BT Credit Card - Rate Changes

BT has rung the changes to its credit card but customers should be cautious. The card has some worthwhile features like discounts on BT bills, 0% on balance transfers for 13 months and 0% on purchases for three months.

But only those who use the card for one purpose only - either to pay off debt or to trim their BT bill - will benefit. Anyone taking advantage of all the offerings could end up stung with interest charges.

Andrew Hagger, of Moneynet.co.uk, says: "The discount on BT bills, at 1p for every £1.50 spent, is better than the cashback on most other cards, working out at 0.66%, compared to an average 0.5%. If someone spends £500 a month on the card and pays that off in full they will get £40 off their BT bill over a year.

"But that could be wiped out by interest charges of 16.9% after 90 days."

The order of repayments means the cheapest debt is paid off first, leaving more expensive transactions on the card until you've repaid the balance transfer in full.

A lengthy BT Broadband complaint

A BT Broadband complaint sent in today which highlights customer service failings and service let down on a grand scale....

Dear Sir

I am writing to complain about the service received from BT. From day one, the service received has been awful. We waited 2 weeks longer than expected for our broadband service to be switched on, we were told there were faults on the line, we were promised times and dates that the service would be switched on, none of which were kept to.

In February of this year, we moved address. Initially we stopped the service as we were moving to a temporary address. We then called you at the beginning of April to get the phone line and broadband set up. We were told that you had never stopped the service at the previous address and that we had a large bill outstanding. Finally you admitted that you had made a mistake and that the bill was incorrect. At the end of April / beginning of May, we finally had the problem with our bill sorted out (or so we thought).

We still had the problem of having no broadband service, our phone line was connected as promised (congratulations, this is the only thing your useless organisation has managed to get right so far, you must be so proud). So we contacted your help(less) desk, who could not really understand English, let alone speak it. They explained that there was a problem with the line, then that there wasn't a problem on the line, then that we were too far from the exchange (we live less than 50 metres from the exchange), then again that there was a problem on the line, then, finally, that BT hadn't bothered to actually request the set up of the broadband! We eventually agreed that the broadband would be connected within a week.

Guess what, it wasn't (I'm sure you are as surprised as me!). So I called again around the 23rd April, went through the same 'reasons' (or lies, as I like to call them) for not being connected and was told that it would finally be connected on the 30th April. I was understandably not happy with this (approx 3 weeks after you originally 'lied') and complained that this was simply not good enough. I was assured that it was an error from BT that meant my broadband order hadn't been set up correctly and that due to some tests you had to carry out on the line there was no physical way it could be connected before the 30th. I was unhappy, but so fed up of arguing with someone who couldn't understand me or speak English properly that I resigned myself to defeat.

Now, imagine my surprise when I returned home on the 28th of April and my broadband was magically working. I checked everywhere for sprites, leprechauns, unicorns, wizards and witches, but in the absence of any magical beings I came to the conclusion that your 'no physical way it could be connected before the 30th' was in fact another reason (lie).

I didn't phone up to complain about this, it seemed a waste of my life and at the end of the day I was finally a happy (in comparison with someone who has a life threatening disease AND problems with BT) customer.

Sadly, you were back to your old tricks soon enough. Despite my giving you DD details on at least 2 previous occasions, you persisted on sending me quarterly bills, again backdating them and trying to charge me for the period in which you were not actually providing me with any kind of service whatsoever (other than a very poor one!). I was quite rude to one of your staff and demanded to speak to someone in Britain.

I was told this wasn't possible, but finally I passed to someone called Vince, from Glasgow (although I did notice his accent was more Punjab than Paisley), he was very helpful, and in fairness had a grasp of English about as comprehensive as the average Scot, so I wasn't overly upset that BT had reasoned (lied) to me once again. 'Vince' eventually gave up arguing, once he realised he was wrong and agreed to wipe around £60 off the bill to make up for the period you were charging me when I received no service anyway - how kind! I gladly paid the money I owed and again gave my DD details.

This time, it appeared that BT weren't reasoning (lying) to me, I did indeed receive a new bill - paid as agreed and a letter stating that a DD had been set up. On later investigation, my bank corroborated the story, so definitely no reasoning (lying).

I was happy, again!

Until the evening of 5th July, when my broadband service vanished. I couldn't summon the energy to teach someone English that evening so I hoped the magical creatures might return overnight and fix any problem that had occurred. Sadly, it didn't happen this time.

So on the evening of the 7th July I called BT, using the number that was displayed on my forlorn looking laptop when I tried to access the internet. First reason (lie) from BT... the bloody number is wrong! The auto woman (who sounded refreshingly English) informed me that I could now call BT freephone, wonderful I thought! On reflection, this amounts to nothing but fraud, indeed I am now seeking legal advice to see if I can sue BT.

How many people call the technical helpdesk from the incorrect number displayed on your 'sorry our service is shit' message? I bet a fair few, (in fact, could you provide me with the numbers please?) every one of those people is charged for listening to a message which gives you a freephone number... why not just change the number I thought... of course, BT wouldn't make any money out of their service being down! So, please forward myself (and every other BT customer who has ever called this number) a cheque to repay the money charged due to your not being bothered to update a number. I am not joking. This is fraud.

Anyway, I digress. I called the aforementioned freephone number and after eternity someone answered and promptly asked for my telephone number (i had already confirmed on the IVR system that I wanted to talk about the number from which I was calling). I explained what the problem with and the lady on the 'phone kindly read through all her pre-prepared scripts in pigeon English.

Unsurprisingly after an hour of this, my connection was still not working. I had tried everything from turning it on and off (I knew at this point I was talking to a professionally trained and highly skilled technical operative) to unscrewing the socket from the wall and discovering much to the surprise of Miss Helpful, that I definitely don't have a test socket. (I knew this, but she insisted that I move my sofa, TV unit and entire bookcase half way across my living room to I could check anyway).

She then proudly declared that there must be a problem with my broadband connection (no shit, really?), not since Newton was struck by an apple has anyone had such an epiphany. She then asked me to replace my ADSL filter as these often break. Sadly on this occasion I didn't have one lying around (so annoying, they're normally everywhere, I must have thrown at least 20 away just yesterday). She did point out that I may have one in the original packaging, as BT realise their products are crap so send a spare for when the first invariably ceases to work. I pointed out that I had moved home twice since then (which BT know, see above) and had about as much chance of finding it as BT will have finding a reason (lie) to explain my problems so far.

I then enquired whether BT would kindly send me another ADSL filter. Miss Helpful placed me on hold and then confirmed that no, my ADSL filter which was expected to break, was out of it's warranty. She suggested I buy another one to see if this was the problem.

At this point I lost it, I went mad. I ranted for about ten minutes about how crap BT are and then demanded that my broadband was canceled. She seemed taken aback, and persisted on trying to fix the problem. I kindly explained that it didn't matter if she did fix the problem, I still wanted my broadband canceled. This culminated in verbal tennis to rival the 5th set of Federer Vs Roddick at Wimbledon 2009. I would say I didn't want it fixed, just canceled and she would reply with, 'I appreciate you frustration, I will try to find the fault'.

To add to this, I note that at the end of June 2009, BT were voted as having the 'worst customer service in Britain' (the telegraph). I also note that there is a website dedicated to BT complaints

So, to the crux of my letter, I would like the following:

• A full and detailed explanation of your recruitment policy for your call centres, I assume all your reasoners (liars) are highly trained professionals with recognised industry qualifications?
• A cheque to me and to every other BT customer who has called the fraudulent telephone number (see above).
• An explanation as to why your company purposely reasons (lies to), deceives and defrauds it's customers.
• A letter from 'Vince' giving me detailed directions to a shop of his choice within Glasgow city centre (just to prove he was really from Glasgow)
• A letter confirming the number of customers who have called the fraudulent telephone number.
• A letter detailing why BT is such a useless company, who are unable to keep simple promises and who let their customers down with a consistency that could rival the laws of physics.
• A copy of all information that BT hold on me, as I am allowed to request under the data protection act. If there is a charge for this, I suggest given the circumstances, you waive that charge.

If you are unable to provide a satisfactory answer to the above questions, please cancel my broadband service, keep my landline service and delete me from any mailing lists you may have.

In either case I also seek some financial recompense for the time, effort, stress and inconvenience your hopeless company has caused to myself and my 8 month pregnant wife. I would suggest something in the region of free broadband for a year, free phonecalls for a year and £1000 of vouchers for a popular high street department store (ask 'Vince' I am sure he could suggest a few in Glasgow). I also enclose the receipt for my ADSL filter, which I want refunded in full.

With kind regards,

Guy Lawrence

Please feel free to comment below with your BT Broadband experiences.

Complaints as BT Broadband increases cancellation fee

BT Complaints coming in from customers who are leaving BT Broadband without applying for a Mac code and transferring to another provider are being charged £25 which has been raise from £18.11 with very little in the way of advertising.

This is applicable even if customers have worked through their minimum contract period BT's new terms and conditions now state:

“When you end your broadband service and do not request a migration authorisation code (MAC) or another recognised transfer process to move to another service provider, from 12 June 2009 you will have to pay a cease charge of £25.00.”

The only exception to this increased charge is if BT can no longer provide a service to the new address if the customer is moving home.

Although cease charges aren't uncommon among internet service providersl this recent fee increase seems to have slipped by most.

A BT spokesperson explained the reasoning behind the charge as being to “encourage customers to use the correct migration process and cover the technical costs incurred when this process isn't used.” It added: “The charge has increased in line with the costs of the work. This is the actual cost of the work required within an exchange to recover equipment and amend records.”

Let us know what you think about BT Broadband by commenting below.

Appalling BT Customer Service!!!

This BT complaint highlights the appalling customer service BT is providing its paying customers and something must be done for improvements to be made. This complaint will be put into a report including all complaints received and sent for investigation along with all comments. Feel free to add your comments at the bottom of this post or email your complaint to camwinston(@ gmail dot com).

Dear Sir/Madam,

I hope someone will read this letter and act against it - on Friday 3rd July I got home to use my internet and when I tried to get on it said broadband down. So I rang BT and got through to a lady who advised that my account had been seized! I couldn't understand why this had been done due to the simple fact I pay by direct debit every month £22.50 and haven't missed one payment.

She said that I had missed two payments of £49. I said at the time of taking this out I asked BT to set me up a Direct Debit for the amount I owed every month, which I presumed was all done and didn't think I needed to pay anything else. She said as my account had been seized, I had more charges adding up to £149 on to my account. I couldn't believe it - I said that I wanted to stay with BT and continue. with my contract - So she said for me to pay the £49 and she would knock the seized charges of. So I gave her my card number and she took the payment off £49 and gave me a number to reopen my account.

5 Minutes after putting the phone down - she rang me back advising she had taken the wrong amount she had actually taken £149 out she told me to ring my bank and cancel payment ( by this time I was crying ) as had been trying to sort this out for a hour). I rang my bank and they said this was rubbish - if BT took a wrong payment they needed to refund me. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing!

After this I rang BT back - I got cut off twice and then got through to a gentleman who tried to tell me I hadn't got an account with BT broadband that I just had a phone line - after about ten minutes he found it - I told him what had happened and asked for a refund and told him what happened and he said he couldn't do anything ( I was really upset by this point). I asked to speak to his manager and he said that the manager would say the same - he said the only thing he could do was refund me but put it in my BT account so I was in credit! I said this wasn't any good as I needed that money back in my account as taking that amount made me go over drawn (to which I have been charged £20 for!!)

I then asked for his manager and spoke to Gurpreet who said he was very sorry and he would do a full refund and also drop the charges - this was at 8.45 and I had been on the phone for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Gurpreet said to go through to sales and re open my account- so he transferred me I went through and spoke to a lady who said that someone had there information wrong as my account hadn't been seized and everything was ok - however there was a technical fault with my broadband so she would transfer me to a technical man - I then was on hold for around 15 minutes and got through to technical after explaining my story for the 7th time he said "I am very sorry madam" there is no technical fault, your account has been seized which is why you cant use the internet. I just cut the guy off as I was shaking with nerves and crying so much - I just couldn't get over how bad BT customer services was - I had my account seized - money taken out incorrectly - cut of twice - spoke to 7 different people all giving me wrong information.

I left it for the night and rang back Saturday and got set up on another account and was told then I owed £110 i just give up - I really don't no what to do - I can't ring you guys any longer as everyone passes the book and the blame no one no's what they are doing - BT land line and BT broadband just seem like 2 completely different companies as no one no's about each of the separate account - and why did BT set up a dd for £22.50 and say this was the payment p/m and then cut me of and charge me.

I was very upset to the point where I had a panic attack as I really couldn't cope with no one helping. I know you have to pay for services but BT customer services is terrible and i still don't no what to do!! I have got my father to write to watchdog as I believe the have been getting a lot of complaints about bt and very bad customer services.

You go on about how you are loosing business well if you gave better customer service then maybe you would have customers. I need a reply - can someone please help me???

Lucie

Transfer from Virgin Media to BT - Simple? No!

A complaint regarding a Virgin Media customer who had to transfer to BT broadband and telephone and the problems she encountered during this process. This complaint, along with all the BT customer service and products complaints this website receives will go into a report and sent for investigation.

Dear Sirs

I will try to be subjective within this document but to be honest I am hopping mad. My ex husband did not manage to get me as mad as BT has made me over the last 2 months. I used Virgin Media in my old home, they gave me good service for both phone line and broadband and I had no intention to change.

On moving to my new home 7 months ago however I discovered that the area was out of cable and I would need a BT line rental as a minimum. OK, although this was a pain, two bills etc I took my line with BT and had calls and broadband with Virgin.

Having lost a good job I set up a business from home and desperately needed a call divert system when away from the house. I rang BT and ordered it, they were delighted to take my order.
One week later I received a call to say that it was impossible for me to get call divert when they did not handle the calls. Then followed 2 weeks of arguing between BT and Virgin as to whether this was possible. The amount of conflicting information and the level of ‘infighting’ amongst them had to be seen to be believed.

Virgin then told me that they were taking over the lines in the area in 3 weeks so all would be ok. Stupid me believed them and waited the 3 weeks.

Virgin desperately tried to keep the call element but I eventually agreed with them that the phone calls would be transferred to BT and they would retain the broadband. I was reassured that they would contact BT and arrange everything. BT would then contact me to say when this would be done.

Early June I rang BT to check progress to be told they knew nothing of this order and in any case would not take instructions from a competitor. I was reassured by a lovely lady that the order was now placed on the system and although it would be a staggering 11 working days before this would happen all would be fine.

The 23rd June approached and I rang BT’s wonderful automated system that told me the order would be fulfilled as promised on the 23rd.

On the 1st July, the day I starting paying for an answering service to take my calls I rang BT to check all was ok. I was then told that although the calls were now going through them for some reason the call divert had failed. The lady assured me that someone would call me back that day and would tell me that the call divert was now active.

2 days later, today, I rang to be told that they had no idea why but the WHOLE order had not been actioned. My calls remained with Virgin and it would be another 13 days before they could make the change.

Needless to say that at this point I was almost apoplectic. I have never had such staggering, appalling, atrocious service in my life. They don’t deserve to have any business and if I could sack them on the spot now I would. I am now waiting for someone else to call me back.

Some of us are trying to make a living out here and are hugely reliant on our phone systems to ensure we can pay the mortgage. What is their problem? Where is the BT of yesterday that felt like your favorite Auntie?

I would like this complaint to be made formal and will be doing everything in my power to ensure it goes through their complaint system.

Karen James
Cambridge

BT Openworld Broadband Complaint

We have received many BT Openworld complaints and here is the lastest broadband complaint.

Dear Sir

I have the old BT Openworld 2mb broadband and wanted something quicker. I decided to switch everthing to SKY.

I called BT for the MAC code and they gave me a pressured sales call but ended up matching the SKY offer of £15 per month. So I agreed to it to save hassle. BIG MISTAKE!

They sent me the equipment on the day the line was due to go live. At 1am, by existing BT broadband line was disconnected. Aghh!! I tried to use the new one; no joy. I spent the whole day on the phone to them and they assured me the line would be active by midnight.

It still did not work this morning. I called India - they said their is no broadband active no the line. Every other department was unable to help me.

So I called the number that you use to request a MAC code. The woman said that I have only just ordered it - why cancel?

I said because you lot are useless and unless I can get the line active "NOW" I am off. So she did some digging and came back to say that the new line was activated yesterday and then immediately cancelled again "for some reason".

I remained calm. Said "OK, please activate it then". She said "OK, it will take 7 days".

I work from home a lot. Luckily my IT guys have now leant me a 3G thingy while we get an alternative supplier organised.

My company spends over £30,000 a year on calls with BT. Not any more....

BT Phone company voted nation's worst in customer service

No suprises that BT were today named and shamed as having the nation's worst customer service. A study of 5,000 people revealed the communications giant are almost twice as bad as second place British Gas when it comes to dealing with issues and complaints. Sky were third, followed by Virgin Media and Vodafone. Other corporate colossals to feature in the hall of shame were HSBC, AOL, Barclays, O2 and HMRC.

Today a spokesman for internet market research firm www.OnePoll.com said: 'For many, having to deal with customer service reps can be very stressful, and everyone dreads having to make the call. 'If you are already having a nightmare with the service, and you want to make a complaint, the last thing you want to do is then have to deal with rude staff.

'Having polite and efficient staff in call centres can really make the difference, and I'm sure it helps keep hold of customers.' The biggest bug-bear for consumers was the automated systems which means it can take several minutes to get through to a real person. Other irritations include being passed around different people and having to keep on repeating yourself.

Foreign call centres with staff who struggle to understand the English language also featured in the list as did rude staff and having to answer endless security questions. BT also came top for the longest holding times, with 18 per cent of people voting for the company. Again British Gas was second and Sky was third. Those who took part in the study believed on average they spent around 23 minutes on the phone trying to sort out problems each time they called. Just over 11 per cent said they regularly spent 30 minutes on the phone to companies.

Phone and utility companies were rated equally as bad as each other in the study, closely followed by banks and retail organisations. It also emerged six out of ten people have switched companies purely due to a poor level of customer service. And one in three become people have been involved in an angry conversation with someone in a call centre when frustrations boil over.

Among the horror stories which emerged were a man who fell out with BT because an Asian call centre operator said his mild Scottish accent was unintelligible. A couple were tricked into a package they didn't want by Orange and were then fobbed off when they tried to cancel during cooling off period. Virgin Media refused to change the bill into the name of a jilted husband because he didn't have his ex-wife's permission - but were more than willing to give him extra services without her permission.

Sourced from Daily Mail [Link]

BT OpenReach Complaint

This BT Openreach complaint was received today and highlights British Telecom's lack of accountability for problems within the context of BT Retail and BT OpenReach.

Dear Sir,

I placed an order on 30 May 2009 for a home move of my account I had with BT to move to new premises which had an existing working line. The order was accepted but then subsequently cancelled by BT a few days later saying the line does not have a cease order.

I phoned the people moving out of the premises I was moving into about this and they said they were told by BT to call on the day they moved as they were taking their phone number with them and moving to a different provider at the same time. After telling them that I could not place an order until they had, they then phoned BT and requested a move order be placed on the 4th June 2008 and were moving out on the 6th June (oddly the fact is that they could have placed the order well before they moved out of the premises even though they were moving providers but were given the wrong information by BT and they subsequently did not get their phone transferred till well after the move date).

On the 5th June, BT accepted an order for the phone line in my new premises and subsequently provided a date of 22nd June as the activation date and also provided me with an order number on 5h June. On phoning BT as to why this was so long given that it was a working line they said that it is because they must send a letter to the persons moving out for them to confirm the cease order on the phone line. (Oddly I never received any such letter myself when I placed a home move order on my previous phone line).

This letter is in spite of the fact that the cease order cannot be placed unless you give all sorts of security information about who you are to verify you are the account holder and the cease order will go thru even if there is no answer to the letter. After many phone calls to various people, BT agreed that there was no reason for such a long delay and agreed tp moved the order to 15th June.

It was then subsequently found that they cannot move an existing order and had to cancel it to place a new order to bring the order forward and not only did they have to cancel the order but it would take 24 hours for the order to cancel before they could place a new order (incredible as that may sound in the 21st century where BT is supposed to be a technology company).

Eventually they said that OpenReach could not bring the order forward and so I accepted that the line would be provided on the 22nd June 2009. The date came and went and no phone line so I phoned on the 23rd and BT were unable to give a reason why the line was no installed and would get back to me ... they never did so the next day I phoned again only to receive exactly the same information and the same promises. I phoned the next day again and was finally told that there was a failure with the order on the OpenReach side and no reason was given.

I asked to lay a complaint and was told to go to the OpenReach web site to complain to OpenReach but the OpenReach website states: If you are a member of the public and would like to raise a complaint or enquiry that is related to: the provision of telephone or internet services, engineer appointments, faults, or compensation, it is important that you raise this issue with your communications provider (whoever bills you for your telephone or internet service).

Your communications provider will then raise the matter on your behalf. You can find more information about the relationship between Openreach and your communication provider here. Although I was promised a call back it never did happen once again and and called again the next day to find that according to BT my order had only been placed on the 24th June 2009 and that the line was scheduled with OpenReach to be installed on the 29th June.

NO HISTORY OF MY ORDER PLACED ON THE 5th JUNE 2009 EXISTED AS FAR AS THE BT PERSON WAS CONCERNED. They were able to show more than 10 calls to BT over the period from 1 June to 25th June 2009 but seemed to think it was nothing unusual that my order was only placed on the 24th June in spite of many documented phone calls. Somehow, that original order number had also been cancelled on the 24th June and a new order number was placed on the 25th June 2009 with a delivery date of 29th June 2009.

Once again I requested that they lay a complaint against OpenReach but this person pointed me to the OpenReach web ite again and in spite of informing the person what the OpenReach website stated, I was told that they cannot lay complaints against OpenReach on my behalf. All attempts to have the person give me a reasonable answer as to why things went wrong failed. All I was repeatedly told is that it failed and they do not know why and my asking why it failed was not helping. I was told that they were "sorry" about my problems and that the line would be provided on the 29th June 2009 and that this information was confirmed by OpenReach yet nobody could give me a reason why the same promises about line delivery had failed. There seems to be:

No accountability for problems within the context of BT Retail and BT OpenReach (attitude seems to be that problems happen but do not bother to work out why... its not important) no person in BT able to give a proper answer that makes sense (simply accept broken promise after broken promise with the answer that "there was a problem" and no other information and without complaining)no path place a complaint against BT OpenReach.

Please comment below if you have experience similar problems with BT Openreach.

BT slow broadband complaint

Here is another slow BT broadband complaint to share with you all....

How do BT get away with it?
We called BT who were unwilling to help with a fault of slow broadband and noisy line and blamed it on our equipment. BT then quoted us £115 callout and £99 per hour (or part hour even!) - utterly crazy unless you are a millionaire!

If it wasn't for a local independent engineer we would have been stuffed. The Independent engineer who we found on google (Landline Man - http://www.landlineman.com) who came was brilliant and diagnosed it as External Fault (when BT said it wasnt), BT came out a few days later and lo and behold it was external and they fixed it for free.

So the motto is, don't believe BT if they say its internal and never get them to come for a fault as you could be looking at a bill of £200 or more just to tell you where the fault is!

David from Monmouth