BT Customer Services are a disgrace!

Dear BT Complaints, where do I begin? Every time I move house I get problems after problems about something that should be routine for BT Customer Services to sort.

Below is an outline of events of my last move. 

Thankfully I detailed every conversation between BT and myself...some dates may be one or two days out. By the end I hope something is resolved to my satisfaction, in quick manner so I can start paying for the correct services.

Well here goes……….

Around 14^th march I called BT to advise then that I was moving house and wanted my broadband and phone line service stopping as from the 19^th march but still wanted to access my e-mail account. As I wanted to continue with BT I gave them my new address and the date I was moving in. On the same day I received an e-mail confirming new install address (which I will keep).

One letter sent by BT to my new address dated 14^th march advising me that the plan was to get me up and running by midnight 02/04/2012 but this might change after a few more checks.

Two more letters sent by BT to my new address dated 15^th march advising me that the plan was to get me up and running by midnight 02/04/2012 but this might change after a few more checks.

On 16^th march I received an e-mail from BT with details of my move of address involving the telephone numbers required.

Some point between 20/03/2012 and 02/04/2012 a new hub arrived at my address which I found a little strange as I already had a business hub. I signed for it and kept it boxed.

02/04/2012 the planned date of an engineer. A new line from the house to the outside pole was installed along with a open reach box inside, filters, the connection of the delivered hub and a new phone number is all up and running.

A bill dated 04/04/2012 arrived through my door for £165.19 (rental charges of £52.66, one off charges of £85.00 and vat of £27.53)

The one off charges of £79.00 for new hub and £6.00 for delivery of said hub.

After receiving this bill I called BT to question the charges for the hub and was given two options, either pay for the hub or a jiffy bag will be sent for me to return it. I opted to return it as I already had a BT business hub.

Shortly after the conversation I received a customer satisfaction survey on my mobile number, which required me to rate my experience of satisfaction that I had just received, I filled each question and sent them back by text.

On the same day as the survey or the day after I had a call on my mobile from BT who wanted some feed back the answers I gave in the survey. I told them the story regarding the hub and told her that at no point did I ask for the hub or I was advised a hub was being sent to me or I was going to be charged for a new hub or for its delivery. They told me that I should never been given the option of sending the hub back and for the mix up they would arrange a credit of £100.00 to my account and a revised bill would be sent. BT customer service representative also gave me their direct number and asked me to call them if I had any more problems.

Wow thing every thing is sorted…..How wrong I was…..

Bill dated 20/04/2012 came with the £100.00 credit applied. But a balance brought forward of £116.71 on it. I couldn’t understand this charge as my last bill dated 02/01/2012 was paid. I called BT to question this charge and after around an hour on the phone I got nowhere.

The same day or the day after I called again as I wanted to know what this charge was for, it was found that it was for bill dated 03/04/2012 after trying to make the BT customer services advisor that I hadn’t received that bill it came to light that it was sent to my old address. I questioned why as I had moved address and had conformation of move of address and the fact that I had my new line installed on the 02/04/2012 (the day before the bill date). 

The next thing that I questioned was the recurring charges figures never been consistent from the bill dated 02/02/2012 to the bill dated 29/04/2012. I was given no explanation.

Again after another phone call to try and get to the bottom of this I finally spoke to someone English other than the rep I spoke to previously. It was found that in the charge of £116.71 I was paying for two broadband accounts (my new one and the one I asked to be stopped on 19/03/2012). He advised me to call the cancellations department on 0800800152 option 4, letting the advisor know that I wanted the broadband cancelling from 19/03/2012. I did this and got a reference number. The gentleman who told me I was paying for two broadband accounts told me he would look out to make sure of the cancellation and send a revised bill.

Job sorted...Not a chance!

30^th April I received a phone call from BT telling me that I had an overdue account and I was going to be cut off. (AT THIS STAGE I AM GETTING VERY P**SED OFF). During my shouting and screaming at her down the phone I told her the whole story and how frustrated with BT I was and I was waiting for a revised bill. After over half an hour the BT customer services rep told me she would find out who I had spoken to from the first call back in march and would get back to me.

Also 30^th April I received an e-mail confirming my old broadband on line number would be stopped on 07/05/2012 

P.S I hope when I finally get a bill I won’t be charged up to 07/05/2012 as I asked for it stopping on 19/03/2012.

Monday 7^th May, can’t access my e-mails (blood boiling now). I put 2 and 2 together and realised that as the last e-mail confirming the cancellation of my old broadband on 07/05/2012 that his affected my e-mail access. Called BT yet again, I explained the situation and within 2 seconds me e-mail was back working (yet another English sounding person). During the conversation with the gentleman who took this call I mentioned the cock up with the hub sent to me and I mentioned the previous BT advisor I had talked with, the advisor claimed her knew her, I asked him if he could get in touch with her and ask her to phone me on the number she had done previously. The told me she wasn’t working (May bank holiday) but he would e-mail her my contact details and ask for her to contact me. The advisor suggested it could be as soon as Tuesday 8^th May.

Tuesday 8^th May. Whilst looking on the internet a message came that my account was suspended, the screen prompted me to close the browser and re-open, I did this and got a message stating overdue account and a box in the right hand corner with the words continue browsing, which I clicked on. Once again I called BT and spoke to another foreign person who claimed to be called “Sarah” (my arse). Once again I had to go through the whole story and yet again I was told she would find out some more details and get back to me.

I am still waiting……………………………………………………

I will not be very happy if I get cut off till this matter is resolved, I am not trying to avoid paying my bill, I just want to pay for services I asked for and not ones that I asked to be cancelled sometime ago. 
 

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£500 fee in 8 months for going over broadband allowance

This recent BT complaint about broadband allowance charges is terrible. Terrible in the fact that because this customer had chosen not to have paper billing and thus do their bit to save the environment, in doing so cost them £500 of fees as they did not receive emails informing them of charges for going over their broadband allowance due to a mistake on their email address setup. 

Dear BT Complaint


I've gone over my broadband allowance for 8 months but BT have never notified me so i've paid £500 on top of my normal bill!

I'm completely gutted. We are a large family and this has hit us hard. We chose not to have paper billing so did not see the bills mounting and the email that I should have received from BT to say we had reached our limit did not have my correct email address on it so I wasn't aware of the direct debts that they were taking until I started running short of money in my account.

I have spoken to someone from BT today and he said it was all my fault as the incorrect email address was on the account!

Strange as I have been receiving emails from BT for all other correspondence but they said the dot (.) was missing from my address when I set up the broadband.

So I have decided to end my contract, close the phoneline and the kids will now have to go round to friends to go on the internet as we have had enough!

It would not have been so bad if BT had met me half way with some of the £500 but it fell on deaf ears.

Sad as i've been a loyal customer for 25 years. Well you learn the hard way sometimes. Just another example of how easy it is to lose a large sum of money by a . going missing from an email address.

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10 years of needless payments for 2 phonelines

Dear BT Complaints

We've been with BT for over 10 years and have always been happy with the service until this January when we found out that we've been provided with a service that was not necessary and have paid a monthly rental on a phone line that was not needed!

We originally set up a separate phone line as we were under the misconception that we needed this line so that any internet use would not stop us being contacted by phone. For your records the phone line was 01226xxxxxx and the separate line number was 01226xxxxxx. At this stage we were not informed that this was not necessary.

Over the years we have rung and questioned a number of your operators as to why we have phone packages attached to the line (291xxx), for example Unlimited Evening and Weekend Plan when the line is only used for the internet. Not once have any of your employees told us that we do not need a line for the internet. I am also sure that they can see that we have never made any calls from this line which has cost us £13.90 per month.

We are both well educated professionals but neither my husband nor myself are good at anything technical to do with broadband so we have trusted that BT would advise us correctly. Imagine our shock when we found out that we did not need two lines!

We rang to close our account and put in a complaint on February 2nd 2012. We were informed that our complaint would be dealt with and we would be contacted within 5 working days. The phone call came after seven working days on Monday 13th February when one of your employees offered us a pathetic six months rental for over 10 years of deceit. We refused and were told that someone else would contact us within 5 working days. That was 14 days ago!

We are assuming that now we are no longer with BT that our complaint is very low on the priority list, however we are willing to take this further if it is not dealt with promptly and have decided to put the complaint in writing in order that we have a paper trail.

We are expecting your call within the next 5 working days.

Yours sincerely

Sue and Gary Cooper

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Early Termination Charges

Dear BTcomplaint.com, due to BT’s high prices, tying customers into long contracts with hefty termination charges, and often very poor level of customer service, I was pleased to read some small print at the bottom of a recent email regarding BT increasing their early termination charges.

I quote *If as a result of this change you decide to terminate your service(s), you may do so without incurring the early termination charge that may otherwise be payable if you are terminating within the minimum term of your contract. If you wish to exercise this right you must contact us within 10 days of receiving this notification. You will still be liable for service charges up to the date of termination’.

Sounds good to me. So I telephoned BT same day to let them know that I wanted to exercise my right to terminate my services. I had to spend a long time on the phone and forwarded the email to 2 BT employees who had no idea of this policy, however one of them finally agreed that I could go ahead and switch providers without incurring termination charges. I even made sure that this was recorded against my account notes.

A few weeks later my broadband had switched and I phoned BT just to enquire about when the phone would be switching, and whether I would have any loss of service. I was informed at this point that I would face termination charges. I was asked to forward the email (for the third time) so that she could have a look.

I then received this response:-

I have looked through the email that you have sent and my manager has also confirmed that you will be held to term on the package that you have if you wish to cancel. The email you have received from BT, informs you that the held to term charges would be increasing, not that you can cancel with no charges.

I replied politely saying that I don’t think she had read the same small print that I had, and could she confirm, but alas I have had no reply

BT, you’ve seriously annoyed me now, I have spent around £1,500 with you over the last 4 years, without a single late payment.

I have now cancelled my direct debits, I have lodged a complaint. I refuse absolutely to pay any cancellation charges. I will NEVER use BT ever again (I have a long memory). And I will ensure that I publicise my poor BT customer service experience at every opportunity

Will M

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Paying for broadband service which is just not there!

Dear BT Complaints, why am I paying for a broadband service which is only useable for 3 or 4 hours a day? I can be in the middle of something important and suddenly the screen tells me there is no broadband connection- when I look at the hub, broadband is showing as connected.

I then have no broadband for anything up to two DAYS. Alternately, I am working and suddenly the blue connection light goes off, and I have no broadband; nothing has been touched or altered, I am just cut off with no explanation. I keep being told I need new filters; I can assure you I do not, and am certainly not going to pour good money after bad buying something I do not need.

The broadband service is so s.l.o.w. that I frequently just switch the computer off; I don't have an hour to wait while the service gets going.

I asked about having this looked into, and was told I would have to pay an engineer £96.00!!!!! I live on a State pension, and in any case, I am already paying you for a service which is slow, inadequate and overcharged.

How about refunds for all the times I cannot use my computer because your so-called “service” is no service at all? Once my contract is up, you have definitely lost another customer (plus the ones I have already warned about your appalling provision.

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Nuisance and Abusive calls from Telephone number 0843 684 6142

Dear sir / madam,

I am repeatedly have these unsolicited selling / nuisance calls from some company called Accident Claim Line etc. etc. or something like this (I think I am correct) telephone number 0843 684 6142

I have these calls everyday and few times a day from different people claiming to be
Accident Claim etc. etc. and I keep on telling them that I am not interested but no change.

Today I had a couple of calls which I ignored by saying the same thing “not interested, thank you”. BUT the last call which I had around 16.24 or so was from a person who said that his name was IMRAN, I repeated the same thing by saying that I was not interested and further more I said, “Do not call me anymore as I keep on getting these calls again and again”.

IMRAN (the guy on phone) replied “SHUT UP YOU IDIOT” and put the phone down.
My Telephone Number is 0121 554 5351

Can you take some strict action immediately without fail, because we are fed up of these people and if possible disconnect these ill mannered abusive people/company making unsolicited nuisance calls all day and everyday. I find out that a lot of people are fed up and have complained but no action has been taken just because BT is more interested in making money rather than disconnecting companies like this immediately, do I need to complain OFCOM.

I look forward to your early response.
Regards.

Ajay Kapur.

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Exceed your BT broadband usage allowance and you'll be charged £5 per 5gb

Complaints are flooding in about BT broadband monthly allowance usage charge. Depending on your package (if you have unlimited broadband you will be fine) you will be charged a fee of £5 for every 5gb of usage that you exceed you allowance.

Here's a recent complaint about this. Please leave a comment below this complaint if you feel these broadband usage charges are unfair or any other experiences you have had with broadband usage fees.

Dear Sir,

I have just received notification that I will be charged £5.00 for exceeding my monthly bandwidth usage by 3GB. Having been a loyal BT customer for over eight years, this is the first time, maybe second time, that I have exceeded my allowance by a couple of GB's.

Fair enough, I understand that exceeding your bandwidth policy will incur extra charges, I also understand that, this is to prevent customers using excessive bandwidth which they have not paid for.

However, there are many hundreds of times where I have not used up my monthly allowance. Are you willing to reimburse me for the many hundreds of Gigabytes that remain unused? I think not!

In my opinion, this is penny pinching on your part; it is not the way to treat your loyal customers, and when my contract with you expires later this year, I am seriously considering moving to another ISP.

Yours sincerely

M Winwood

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Who keeps ringing me?

Another BT customer complaining about unwanted annoying sales calls. We are getting increasing numbers of complaints saying "Who the hell keeps ringing me!" In this particular complaint, the telephone number is 02031671196.

Dear BTcomplaint.com 

I've had at least 14 calls over the last 2 weeks, once a day around midday every weekdays plus once in the evening.

I have not got a reply and when I rang the number it was not possible to get through. The telephone number is 002031671196

It must be obvious to whoever is calling I don't want them to call and I'm worried as to their intensions with all you hear about the fraudulant use of numbers.

I rang the nuisance call department on 13/1/2012 to ask for help and was asked to keep a log of the phone calls. this I did and rang back today (1/2/2012 ). I was told nothing could be done unless I paid for an extra service to stop unwanted calls. I was under the impression I already had this service at no cost.

I am an elderly person and cannot afford to pay any more money out. These calls are really worrying me as to their unknown intensions and if there is no way you can stop them I will have to find another company who provide a more secure and thoughtful service.

T.Tharme

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Intermitent Broadband Connection

Dear BT Complaints

I've been having problems with intermitent broadband connections for over two weeks now. The broadband connection can go off for up to anything up to 6 hours at a time then seem to work well for a couple of hours before losing the broadband again. I phoned up BT Customer Services helpline yesterday morning and spoke to a gentleman who said I would be getting a from phone call from technical support between 5am and 7am that evening no phone call came.

This morning I phoned up again and was apologised to and then put through to another number where I was on hold for over an hour before giving up .I am sending this e-mail at a time that my broadband is actually working. Is it possible to actually speak to someone without being passed from pillar to post. I would appreciate a reply or phone call to resolve this problem.

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