UK phone/Internet provider with UK customer services?

Posted by: Tony Lockhart on 23 July 2011

Well, after being misled and lied to twice by the Bangalore branch of 'British' Telecom, we are looking at ditching them. Can anyone here recommend a service provider with good, UK customer services?
We only require a moderate Internet allowance, maybe 40Gb per month.

I really hope someone can help.

Tony
Posted on: 23 July 2011 by Derek Wright

Plusnet (which is a subsidiary of BT) has it's call centre in Sheffield  - to some southerners this would be a foreign country with a different accent  <g> - however they give a good service.

 

I have been with them since 2004

Posted on: 23 July 2011 by Mike-B

Changing provider might not fix it if the problem is in the exchange & lines to your property. 

 

I had all sorts of problems with BT at busy times (evenings) slow speed, stalling & drop outs.  I do know my way around a BT hub & did not need tuition on what to do to get the best out of it,  but did spend some hours talking to the Bangalore Branch - which I must say were very professional & for sure know what they are doing - but the problem was in the exchange & lines.

I sent e-mail to BT & copied "Which",  with a fix it or I move ultimatum. I got a phone call from local manager & a van man arrived at the promised time.  He explained they had already knew the problem was in the exchange & had changed some wires around to improve it but it would be 6 months before the final fix was done as part of the new optical line install.  He also explained that most providers use BT lines & all but those with an optical supply such as Virgin will have the same problem.   

 

NB:  My neighbour is so pee'd off with Virgin & failing to meet the promised line speed he about to move back to BT in time for the introduction of Infinity in the area.   

 

 

Posted on: 23 July 2011 by Rich27

O2 have UK based customer services and I have always found them to be excellent.  They tried to help me through some vpn issues I was having very professionally.

Posted on: 23 July 2011 by Tony Lockhart
Our problem isn't the connection speed at all, that's fine, as is reliability. The problem is that we want to make a minor change to the contract (changing from in my wife's name to mine) and also up the bandwidth. After talking to them for nearly an hour and seemingly achieving a decent tariff, we received an email informing us that we would be without broadband for a few days, our number would be in the phone book, and we would receive monthly bills instead of the current direct debit arrangement. I'd rather stay with BT, as the Internet and phone are as we require them. However, if Monday's phone call from Bangalore doesn't deliver the goods, I'll be fore-armed. Thanks for the comments so far. Tony
Posted on: 23 July 2011 by Rich27

Frankly in this day and age any company that makes you pay for 3 months line rental in advance deserves to lose customers by the truck load.  Still it doesn't stop the very nice sales people calling me every few weeks to try and convince me to switch to their great value broadband (which is twice what I pay O2, has usage limits and would require me to presumably pay three months in advance, idiots).

 

The only down time in service from O2 was when the kind people at Natwest switched my debit card from switch to visa debit so my regular (monthly in arrears, BT take note) payment failed.  To be fair O2 had e-mailed me many times in advance to warn me but I had ignored this like a fool.  As soon as I worked out what had gone wrong I was back on line in a matter of hours.

Posted on: 23 July 2011 by Comradeian

you tried the Phone Co-OP , Look em up on web, plenty of good reviews and you always speak to a human being in UK

Posted on: 25 July 2011 by Tony Lockhart
Update. After a few very frustrating calls to Bangalore Telecom, I eventually managed to press some phone buttons that promised a call back tonight. And as promised, the call was made, and I found myself talking to Dave from Doncaster. What a bloody great big relief that was. He didn't get to the bottom of what Bangalore had done, and couldn't sort my problem tonight. He has however, promised to call Wednesday evening with everything organised for a smooth transition to our new contract. Fingers crossed yet again.

By the way, the low point was earlier tonight. After thirty minutes of queueing to chat to Bangalore, I then chatted to a very quietly spoken woman that I could barely understand. I was calm and pleasant, but she cut me off after four minutes. I was not a happy chappy.

Tony
Posted on: 25 July 2011 by Redmires

Another vote for Plusnet - who funnily enough are owned by BT but don't act like BT. Been with them years and never had an issue. I Recently downgraded my useage from unlimited to 60gig/month for £11.49, which is more than enough for me.

Posted on: 28 July 2011 by Tony Lockhart
I'm posting this from my iPhone, on 2G, and this will probably be my last post for a week or so.

BT totally ballsed up this week. Dave Kenny, at BT in Doncaster, didn't phone back as promised. After loads more calls wasting yet more of my life talking to Bangalore, we were cut off today! Where'd that come from? So no phone or Internet, and it'd be a week before BT could reconnect our broadband.

So we took advantage of the situation, and called the highly recommended Plusnet this evening. What a refreshing change that call was. And I was probably talking to a young lady within a stone's throw of where my 180 and hicap were service recently

I've gone for 60Gb Internet, and anytime free calls etc. Comes to a tenner less than BT were charging us, and to sweeten me further, the lovely Sara gave us free broadband for four months! Billy Bargain.

Thanks to those that pushed Plusnet into my view. I'm feeling de-stressed already.

BT? Never, ever again.

Tony
Posted on: 28 July 2011 by garyi
Ukfsn.

Look them up, and trust me.