!.

1. If you have an issue that you want help with, please start your own thread. Hijacking another thread is against CAG rules.

 

2. If you have a problem with another landline provider, then you complain to them, and they must be a member of either CISAS or Otelo to whom you should complain if the responses are not forthcoming or satisfactory.

 

3. BT Openreach is a separate division from BT Retail and has no contract with consumers. Problems with the engineer sent out by BT Openreach must be raised with the company who contracted the engineer NOT BT Openreach. Unfortunately many telecoms companies try to throw the blame on BT, telling the customer to contact them directly but this is incorrect, and the customer canNOT contact Openreach directly & Retail are just like any other telecoms provider.

 

It seems your problems relate to an engineer from BT Openreach who was sent out by another telecoms company. Your message is VERY unclear, so this is my understanding based on what you have written. In such an event your only point of contact at the first stage is your telecoms provider NOT BT Retail OR BT Openreach.

 

If you need further assistance please start a new thread clearly explaining your problems.

[swindoed]

Hi legal pickle.

 

1. Will you please explain how you consider I have 'hijacked' this thread, since my last post is consequent to my other earlier posts in this thread?
   
2. I am informed by OTELO that BT Retail IS my service provider, comment please.
   
3. I have notified, consulted and corresponded with ALL the telecoms bodies and organisation you mention.
   
4. My complaint was investigated by OTELO as a result of a 'Deadlock' letter from BT, my service provider.
   
5. I have complied with the complaints process in great detail being asked to provide all of them with multiple copies (ad infinitum) describing the circumstances of my complaint.
   
6. Are you involved in the administration of these forums and in what capacity?
   

Having exhausted all avenues I have now decided to agree to OTELO's unsatisfactory Final Decision to avoid further distress and so that we can 'phone out again from our currently restricted service.

 

Regards and best wishes, swindoed.

[legalpickle]

Hi legal pickle.

 

1. Will you please explain how you consider I have 'hijacked' this thread, since my last post is consequent to my other earlier posts in this thread?
   
2. I am informed by OTELO that BT Retail IS my service provider, comment please.
   
3. I have notified, consulted and corresponded with ALL the telecoms bodies and organisation you mention.
   
4. My complaint was investigated by OTELO as a result of a 'Deadlock' letter from BT, my service provider.
   
5. I have complied with the complaints process in great detail being asked to provide all of them with multiple copies (ad infinitum) describing the circumstances of my complaint.
   
6. Are you involved in the administration of these forums and in what capacity?
   

Having exhausted all avenues I have now decided to agree to OTELO's unsatisfactory Final Decision to avoid further distress and so that we can 'phone out again from our currently restricted service.

 

Regards and best wishes, swindoed.

swindoed,

 

I am not - thankfully - involved in the administration of CAG, but anyone in the know on this forum knows that my assistance in very complex cases to persons on CAG has assisted many in circumstances where other assistance was rarely available.

 

I did not mean offence by my post. You were not the OP, and as such posting more than information that may assist the OP is hijacking a thread. Your first post on this thread seemed to be somewhat with an intent to help, but your second post on this thread would also be considered hijacking.

 

My response to your second post clearly recommended to detail your complaint in a new thread.

 

Your third post was VERY unclear and led me to believe that your problems are with Openreach, not BT Retail. I was helpfully responding that if you want assistance you should start your own thread detailing all issues that have gone on rather than write so unclearly that even an experienced member of this forum - who has personally sued BT or BT subsidiaries at least 13 times, and helped numerous CAGgers and others in legal disputes and in complaints to Otelo & CISAS - cannot understand what you were rambling on about.

 

Again, no offence was meant. I was only attempting to assist.

[ozzywizard]

I have read through this thread twice and second all of the above post by legalpickle . .

 

I could tell you all some stories about BT but it really would not be appropiate. lol.

[legalpickle]

I have read through this thread twice and second all of the above post by legalpickle . .

 

I could tell you all some stories about BT but it really would not be appropiate. lol.

Oh, I could tell your stories about British Trouble that would make your blood boil to 100 degrees centigrade in 1 second flat!

[ozzywizard]

Yeah I bet, due to them holding the monpopoly for so long they thought and partly still do think they are above the law and do not need to offer any kinda service due to customers having no other choice but them !!

[legalpickle]

Yeah I bet, due to them holding the monpopoly for so long they thought and partly still do think they are above the law and do not need to offer any kinda service due to customers having no other choice but them !!

Nope, but due to everything British falling to pieces!

[ellenana]

BT have the monopoly, they own all the lines! So they know they can treat us the way they do, because we have little or no alternative. At least emailing him didn't cost me anything and made me feel better about the £120 bill i just paid!

 

Thankfully Blatant theft do not have all the monopoly. If you live in a area serviced by Virgin media (cable) you can dispose of BT. I have really fast and efficent Broadband and since being in a dispute with BT who charged me 213.00 when I reported my phone out of order via BT .com site ( despite not informing me of there prices!) I now have a virgin cable phone connection installation was 30.00! Have to say I have found to date virgins customer service to be of a good standard. Would recommend changing.

[Labtec81]

Does anyone have the 'new' high level complaints number for B.T please as the one I found earlier on in this thread is no longer in service, when I rang it there was a message saying the number had changed but they didn't give the number!

[legalpickle]

Thankfully Blatant theft do not have all the monopoly. If you live in a area serviced by Virgin media (cable) you can dispose of BT. I have really fast and efficent Broadband and since being in a dispute with BT who charged me 213.00 when I reported my phone out of order via BT .com site ( despite not informing me of there prices!) I now have a virgin cable phone connection installation was 30.00! Have to say I have found to date virgins customer service to be of a good standard. Would recommend changing.

It seems people have mixed experiences with Virgin cable, despite everybody I know or hear from having only negative experiences with British Trouble (including P/i/s/s/Net and other brandnames) & TalkTalk (including Tiscali and other brand names) - myself included.

 

BUT: Virgin do offer a PSTN "service" where they don't offer cable. Make sure that you don't connect to that if they offer it, as it seems to be terrible from what I hear.

 

And sorry to disagree with you, ellenana, but Virgin Cable is not available everywhere. Even in large cities many small roads don't have access. Where I live none of the small roads have Virgin Cable but all the other roads do. So, I live in a block of flats on a road going between two relatively large roads and neighbours less than 2 minutes away have Virgin Cable, but I can't get it!

[ellenana]

Landline Phones -

Customer service issues, quality of service and phone repairs

 

Openreach is a new part of BT which has been created to install and maintain phone and internet connections to Britain’s homes and businesses on behalf of most telephone and internet service providers.

You will notice that if an engineer needs to visit your home to fix any wiring he or she will be an Openreach engineer, whether or not you are a BT phone or internet customer. All Openreach engineers will carry identification. If you are in any doubt about an Openreach engineer visiting your home, please contact your phone company.

For more information on Openreach please click here. Link to www.openreach.co.uk

 

Openreach was created to form a BT company over which OTELO has NO JURISDICTION OR AUTHORITY. If You report a faulty telephone to the 'service provider' ie BT Retail.they (Openreach) may send a young partly qualified person who is not qualified to climb a pole or mount a ladder! and you will be charged a call-out fee and a charge for imaginary 'repairs' indoors which, if you dispute it will result in your phone being disconnected or the service restricted and you wont be able to phone out. Openreach will send an invoice to BT Retail who will send you a bill for uneccessary repairs.

Complaints to OTELO therefore are a complete waste of time since they will uphold the interests of BT rather than the complainant. Compensation usually termed 'a gesture of goodwill' is niggardly and does not adequately represent the expenses incurred in making a claim. OTELO's powers should be extended to encompass the activities of ALL BT GROUP COMPANIES AND ORGANISATIONS concerned with telephone service. I am extremely disappointed with the result of my claim having been electronically shunted between BT call centres from Durham via Cairo, Bangladesh, The Phillipines and probably Timbuctu and Newcastle. It has taken a year for the ombudsman or ombudswoman to wade through all all the other BT customers who have complained and I have had enough. I am going to agree to his/her terms just to get rid of it!.

Agree waste of time contacting OTELO it has taken 11 months for OTELO to provide a final conclusion and yes despite being presented with evidence they have chosen not to refer to it and have supported BT. BT have not provided any evidence that a transaction occured so now I am left paying for something that i did not request. Will never deal with BT again.

[swindoed]

I have opened a new thread (as advised by legapickle) under the heading "BT Calamity" where I 'ramble on' detailing my problems with BT which beggar belief. I have not received any replies yet, probably due to the fact that people are so peed-off with BT and can only think about their own problem.The older Openreach crews or gangs are competent and well-equipped but the younger chaps attending faults 'raised ' (BT speak) by householders appear to be inadequately trained and unqualified to climb a pole!.

By the way - it is quicker and easier to find a thread than through CAG search if you simply Google the title.

Edited January 20, 2010 by swindoed

[locutus]

Even quicker to find if you post a link

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/utilities-gas-electricity-water/242174-bt-calamity-without-prejududice.html

[23sopwith]

anybody got a t/phone number or email add for bt complaints dept

the idiots in mumbay or wherever havent got a clue

the high level complaints number has now been scrapped

regards

soppy

[lord of the mannor]

Hi

 

I'm having trouble with bt i was wondering if any one knows if i was to change to aonther provider do i still have to pay bt line rental and would i be charged by Bt for ending my contract with them

[locutus]

Hi

 

I'm having trouble with bt i was wondering if any one knows if i was to change to aonther provider do i still have to pay bt line rental and would i be charged by Bt for ending my contract with them

If you are in a minimum term with them they'll charge you. If you want a completely non BT service, Cable is your best bet. If you are not in a cable area, some other companies provide line rental, broadband and phone service (sky, post office, TalkTalk, o2 to name a few). Probably better to wait out any minimum term commitments before moving (pretty pointless if you have to pay BT to leave IMO. You may aswell get the service for that period!)

[hemi]

Copy of a letter sent today to all the directors of this lying cheating company. Thanks to all you guys for the information lets see where this goes Hemi. Sorry if it goes on a bit but this has been on the go since may!

Dear Sir/Madam

Pleasel et me start from the beginning, I was (and still should be) a Tiscali customer who tried to change my package to the now parent company TalkTalk. I was offered their Talk pro package which was for

A free “N” class wireless router, Unlimited broadband, Unlimited any time calls, Line rental, Mobiles at a reduced rate, International countries at a reduced rate, Caller id and Blocked nuisance calls all for £28.48 this was blocked by BT stating that TalkTalk could not request a phone number that was already held by them, (in fact it was held by Tiscali) Shortly after this I was contacted by one of your outbound call centres (Newcastle) who offered me much the same package including a free home hub and phone and free line rental for three months for £32.46 (FIRST LIE no such offer exists) I was quite happy to take this offer up as I prefer to have just one bill to cover all my broadband, calls and line rental. I was informed that the broadband team would contact me within 24 hours, (SECOND LIE this did not happen) I then spent countless hours trying to get in touch with the outbound call centre only to discover that apparently no one at BT can contact them (I find it very hard to believe that one department is unable to contact another within the same company) I was eventually told that a broadband order had not been placed by the outbound call centre (THIRD LIE) only that a order for anytime calls had been placed, I informed the person that I spoke to that this was of no use to me and to cancel the order for anytime calls with BT I was told that a note had been placed on my account to this effect (FOURTH LIE no notes) but I would still have to call and cancel the service once I received a letter welcoming me back to BT and that I had until 11 June to cancel.

The letter dully arrived and I called to cancel the service, I was told that it had been cancelled and I would not have to worry about this anymore (FIFTH LIE order not cancelled). Call me naive but I thought that this was the end of the matter, then I noticed a couple of weeks back that my phone was showing incoming call numbers, this was never part of my original call plan with Tiscali, so I phoned them to ask if it had been added to my package, much to my horror I was informed that my calls had returned to BT and I would need to call them to sort it out.

I was appalled that BT as a company had STOLEN my calls away from Tiscali without my authority to do so, after many phone calls to god knows how many departments I was finally transferred to I think the cancelling department (please excuse me if this is wrong I spoke to so many people that day it all got a little confusing) I spoke to someone who gave his name as Gary, I explained the whole scenario to him and he said I had been Slammed, a new term to me but basically, I had been lied to repeatedly by BT staff and indeed my calls had been transferred back to BT without my authority, I told him that I had cancelled the order prior to the 11 June and that I would be looking to move my calls back to TalkTalk, he informed me that as this had happened I should not be held to the length of the contract and he would put notes on my account to indicate this (SIXTH LIE still no notes on my account), he did tell me that I would need to call yet again the billing department, 15 days after I had requested to move my calls back to TalkTalk (as I now couldn’t move them back to Tiscali, as they are being wound down and all customers transferred to TalkTalk) which I will be doing as I have authorised TalkTalk to reclaim not only my calls but also my line rental from BT this was done on Monday 19th July at 17.00.

Now we come on to the bill that has prompted this letter. Had BT not SLAMMED me and moved my calls without authority this bill would never have been generated and expect it to be dealt with accordingly.

The phone bill that arrived today just about blew my top £77.10? When all this mess started I was told that I would get Three months anytime AND THREE MONTHS LINE RENTAL FREE (SEVENTH LIE I presume) In all my years with Tiscali I never received a phone bill as high as this, even at its highest my bill was less than £50.00 you have even charged me for 10273 numbers, which part of anytime calls does that fall out of??? I am completely discussed with the way that BT conducts their business and in the way that their staff repeatedly lies to customers. Today I called billing again to try and make sense of this bill, the guy wasn’t able (or willing) to try and deal with the matter lots of um’s, ah’s and silence, he then transferred me to yet another department (probably the department of we don’t really care) and was told “Oh just post the bill to the correspondence department and they will sort it out”, sorry but that’s as much help as a chocolate tea pot to a customer who really needs reassuring that the problem is going to be dealt with professionally and promptly none of which BT up to this point has managed to do, I thank my lucky stars that I am not a pensioner trying to deal with this. Presuming that all your calls are indeed recorded this matter should be quite easy to clear up. I await your prompt reply and revised bill

I held BT in high regard and if honest wished that you were more competitive with your pricing, but after this fiasco I’m not so sure that anything your staff says can be trusted.

[23sopwith]

i started this thread off ages ago and once again bt have made a hash of my online bill once again have talked to india cant rectify or should i say wont rectify for 3 months.

have written to both adds re complaints ie. durham and london no reply i have therefor given them 7 days to rectify my account or i will make formal complaint to regulator.

who is the reg now and what is their add

thanks sopwith

[Somebody Told Me]

It's Ofcom and their contact details are: Ofcom | Contacting Ofcom

[Somebody Told Me]

Might also be worth having a read of this as well: Code of practice for residential customers and small businesses

[hemi]

Hey guys I e mailed all the board and within 30 mins I got one back from Gavin Patterson saying how sorry he was about this and he would sort it out, 30 mins later I got a call from a David Dennet he removed all the call charges and said that when I get my final bill through to call him back, so if its results your wanting then e mail the board of directors.

[Peter Mack]

Has anybody dealt with these guys. Back in any they called me asking if I was interested in a website, I said I would look at any information they sent over. They sent me info, I said I wasn't inrterested and they still decided to send me a bill for £1100, despite me neither wanting or receiving naything from them!! I spoke to various departments who told me they would take care of it and thought that the matter was resolved. Just received a call this morning saying the matter has now been referred to a debt collection agency, any thoughts on what course of action I can take would be greatly appreciated!

[Somebody Told Me]

Ignore the DCA for now and just deal with BT.

Are you able to provide any further details as to what the alleged debt relates to so the most appropriate advice can be given?