BT problem after problem

Dear BT Complaint Blog,

I have had a problem since March 2008 when I returned to BT. My telephone has interference. BT told me the line was OK. We have since purchased 3 new telephones, all have the same interference, same story from BT, they do nothing.

I have also had a problem with my Broadband, around 5 weeks ago they the so called technical department of BT which of course is India. They cannot speak English that you can understand and I cannot understand them.

I have spent approx 35 hrs on the telephone trying to get the problem solved WITHOUT SUCCESS. They have lost (India) all my emails dating back to 2003 which included all myself and my wife's previous hospital appointments and the future ones, we are both disabled and pensioners, also very important emails were lost.

NO ONE CAN FIX THE PROBLEM WHICH THEY THEMSELVES CAUSED.

I was told by Trading Standards to contact the complaints of BT In Durham, STILL NO FIX.

We should never have gone back to BT,I was also told by the sales of BT Vision that I would be able to get previous programmes that had been aired through my contract free. Now I am told this changed in May and you now have to pay.

I explained that I was told a very different story. I was told it does not matter what I was told!

Disgusted
Mr M Ferguson

BT's Line Takeover are a sham

Having had a a lot of Grief with BT recently I found your website. It is intriguing that the first article on the page, by a Majella Foley, is both so similar and yet the complete opposite of my problem.

I have just moved to a new address and the previous occupants seem to have done a runner and left the country without paying any bills. I have unpaid notices and bailiff letters from them. They also never canceled their BT line.

Now I'm there, and I want to use the line. So I place an order with BTfor the new line. Line currently active at that address, they say. So it will take 11 working days while they attempt to contact the current BT account holders to ask them if it's OK to take the line over.

They will do this, I am sure, by either (a) attempting to phone them, on the line which is active at my flat or (b) writing to them, at my address.

Nobody will respond, and so BT after waiting 11 working days will determine they're actually not there anymore, and reallocate the line to a new account holder, namely me, at the same address.

When I point out the futility of this, and additionally point out that they were chinese students and have left the country (I'm 99% sure of this, seeing as they did a runner without paying bills), ask to speak to someone else, get transferred all around the houses i'm eventually
put through to someone who promises that it will take just 3 working days to transfer the line.

When nothing happens 4 working days later, I phone up to check on theorder progress. The Order doesn't exist, they have no record of my previous call, the Order reference number they gave me over the phone previously 'doesn't exist', and they have to start again. Another 11 working days, after 4 have already passed.

The following day (today) they phoned me up to confirm that this means it will take 11 working days, from today. Which now means that it will take until the 30th, when previously
promised for the 27th, and before that the 19th. I've been in the flat since the 1st and the previous occupants left well over 2 months ago. BT's Line Takeover policies and procedures are a Sham.

Gillian Lewis is made up person

All BT Complainers. I recently had contact with a ex BT employee who informed me that Gillian Lewis is a made up character.

He said "Its company policy to offloads complaints to India"

A Typical BT Complaint

I was so happy to see your BT problems website. I was actually looking to see if I could somehow get the head of customer services of BT to write him/her a letter. I have already contacted BBC watchdog and below is my letter explaining my situation.

I hope you can add this to your BT complaints page and put foward to offtel or whoever can help us out here. Here is my BT Complaint letter:

Hi,

BT sent me a letter saying someone was interested in my phone number and if I haven't contacted them by April 24th they would disconnect me.

I called (in disbelief) saying that I do need it, so they said fine they will cancel the cancellation request. They didn’t and so my line was disconnected.

A lot of expensive calls(was on hold for ages) from my mobile phone were made and eventually I was put onto a woman called Barbara who apologised, organised for the activity of the line the following day and said my old number will be back within the week. All this time my sky broadband was cancelled because of no active line.

It’s the 3rd June and I still don’t have my old phone number back. I do have service but as everyone has the old number they can’t contact me.

To add to insult I received a bill a few days ago for £41.

I was offered 1 months free rental and £10 as a gesture of goodwill for the following:

• disconnecting my phone line without my permission
• A mth of no broadband which they argue isn’t their fault
• massive mobile phone bills calling BT and being put on hold
• constant promises from people in foreign countries that all will be sorted and then nothing ?
• continuously calling BT as in the 1st few weeks no-one bothered to call me to review the situation?
• costs of my visits to the internet cafe as I am in the middle of organising a wedding and have to do it out of office hours
• Over a month of missing calls as everyone has our proper phone number
• The stress I have suffered in the last month because of the incompetence of BT.

If I don’t pay this bill I will receive a CCJ yet nothing happens to BT for the lack of service.

They boast that the last thing they do is disconnect landlines after non payment of bills so there are a lot of unpaid debts with a phone line yet they disconnected a bill paying customer and caused all this bother and stress.

I am looking into other landline providers as we speak but would appreciate your response on this.

Sincerely

Majella Foley

11,000 Visitors to btcomplaints.com

Hello Everyone.
Firstly, I want to say a big thank you for everyone who has contributed to the BT complaints site.

Secondly, the site has received over 11,000 visitors since October 2007 with many of you leaving a complaint about the terrible service you are receiving from BT.

A report will be produced over the coming months which will detail every BT complaint received via the two websites and sent for investigation:
BT Complaints Blog
Send Your BT Complaint

Finally to say you are not alone in your struggle with BT as you can see from the vast amount of complaints varying from customer service to connection speeds.

Below is an example of just one of the many complaints we have received over the past 8 months.

BT Cold Calling Complaint
"I run eight houses which accommodate adults with enduring mental illness. We recently had a cold caller from BT, who spoke to one of our residents to ask if he wanted broadband installed.

He was pressured into saying yes, although the contract is in my name.

When I rang BT to query the broadband charges, I was told it was an 18-month contract and that we would have to pay to cancel.

We then received a bill for £438.48. I am disputing this, but am frustrated at every turn by BT — one of the many people I spoke to denied that a complaint had even been lodged. At one stage our phones were cut off, too. P. J., Birmingham

Margaret Stone, Money Mail's Money Doctor, replies: I think BT's treatment of you and your residents was appalling. Once you had explained to BT that it had made the agreement with a resident who had neither the authority nor the mental capacity to deal with a pushy sales person, the contract should have been cancelled immediately.

But it appears that there was no one in BT prepared or willing to help. It was not until you got in touch with Money Mail that action was taken.

Within days, the matter was resolved. The contract is cancelled. The account balance is now £339.90 and these charges — which I can only describe as spurious — have been cancelled and thus cleared.

In addition, BT has sent a hamper of chocolates to the resident who inadvertently triggered this sorry saga. I think this is a wholly inadequate gesture given the appalling way you have been treated.

Meanwhile, a warning note has been put on all the accounts in your houses, advising that you are the only person who can make a decision about them.

0870 cost will fall after complaints

Plans to cut the price of calls to 0870 numbers and to introduce tighter regulations for 0871 lines have been announced after complaints about price clarity.

The communications watchdog Ofcom wants calls to 0870 numbers to cost no more than calls to geographic numbers.

On average, calls to 0870 numbers cost between 6p and 10p per minute in the daytime, from a BT landline, and 1p to 5p at other times. Ofcom wants this to be reduced to about 3.5p a minute in the day and 1p to 1.5p a minute at other times.

Ofcom's proposals also include improving protection for customers calling 0871 lines, which cost anything from 5p to 10p per minute, by bringing them under the remit of premium-rate services regulator PhonepayPlus.

The plans are part of Ofcom's wider review of "non-geographic" telephone numbers, after complaints over the lack of transparency about the cost of calls.

Many businesses and organisations use 0870 numbers to provide information including road traffic advice, customer service and financial advice.

Calls to 0870 numbers are currently priced in a way that allows organisations to share the revenue generated by per minute call charges. Ofcom's proposals would effectively end this.

Businesses that wanted to charge higher rates for 0870 calls would have to make sure their customers knew the costs. PhonepayPlus would also be able to investigate complaints about excessively long call queuing times. Ofcom said it hoped to have the proposed changes in place by autumn.

BT Complaints Pirate FM

Hello everyone, this is the web master of this blog.

This morning I heard a the debate on my local radio station Pirate FM in Cornwall. I moved to Ponsanooth in Cornwall last year and tried to get BT to fit a new line to our house. Simple yes? No way was this simple!

I'm not one for complaining but after 6 months of problems including 3 separate bills for £300 for one phone line, total lack of communication with BT customer service reps, the list goes on, I decided to set up a BT complaints blog on the web where people like me could submit there BT Complaint online.

The idea behind this is to put all BT complaints received into a report and send off for investigation from Offcom, Watchdog and such like. So far I have had almost 10,000 people visit this BT Complaints blog in 6 months with hundreds of complaints received.

Join me and together we can get some action to put right this terrible service we are receiving.

Thanks for all your complaints so far - They will all be going into the report so we can get some answers