id like to have my new house connected to bt service – despite the line still being there and it was a bt line with the old tennents.

they are quoting 3 weeks to set it up – they say no engineer is needed so why so long ? – my last house , in august last year they connected me the next day !

dont get me start on you must take an 18 month contract , you must make 3 BT calls a month to avoid a 1.50 charge , you must **** jump through hoops while juggling fire ….

If you can get Virgin. BT can go **** themselves with a **** hot ***** and then can **** on it. ****s.

in the sticks mate , its copper cable – or smoke signals

dont expect to phone either – just wasted my dinner doing so !

bt are reallyrarely helpful ……

fixed it for you.

Virgin Media customer services are much much worse than BT IMO

They dragged a problem on for months and in the end they sent me a questionaire so in the "comments" section I gladly offered out their Head Of Cust Services to a fist fight but they bottled it….. 8)

BT are without a doubt the worst company in the universe for customer service.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bt-a-rant-by-harry-the-spider

I dream of BT.

In Holland I am in a phone nightmare – on 22 May I contacted the phone company to move my phone and internet. They need 4 weeks notice. On 28 June nothing happened, and when I called them they said "oh, we must have lost your order", but even though it was their fault, all they would do was make a new appointment for 27 July. On that day an engineer came and said he could not install internet for some reason he did not explain properly. Hours on the phone with their customer service (hahahaha) desk and they still don't know what is the problem, or have a timescale for fixing it.

It's a nightmare working on IT projects when you need BT for a comms line install, last one we ordered was in January and although now installed it's still not working, sucks busting a gut to meet a deadline and a bunch of muppets screw you over :p

Just did the same thing with BT and transfered my old number to a new address. Took 5 working days and was all done remotely.

In my last place of work, they were known throughout as "BFT".

Hmm, BT were to install a phone line and internet service on behalf of Sky (Sky did it FOC, BT would have charged me £128 for the privelige!) two weeks ago on a friday afternoon. I took the half day off, and was surprised to get an answer machine message at 9:10 am (I was in a meeting) from a BT engineer on his way to the property, but still 10 mins away.

Grand, I thought, calling him back at 9:25, I work 10 mins away, see you shortly (to his answer machine, didn't get through to him). Arrive @ 9:35 to find a card, telling me he left at 9:15 as no one was home.

Phone sky, multiple times, very long story short, they agreed the engineer should have been there between 1 and 6pm, but the engineer had closed the job so they could not ask him to go back. A new appt required, 22 Aug! Not good enough, after calling cancellations got that down to 27th July.

Phone BT. They wont speak to me, I'm not their customer, Sky is, so data protection yadda, cant talk to me. Not good enough, your engineer has fecked this up, you sort it. No, they say, gotta go thru Sky. Sky say gotta book new appt etc etc…

See the circle I'm running round in here?

So Sky wont bollock BT for getting it wrong, BT simply didn't give a ****. No one wants to try and sort it out.

So I take matters into my own hands and head for BT's head office. Hello Mrs receptionist, I'd like to make a strong complaintabout one of your engineers.

Speak to a fella on the phone, he explains he cant allow me to speak to their engineering division directly (more data protection), but will see what he can do. He says e will phone me back, I inform him I'll be in reception till he does…

20 mins later, I ask the receptionist to phone him back again. While on teh phone to him, my mobile rings, engineer supervisor has despatched a man to sort it, can I get back to the house? With pleasure I say, thank you gentlemen.

Moral of the story? The call centres fob you off and no one will go out of their way for you until you become a problem for them. A large gentleman ranting in the reception of their head office seems to do the job rather effectively. When they see you are a person rather than a voice on the phone, things tend to happen.

Also, BT are rip off merchants whose inflexibility cost them a customer.

Try doing it via the post office. They use BT but you don't need any contract.

Any company with a "customer service Department" Generally has no understanding of the term.

Compare:

put my van in for MOT a few weeks back. Needed a LOT of work. £1k later I get my van back, sorting some paperwrk toady and relaise I don't have the MOT certificate. Not sire If I lost it or never had it. Ring garage who say "sorry, must be our fault, let me check. 30 secs later, yep, we've got it here. Shall we hang onto it and you can pick it up, or we can post it, or i'm in your area on friday I can bring it round if you like (garage is 12 miles away).

This is good customer service.

RIng NTL (before they became virgin media) to complain that I have no TV, no internet and the flat upstairs answers if you ring my landline. 5 weeks of arguements, they wont let me cancel as "its a 12 month contract". So, like andy above, I went to head office with their digi box under my arm, and sat in the carpark, first man in a suit to park up and walk in got the whole story. No idea who he was, but when confronted by an angry yob in the carpark with a digibox and no service he got it sorted pretty damn sharpish!

ha! i finally got my broadband activated today 4 weeks after the activation date they gave me

its been more painful than i dont know what

countles phonecalls being shuffled between the helpdesks in india and the engineering helpdesk in scotland

emails, getting abusive on their adam andjane talkback, complaints

and last saturday spent the entire day waiting for an engineer who never turned up

well this morning one finally came round and convinced him that tehre was nothing wrong with our computer or modem, as ive been telling them all along

he went to the exchange did something, probably just turned it on/plugged in the correct wire a finally im online

well tonight im gonna watch a whole months worth of porn in one go

British Gas are worse I bet.

I had loads of grief setting up with VM, took them around 3 months and lots of calls from my mobile (not cheap) to their customer services to get the land-line working.

The CS was shocking – misinformation, ignored emails, broken promises etc. you get the picture.

12 months later they've finally redeemed themselves, upgrading my TV to their XL package at no extra cost. All because I enquired about (not threatened) cancelling the TV as they wanted an extra £11p/m off me for Eurosport HD.

Excellent customer services!! 😛

British Gas are worse I bet.

Defo. They told me to **** off when I asked them to install a phone line 8)

anyone used post office ?

im very tempted – 25 quid for top broadband and weekend/evening calls (which we need as our house gets no mobile signal)

same price as BT but they are not a bunch of **** and claim 14 days maximum for connection which is bareable – my missus needs internet for work so would have to stay at her parents till its connected ! – although i might be able to negotiate with our neighbours/landlord to use their wireless internet till ours is sorted – they are close enough

woo hooo – BT suceed in being **** "your lines not connected we need an engineer to come round and connect it thatll be 150 quid" – no no i think youll find it is …. ive listened to the dial tone my self – hell i even have the old phone number !

tunes change quickly – **** dirty scamming bastards

I'm not even gonna tell you my story. It's too long and annoys me every time I think of it.

Roll on January when my 18 months are up, I'm off to another useless supplier.

Can we have a poll on the home page.

1. BT are *****.
2. BT are *****.
3. BT are….. you get the idea.

o2 are worse !

Same story as trail_rat here. BT wanted over £100 to connect me as they checked my line and they said the line was dead and not connected. Went with Sky and got BT engineer free through them. Came out plugged in his machine and low and behold has always been live. He was in my house less than 2 minutes……

They would have ping'd your line and if no reply there could be a break somewhere which is odd if the last owners had it working fine.
As a student they wanted to charge me too and I lived on the top floor 3 story building $$$ but I found the line break and plugged up the wires to a new cable and box from Argos freezing cold Xmas eve on a ladder Brrr!

Try a multi meter to test for circuits between 2 wires of the same colour and ring BT who retest the line and bingo no installation bill 😛
you might be able to do the same and save cash for furniture or moving in party.

it sounds like a scam to me – but then when i phone the number i was given it says line is dead – which is annoying but the landlord said she specifically got it left active for new tennents ! – i KNOW no engineer came out to "disconnect" so whats he going to come out to reconnect?

I work for a rival telecoms company (it's OK, everyone hates us too).

We have to use Openreach (BT to you guys) to do the provisioning on new phone/data lines.

They are expensive and sh*te – I mean, I know it literally requires an engineer to go to your exchange and poke wires between racks using a specially *designed* stick (a cut off broom handle), but even then just how difficult is it for BT to send an order through to Openreach and get the f***ers to do something.

Grr.

its not new – first guy i spoke to said " yep thatll be 125 quid as its a new build" – your having a laugh mate – its a converted stables in the hills thats been there since the late 1800s !

they are at it …. i have a BT master socket in the living room

To the OP…Openreach was finding that lines in situ that were restarted were having a lot of early life failures, which means you get your line but it goes faulty within 30 days or so. This was upsetting both customers and their service providers so something had to be done, so they introduced a new check. If the line isn't testing as good then they will book an engineer in to repair any minor faults to ensure it works and is 'right first time', even if this does mean you have to wait for an appointment 🙁

To AndyI46, a few years ago BT got split into BT Retail and Openreach to keep Ofcom happy and ensure fair service to all service providers. BT Retail now hasn't got any more control over Openreach and the engineers than a service provider such as Sky. Its a bit like asking Tesco to sort out a complaint over a slug in your salad when its Sainsburys you shopped in. You have to complain to the supplier via Sainsburys, Tesco (BT Retail) have nothing to do with it! Not defending them, just trying to give you an idea of why they appear unhelpful. Its bad enough working for them 🙂

They pay well tho 😛

well tonight im gonna watch a whole months worth of porn in one go

NO! Don't! Your tolerance has dropped off, and if you try to jump in at the same level you were on before, you'll suffer pron overload! I can't go into the consequences of that on a family forum. Could be fatal though.

You'll need time to build up the callouses again, too.

They pay well if you are living in the middle of no-where. Not so good when there is no overtime and you are in the south-east. Should've kept hunting for an apprentice electrician job. They are coughing up to put me through my LGV license this week though 🙂

I have a bit of information that may help with some of the issues here. It's been a while, so some of this may be a little out of date.

BT is effectively a monopoly, especially in the more rural areas. In order to allow competition into the market place, OFFCOM (or whatever it's called these days) places restrictions on what BT can and can't do. For example, line rental is subject to OFFCOM approval, it's can't be too cheap (or free) as this would be an unfair market advantage to BT.

It's a similar story for the "installation charge". The minimum price is effectively set by OFFCOM. The flip side is that BT cannot refuse to provide service based on location. If you're a farmer and your house is 1 mile up a private road, BT still have to provide service at the same price as someone living in a city center, even if it includes diging a trench and laying the cable. Everyone pays the same (residential).

Cabinets, or the green boxes in the street. These have limited capacity and if a line is disconnected, then it's space in the cabinet can be given to another line requiring connection. If this happens, an engineer is required to physically connect the line when you move in and want the phone back on. Customers are told no engineer is required as no access to the premesis is needed. If the line is not disconnected in the cabinet, then it's usually less than 24 hrs to have it turned back on. On top of this, you can now get LLU(Local Loop Unbundling) where a third party phone company can take over the line from the exchange to the premesis, which can only make things worse.

I hope this helps explain a bit more of why some of the things happen, and I am truly glad it's not me posting a horror story. 😆

We found the best way to get good service out of BT was to use AOL. After ages of intermittent local loop broadband problems, and BT saying oh we can't sort your problem you need to ring BT Openreach (but you're the same company – yes we are but we ain't going to do anything about your problem and here's the bil), we moved to AOL who got BT Openreach out the next day. When they'd been out AOL phoned back to check they'd sorted the problem. They hadn't so AOL got them out within 2 hours.

AOL must have a really big stick to hit those guys with.

It's a similar story for the "installation charge". The minimum price is effectively set by OFFCOM. The flip side is that BT cannot refuse to provide service based on location. If you're a farmer and your house is 1 mile up a private road, BT still have to provide service at the same price as someone living in a city center, even if it includes diging a trench and laying the cable. Everyone pays the same (residential).

Not quite accurate, there is a maximum spend when providing new plant and over that its down to the customer
Pretty much the same for customers on DACS, don't necessarily just get converted to single line working especially to receive broadband

BT could do a lot of things better, but a lot of the staff are overworked and demoralised since the massive cut back in personnel that has gone on for years now. Top heavy with management and the offshore call centres don't help either.

I have worked for them close on 35 years and they have definitely improved over the years, but still got a way to go yet
The new fibre to the cabinet and premises is going to bring a vast improvement to services for many people and a big increase in speed/reliability

spooky_b329, I understand BT and openreach are separate companies, however, just try finding contact details for openreach. All they advise is contact your communications provider. The level of service they provided to my provider was nothing short of abysmal, and I as the customer was caught in the middle and was made to feel that I simpy didn't matter. As the engineer closed the job, my provider was unable to re open the job, so they were stuck with the next available slot that openreach could give them. In other words, the engineer could turn up at whatever time he desired (4 hours early in this case), phone me with an unreasonable leadtime then piss off before I arrived, close the job and charge my provider, who were initially going to charge me for a missed appointment!

Strangely, the guy from BT was able to sort it out with openreach easily and quickly (he couldn't give me a number for openreach or let me speak to them), I just wonder why the public who are being messed around by openreach are unable to contact openreach at all. Here's their "contact us" page:

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/loadReason.do

The engineers mobile remained unanswered from 15 mins after he called to say he was 10 mins away and for the rest of the day, co-incidentally…

So, why do openreach seem to think they dont have to talk to the public?

Not good communications from a communications company!

Oh and here's a giggle:

I've just dropped a quick note to openreach under their "pass on my thanks to an Openreach staff member" option on their "contact us" page. It wasn't complimentary, to say the least. Imagine my surprise when their own confirmation page for submitting a compliment to their staff assured me that my

"Complaint[i] has been successfully submitted"

Openreach, your own site doesn't let the public compliment your staff. Maybe they've never needed to.

My landlord just called to say they have somehow disconnected the line into the house – no dial tone now.

They were never asked to – previous tennents asked for the line to be left for the next tennents(us) but their name taken off . they are friends of the landlord so we have no reason to doubt them .its only been a fortnight since they moved out – to a bigger house along the road.

landlords now not happy either – she has had nothing but problems with bt !

Going to phone tomorrow and give em hell !

Another BT horror story, while back now but……..

Live in block of 50 flats, turned out only capacity for 25 phone lines.

Got disconnected 8 separate times in 5 years! Every time a new flat got connected, engineers would just pull out cables from an existing flat at junction box! Would always take over a week to get re-connected [when they would then just disconnect someone else]

Anytime I saw a bt van in car park would hold phone till dialing tone went, then would go down and stand in front of van/argue till c***s put it back on. Phoning bt to complain was useless, [surprise surprise] endless denial and fob offs.

Then brother in law, who is bt engineer explained why it happens. He said next time it happens and you're getting fobbed off at bt complaints , just say 'DP pairs'……WOW…. 'I,ll just put you through to my manager' who then passed me on to their manager, who got phone put back on in 30 mins and gave me a special number to call if it ever happened again. Never did happen again though….Funny that !!!

It 'aint what you know………

and the nightmare ensues ! going bananas here ! i only want internet you fudd !

Trail_rat
Drop me a mail with your postcode and address along with the old phone number and i'll tell you if they can restart the old line or if they need to put a new one in.