I’m sorry, I can’t even write it all down; it’s too upsetting.

Why me? What have I done? Even Robert Mugabe would barely deserve this treatment.

Please, please, one day, let it be over…

(Sobs uncontrollably)

No, it’s just too much. How can one company be so utterly, unimaginably, incomparably shit?

😥

pity

I have to phone them this afternoon.

They gave me a bill in December for £120. It shoudl be £38.

3 times I’ve asked for a corrected bill.

They’re threatening to cut me off on Sunday if I don’t pay the £120 😆

Ive just had a 3 week long battle with them over broadband problems – basically them sending the router to my old address, despite 3 letters and 7 phone calls informing them we had moved address. I told them I would be sending them my mobile phone bill as well for all the expense involved with ringing them from work on my mobile. Their reply…… “Sorry, we dont refund any mobile phone calls”. I told them to expect it in the post this week.
Complete bunch of wasters.

Carphone warehouse are equally rubbish. You have my sympathies

3 times over 8 weeks I complained to them about my low (2.5Meg) broadband speed & they sent a bloke around who said that the problem was between my house & the telegraph pole & then didn’t do anything.
Changed to TalkTalk & made the same complaint – fixed (7.5Meg) within 48 hours by…. a bloke in a BT van!

Any company that uses an Indian callcentre who have very strong accents cant be paying much. Im sure the call centre workers are very nice people but their accents are bloody thick. Says to me they arent paying to the top local rate to get the better staff…

they’ve been good with me.
Dont get me started on scottish **** power though (and their call centre is in scotland but less helpful)

Against my recommendation the folks went with BT for broadband (an “expert” at the golf club told them it was best, what do I know, eh, working in IT…).

Weeks and weeks of being passed to departments who didn’t seem to have a phone line, regular “that’ll be sorted this afternoon for you”, etc. etc.

You have my sympathy.

we had business broadband installed last june, the connection was never fast about 1/2 meg, anyway got talking to the two other companies next door and their internet is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than ours 4-5 meg.

alarm bells start ringing, ive spent the last 3 months trying to get BT to come out and re-wire our line to the same exchange as the people next door for free as they basically admitted the guy who installed it must have wanted to clock off early so did a bodge job.

what ****s me off is every time you ring you speak to someone different and even though my past history is suppose to be on the screen infront you have to go through the same sh*t everytime

too big for their boots

yep, i’m glad to be rid of BT too. Switched to SKY for telephones and line rental. BT kept on trying to bill us, but the DD had been cancelled. They owed us £60 credit on our account, but they wouldn’t pay it because we owed them money.. It took 3 months of shouting (initially calm discussions) at people for them to UNDERSTAND that we owed them nothing and they owed us money..

They eventually admitted that they owed us money, but they wouldn’t pay it until we’d paid what we owed them..

So, again, a period of conversations explaining to them that we owed nothing, our account was closed and they owed us money. They did pay up eventually, but what a bunch of monkeys.

At the next election, I may stand in my local constituency, for the ‘People who’ve had trouble with BT and hate them’ party.

I expect I’ll win by a landslide…

I’m still upset.
🙁

recent experience encourages me to agree with the above.
Sympathies extended to all involved.
Re-nationalise – NOW!

£180 bill here (although to be fair to BT, the wife did rack that up). During my investigations for a new phone provider I happened across BT’s front page which states ‘frees calls every day for 5 quid a month’. Something BT failed to mention during my long and protracted conversations with them.

This all sounds like Scottish Gas who wanted about £150 for 3 months electricity in my wifes unoccupied flat (1 light on a timer for 5 hours per night).Months past with us insisting the readings were not from her flat. They then threatened to take her to court which she gladly accepted as she could go to court and show them their own incompetence. It was sorted out soon after that.

pfffffffffffffft

They have NOTHING on Orange customer services.

Who cannot hope to compete with Churchill – whom I have a letter off, confirming just how poor there customer service has been / was, a grovelling paragraph suggesting it was all a big mistake and a final bribe of M&S vouchers, premium and excess returned so we did not take them court / allow it to go public.

A little letter from myself to BT earlier this year. The complaint is currenty with the ombudsman….

Dear Sir/Madam

I am writing to you to express my utter astonishment and disgust at the lack of competence demonstrated by your organisation in the rectification of an error made by British Telecom.

I have been harassed by British Telecom for the payment of an incorrectly assigned cancellation fee of £62.92, and it would seem that not a single member of staff within the organisation is capable of understanding the error let alone take the steps required to rectify it.

I took out a 12 month telephone and broadband package in January 2007. This package was transferred from 22 A Road to 140 B Street in December 2007. Once transferred, in February 2008 I attempted to cancel my broadband; I was informed at the time I had signed up to a sixteen month contract and as such would incur a penalty fee. This was eventually rectified once a member of customer care staff realised that a 16 month contract does not exist and I had, as mentioned, entered into a 12 month agreement (which was spent).

In June 2008 I moved once again from 140 B Street to my current address. The new address does not have a phone line and since I refuse to pay the £125 fee for BT to reconnect the property the phone line was cancelled. I was later dismayed to find that I had been charged a fee of £62.92 as a consequence. Through consultation with customer services I discovered that the transferral of an account to a new address automatically initiates a new minimum term of 12 months.

At no point during my custom, either at the contract initiation, the account transferral or the account cancellation did a BT employee alert me to this policy, and I certainly did not enter a verbal contract. With further investigation I have discovered this policy was introduced in May 2007, during my contracted term. I was not made aware of the change in terms at the time, nor was I referred to the altered terms and conditions during the transfer of the account to the new address.

I have sent 4 emails to the complaints department whose response has been non-committal and often, unintelligible. However, I do not blame you for refusing to empower these individuals and allow them to make decisions worth £62.92; they do not even possess the intelligence to read or write an email (it is blatant that these emails are formed using a set of standardised sentences designed to discourage the customer from pursuing their complaint). I would happily pay the outstanding amount if British Telecom could provide me with proof that I agreed to these terms of contract, either verbally or in writing. Since I know this proof cannot be provided, I shall not be paying the fee and would like the bill to be rectified accordingly.

The conduct displayed by British Telecom during my contracted time has been appalling and amounts to nothing more than extortion and profiteering. I shall be alerting the telecommunications ombudsman and Trading Standards of the situation.

Sincerely,

Me

on hold with the indian call centre right now 😆

Revised bill will be issued in seven days and my telephone line will be re-connected (even though it hasn’t actually been disconnected yet…)

I’ve never had any major problems with them 😆

Tell me about it. Had such a hassle from them. Stupidly arranged broadband with them. Cue 6 weeks of being bounced around from their techie team {/b} (INDIA, service related – “you have no connection and I cannot see a contract at your address”) to their {b}contracts team{/b} (UK, making money out of customers – “You have an active line and your broadband works”, “no you can’t cancel as you are in contract”, “we need authorisation from technical to tell us there is a problem in order to cancel”) and back to technie (“we cannot authorise this because you have no contract set up and I cannot see you on my system”).

Then
“You owe us £132”.

Then
“We have cancelled your contract no charge”.

I unfortunately have got stuck with them for the line rental (what could possibly go wrong???) but have found the saviours of O2 for the broadband package…

I’ve never had a problem. Even got 2p compensation for cancelling for a cheaper provider. Then spent months beating the hell out of tiscali to get anywhere. Wish I’d stayed with BT. Decades of perfect service at my parents place, but then my dad was a high level manager there so knows the routes to sort the problems faster.

I’ve never had any major problems with them

…yet.

You’re smiling now, but you just wait….

Sounds nasty, but I bet they’re not as bad as British Gas.

Hate them! Took me months to get the £100+ that they owed me back.
Was told not to be agressive by some stupid bint on the phone for having the cheeck to ask WHY they couldnt sort it out.
You’ve spoilt my day noew RudeBoy-got me mad just thinking about them. GRRRR

Just try Tiscali. In comparison, they make BT look competent.

I’ve come to the conclusion, it’s almost endemic in the telecoms industry. I’ve worked with various providors and obviously use them at home and so far, they’ve all been useless.

O2 allegedly get very good press for Broadband provision. Unfortunately not in my area as I’d try them like a shot.

How very odd – flawless service with british gas myself!

Tiscali – boblo, couldnt agree more!

nooooooo, I don’t want to hear this!!!!!! I am moving house next week and will need to contact Bt(we have our phone and broadband with them)

…yet.

You’re smiling now, but you just wait….

I’ve been with them since about 2003. Had a slight issue with my broadband but that was because I didn’t put the filter thingy on 😆

It really is an eye-opener this stuff. How companies stay in business I don’t know. BT reduced me to tears, I eventually started proceedings to take them to the Small Claims Court, got a phone call to soften me up which I didn’t fall for and got the reimbursement I demanded, note I didn’t ask for compensation.

My next battle will be with Tiscali which I reckon will go through Oftel, the regulator. Have refused to phone them on the grounds that I will not waste my time and money with a non-U.K. based call centre.

benkitcher – could I ask you how you proceeded after not getting anywhere with BT. Did you go through Oftel, although they seem to not deal with individual complaints? Nobody is encouraged to use any common sense or initiative and we have to pay for their incompetence.

I went through oftel (I think it’s now called ofcom) with BT, after wasting a month or two in the BT complaints procedure.

result = payback in a week, plus £50 extra money for the hassle.

Joe

at least they aren’t spying on your internet usage and then sharing it all with a highly dubious parasitic company that has a history of installing spyware/rootkits on peoples computers… …oh hang on.

Had only minor hassles with BT when first getting a phone line installed, and to be fair a lot of that was actually due to the muppets who’d built the flats – we had phone sockets that were attached to something but we never found out what – it wasn’t the phone line, that was hanging loose behind our fuse box!

Severn Trent Water are far worse.

I never had any issues with BT but never had cause to ring them. I would recommend Sky very highly, I got Sky+, phone and 2mb broadband for £20 a month all in, and everyone I spoke to in their Scottish call centre has been fantastic. Work done on time, great service and promises kept. I will be staying with them. 🙂

ebygomm – Member
Severn Trent Water are far worse.

Dint know they did telecoms 😛

Rudeboy – I feel your pain, even remembering the crap I had to put up with a couple of years ago when trying to sort business broadband fills me with rage. I ended up emailing the CEO a guy called vanmayan ..or something. Within 2 days what had taken them 2 years, got sorted. Funny that.

I still enjoy leaving them on hold/speaking in stupid accent/letting them think they’ve sold me something/completely contradicting myself etc whenever I receive a sales call from them, which I still do. Even though we don’t even have BT here in Guernsey!

Immature I know. But **** ’em. Stupid tw*ts!

I work in there exchanges nearly every day and if the company is as disorganised as there exchanges are then you have my deepest sympathy.

No problems with BT here either.

Had a problem with my broadband the other week and although the Indian call centre was ‘challenging’ once the person at the other end had worked through their prompt list an engineer was sent out (the same day nonetheless) and the fault (which was traced back to the exchange) was rectified the same day.

Of course I’m sure they were much better when they were state-owned and supported all manner of idle wasters who couldn’t cut it in the private sector.

EDS. Never has the slogan “We deliver on our commitments, so you can deliver on yours” been more wrong.

If it makes you feel any better Virgin are incompetent as well.

I (foolishly) agreed to take a free one month trial on there max TV and after that could keep the basic package. I specifically asked 2 people whether my contract would be extended and they said no. TV box arrives along with new 12 month contract. Phone them up, apologies and cancelled contract (4 phone calls later) turns out that my previous contract wasn’t available so £10 per month increase. I told them just to cancel my contract, they knocked the £10 off. Bill arrives for £90! not the £30 it usually is. Phone them up, get quite angry (not really very nice as the call centre guy was only doing his job and hadn’t caused the problem but he represents an incompetent organisation!) ANyway upshot is I got £100 back + a refund of the last bill by way of apology. I think my account must have read flags all over it now. I got to the point of phoning them so much I was prompting them for what they should be asking me re security an personal information.

BT were always ok with me. Although my dad had issues when he moved house. SPoke to the owner and they agreed not to disconnect any phone lines. BT did it anyway and tried to charge £125 so I think he just went elsewhere.