Dear Sir or Madam,
Ideally, I wouldn’t need to waste my time on New Years Day detailing the many ways in which British Telecom have let us down. I should be able to quote a reference number, at which point you could call up a computer screen which would then cascade with reams and reams of data relating to our experiences with you. It would save us both a considerable amount of time.
But no. Every single time we call BT to complain or inquire about an issue (which is practically every other day) we have to repeat the same old story over and over again. Sometimes two or three times in the space of one call, as we are diverted to different departments who then take it in turns to deny responsibility for the situation. It’s as if BT run a strategy of wearing callers down until they give up.
With this in mind I’ll try and keep this as brief as possible, but given the catalogue of incompetence on display this may not be possible.
The Installation fiasco
We ordered a new phone line to our property in late June, 2004. It was installed on December 15th, 2004.
No, that isn’t a typo.
The reasons for this are long and complicated and peppered with so many acts of incompetence it’s hard to know where to begin. I could mention the fact that BT seemed completely unaware of their Wayleave responsibilities - despite conducting various surveys of our property – until the moment that a neighbouring farmer chased the engineer off their land. Or I could highlight how you attempted to install the line two weeks later without resolving the situation, which only seemed to make matters even worse.
I could describe the months we spent without service. I could even moan about the mobile phone bills we’ve been saddled with.
Instead let me skip over that and jump to less than 14 hours before the installation was finally scheduled to take place for the third and final time. BT called us to say that it had all gone pearshaped. We honestly thought you were joking. In fact, we were told that the situation was impossible to resolve and the only way we’d ever get any service would be if BT pursued the case through the courts.
My wife immediately called the land agent involved and the situation was resolved in a matter of minutes. Hmmm, not so impossible after all, it seems.
The Broadband fiasco
After finally getting a phone line installed - and having recovered from the shock - we were given some good news: we could have ADSL broadband!
We literally couldn’t believe it. We even rang BT three times to check we weren’t imagining it. Three times we were assured that we could and we would, and a date of Wednesday December 22nd was set.
With this in mind we bought a wireless router and two wireless cards which cost us 160 pounds.
I’m sure you can guess the rest.
It turns out that we can’t have ADSL. The line simply isn’t up to it. In a nutshell: BT attempted to charge us for a service we can’t have! The BT Wholesale engineer who turned up said he’d never seen an ADSL connection work in this area before. So, why did BT attempt to sell us (and bill us for) a service we can’t have?
What makes matters even worse is that the shop where we bought the wireless router equipment won’t accept its return because a) it’s been opened and b) there’s nothing wrong with it.
So, we are 160 pounds down through no fault of our own (except that we trusted BT).
The Bill fiasco
The day after our ADSL dream was shattered we received a charming letter from BT telling us we’d broken our 70 pound phone call limit we had agreed to. What agreement is that, exactly? It was the first time I’d ever heard of it! Perhaps you thought we’d do a runner after waiting five long months for a phone line?
Incidentally, I notice that BT are extremely prompt and efficient when it comes to contacting us about collecting payment. Funny, that.
This bill included the ADSL microfilters you sold us. Microfilters that are now completely useless by the way.
It also included 58 pounds worth of phone calls. Now, I admit that this seems to be very excessive amount for such a short period of time, but there is a reason for it. And the reason is down to BT.
Do you detect a pattern emerging here?
As we thought we were getting ADSL we didn’t bother signing up for a flat-rate dial-up when the phone line was finally installed. We hadn’t used the internet for six months and we couldn’t wait any longer. So, we used a pay-as-you-go dial-up service for two weeks instead. If we had known that we couldn’t have ADSL at the time then the same calls would have only cost 12 pounds – a saving of 46 pounds.
And the reason we ran up such huge bills? Trying to get the routers working via newsgroups and forums as the advice coming from BT was utterly useless.
And then, to add insult to injury, you make us call a PREMIUM RATE phone number in order to report the fault!!!
And to top it all, when we reluctantly agreed to settle the bill in question they told us they couldn’t take payment over the phone! Brilliant!
The Line Fault fiasco
And finally, at 5pm on New Years Eve (probably the one night of the year you really need a phone, especially when you are as isolated as we are) BT manage to somehow make the line even worse until we have no service at all – AGAIN! We are then told it will take FIVE days to fix.
This is the final straw as far as I am concerned. How can you expect us to keep to a 12 month contract when you have consistently failed to live up to your side of it? We tried to break this contract in order to move to a less incompetent company (like NTL, and that’s saying something) and we were told that we can’t! This is outrageous.
We give up. Perhaps BT offer a pigeon carrier service we could subscribe to instead? Or maybe a couple of tin cans and some string (although you’d probably forget to supply the string).
And there you have it. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. I expect a written letter from someone willing to take responsibility for these issues. I don’t want to speak to anyone about this anymore. Both my wife and I are sick and tired of lackeys saying they are sorry. It just doesn’t cut it anymore.
I want a written apology. I want detailed explanations for why things happened the way they did, and I want some compensation for the phone calls and ADSL hardware we’ve bought.
Finally, I want to break our contract with you so we never have to deal with anyone from BT ever again. Failure to address these issues will result in immediate legal action and a swift call to Watchdog (from a mobile, of course).
I look forward to your reply.
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