BT Broadband. How incompetent can they be?

Go on BT website and leave a complaint, I had an engineer(in the UK) sorting a problem I had, in very short time.  

BT are no worse or better than many suppliers. It's always great to see that most peoples solutions with "much better" companies  (not Virgin) still use all the same equipment but just change the name.

Just like Morris 1100s were better than the Austin version, but of course the Rily or Van Den Plas versions were even betterer. 

Tony, I remember your post and im glad you're in a happier place. Im giving BT the benefit of fixing this mess just this once. 

H, I spoke to several people , sometimes from the same dept, and they had no idea whay happened to my BB connection. Even when they realised they had deactivated my serviced by mistake, I still had to tell them the whole spill all over again. It's not a hardware issue and nothing wrong with my line, router or modem. Just sheer stupidity. 

I have already made a complain on the  phone but  wil also write to them and demand compensation for all the time wasted and stress caused.

Me too. One of the worst companies to deal with. So like anyone who annoys me, I get rid of them. There are plenty of decent companies to give your money to. 

It took BT over three months to set up my broadband and telephone service when I moved into this house.

Initially they said it would take about a month because there was a waiting list, so I accepted that and put my name on the list.

A month later and a guy came to the house, was checking the wiring then went out to the pole out in the back garden then came back and told me he couldn't check the wiring on the pole because the pole hadn't been safety checked in over 10 years.  So he puts in a request for the pole to be checked, by a different department.  They take a couple of weeks to come out and check it and decide the pole needs replacing.....by a different team.  They take a few weeks to come out and put in the new pole.

Great, can I has internets please?  No, someone has to check the phone lines on the pole, we just install the pole and wire it up.  Another two weeks or so pass before Mr Checker comes out and gives it the all clear and THEN BT tell me I'll get my broadband and phone line in a month because the queue is a month long.

But I put my name on the list nearly three months ago and paid over a 100 quid to get this installed, shouldn't I be fast tracked ahead of everyone else who applied after me, I asked them?

No, comes the reply because we have a four week waiting list.

Amazingly I got handed the bill for £100 odd before the phone line and broadband was up and running and I had to battle with them for weeks after about the time they took.  They only knocked half the price off the bill in the end.

So, once that contract ended I dumped them and went with a smaller ISP.

I've never had the slightest problem with BT - well apart from Michael Owen's co-commentaries. 

Write to the current boss of BT outlining what has gone wrong.

In the past letters to the boss tend to work  wonders.

I've had problems in the past,  but in hindsight considering the problems that I've heard with others on Talk-Talk & Virgin,  I have nothing to complain about

With the problems I had I did not find BT that much of a problem once you go thru the required pain process & then by-pass the call centre's in India.  That said they are pretty good once you get to the technical 2nd level people.   

1st problem was caused by the HH2, drop outs & more. The call centre were either not authorised or it was not in their approved script & would not replace it with the latest HH3.  I threatened to cancel the contract & the local UK marketing peeps gave me some sweeties which included a HH3.  

That was good for about 2 years,  then it too started loosing connections & (here we go again)

I quickly suspected a line fault as I noticed the phone was intermittently very noisy when the BB dropped out, & despite all the line testing from India who assured me it was OK,  I got into serious mode & insisted an engineer call.  He quickly found & fixed line faults in both the exchange & local cabinet. -  but best of all, he saw I had the HH3 & muttered crock of pooh & exchanged it for a HH4.   Its been perfect ever since - 24mb line speed,  who needs fibre optic.

I had the most horrendous experience with BT and swore I'd never have anything to do with them ever again. Their incompetence was simply breathtaking and quite unbelievable.

I'm pleased to say I now have a microwave broadband system that delivers 24 Mb (just over 1 Mb via the phone line here) and now I've gone for the Vonage internet phone system which is excellent so no need for a phone line at all.

I'm still using BT for my broadband.  Having various friends and relatives who use other providers, I don't have any more problems than they do.  They, too, never seem to get anything near the quoted data rates.  Fibreoptic not available in our village, alas.

The only thing they did that really annoyed me, was when I decided that their provided router was pretty crap and replaced it with a Netgear N600.  I, and my home network installer had difficulty getting it to work, and decided that my login password to BTinternet was wrong.  When I rang their help desk to  try to resolve this problem, they wouldn't help at all, saying they provided no help if you didn't use their router.   Eventually solved the problem by going back through all the old paperwork and using the old broadband.com login password rather than my current btinternet.com one!

When dealing with a faulty broadband connection first of all check to see if the voice connection is good. BT has a statuary requirement to provide good/usable voice connections, so first of all dial 17070 and listen to the various options. Then select the quiet line test - if you get any noise or crackles then contact the faults department and tell them you have a noisy voice line.  BT will get an Openreach tech out to check out the line without any need to prove that your router is connected correctly.

In a lot of occasions a noisy line contributes to a bad broadband connection.

New and official date for activation now, until further noticed, is Tuesday. This time I have a job number. 

Derek, thank you for the advice. I have made a record, full of notes, of every single conversation I have had with their staff and I am also preparing a case for  full compensation for all the grief they have caused so far. I will give a bull  not to get into a fight but a whole herd not to get out of it! Watch this space.

Ok, I had the engineer here this morning and guess what? He tried to re-activate my BB but had my neighbours telephone number on his log instead of mine so the "job" could not be completed. There was nothing he could do. He did try to help contacting his people but the problem was with another dept.  I should have known...silly, me! I had to call BT again and finally got somone in the UK who seemed to know what he was doing. After wating for an eternity, again, although I must admit this one did seem to try and resolve the issue,  he told me he had sorted out the mess, begged me to be patient, as he had escalated the matter to a higher level, whatever that meant. Should hear from them tomorrrow for appointment and activation with another engineer on Thursday.

I have now sent an email to the head of Openreach and another to the BT CEO along with a detailed log of the calls I have made and responses received so far. Let us see what happens now. I like a good challenge and this is  getting beyond ridiculous. Bring it on!

Try Plusnet it's call centre is in Yorkshire.  Like all call centres you will get to more skilful agents the more you push the issue. They also have an online problem ticket system so you get an audit trail of the problem..

PN is part of BT but they like all ISPs use OpenReach as their service provider.  However PN do seem to be easier yo deal with than the BT ISP.

I have been with PN for 11 years so they have not really annoyed me in that time.

I ditched BT about 3 years ago.It was getting ridiculously expensive compared to there competitors.

I always remember the conversation I had terminating my contract.Everything they where trying to offer me was cheaper by Talk Talk and the lady conceaded there was no point in me staying.

I now get unlimited broadband,free national and evening calls and free answer phone.

With BT  I had a 10 GB monthly Allowance and if I exceeded it I was penalised at £ 5 for every GB exceeded.Then answer phone cost £ 3 a month ! 

I had a line problem spoke to Talk Talk in India very helpful.The day of the engineer visit I got a call on my mobile confirming the appointment.Really good company.

Best thing I did getting shot of BT.There like Waitrose a company for the middle class.

Hope your situation sorts itself out Tony.....good luck.

Thank you Ian. I will get this sorted one way or another. I have always been happy with BT until now but all the people who have been through hell with them have all my sympathy. I now know how they felt. I made the cardinal mistake of keeping all my business and personal emails under their umbluella.

I've learned my lesson.  They did f..k it up this time but they won't get away with it easily!

I have now received an email from higher up in the hierarchy of "competence"   and they said someone is looking into it here in the UK. I heard this crap so many times from their staff in India that the only difference seems to be a change of continent. Will see...

Tony, it sounds like your experience is a poor one here. I am sure you will get a response back from your letters. BT will be keen to not loose you. Fingers crossed it will get shortly resolved now you have somebody who has taken local ownership... Intrigued why the job had your neighbours phone number on it.. I guess if there is some sort of inventory problem it could explain things.. But its no excuse.

Simon

In our case (a few years ago, described on another thread re: similar topic) I did not so much mind the failure in service ... I accept that things go wrong ... it was more the companies' (BT & Open Reach) ineptitude and failure to act on behalf of this - up till then - loyal customer.  And the false statements BT made to me re: progress.

As far as seeking to retain my custom (after 25+ years), this went as far as:

- offering me compensation of approx. £6.50 (resulting in BT's customer service manager putting the 'phone down on me during our conversation); and

- BT saying it would not accept my termination notice to end my annual contract more than 30 days in advance!

A complete shambles ... I'm not particularly fond of Virgin Media but, to date, excepting its Mobile Phone arm (another story ... ) it has yet to show itself so incompetent.

Mitch

Personally I find the Post Office even worse.

Being dyslexic I have a problem with being overloaded with junk mail (even after registering with the MPS).  The post office have a system whereby they also deliver junk mail for 3rd parties.  They have an on-line opt-out system.  It doesn't opt you out, it just sends you a paper form (yet more junk mail!), and after a short period of time you then have to repeat the process.

When I asked for reasonable adaptation under the terms of the 2010 Equality Act, they refused point blank.  However when I complained about their refusal to comply with the act, they refused to respond to the complain and just said I'd have to fill out the form.  That's both unlawful and insulting.

If you want really bad company for service I nominate British Gas. The last straw was the 72 hour response time to a boiler fault (the contract stated 24hr max) and then sending somebody who was not licensed to work with our LPG boiler. On Day 5 we gave up.

The complaints department were exemplary. I suggested to them it was because they got a lot of practice.

I have had some line fault problems not actually of BT's making. It has taken a while to sort but they have been helpful, persistent and reliable in terms of engineer callouts etc. The call centre staff have been generally well informed and helpful. Not their fault the line got shredded by the farmer next door.

Bruce

After escalating complain by sending email to their Executive Level Complaints main man, they have now taken ownership of the complaint, as Simon has said. I have since received an email from Mr Davis on Gavin Patterson's behalf saying someone would be on the case. After waiting all day, I have now another gentleman  dealing  with it. No hope the BB would be re activated before sometime next week. They, engineers and senior staff, also don't do weekends! Remember? 

It's only Thursday, we didn't even start the weekend on Friday back in the "old" days. 

I left before the  latest type of BB equipment, but it does seem to take an inordinate amount time to get anything done.