[dave1403]

Soooooo

The "Trauma" started last tuesday.

A new BT Vision box arrived. We'd been with them for 3 years and hadn't asked for one but hey ho. It's sleek, black and new. That was the end of the good news.

Installed Box, inserted card. Bit unresponsive/sluggish with the remote but you can't expect miracles, can you?

Settled down to Sky Sports Tuesday night football. 10 mins in and the lovely Mr. Rednapp (Jamie in case you're interested) is cut off in his prime. Viewing card no longer recognised. Strange one. Works in the silver box but not in the black one.

On the phone to india. Turn box off and on. Remove card, wipe card, re-insert card. Card not recognised. This went on for 30 mins. Looked on Viewing Card Info under settings. BAD CARD. "I'll book you an engineer"

Along came the following Saturday. The Engineer rang "Don't see there is much I can do apart from replace the box, I'll be there in an Hour". Along he came, Cracking fella couldn't be more friendly, but calling him an Engineer may be doing Engineers a dis-service. Unplugged one new black box and replaced with another new black box. Same problem. Chin Scratched. "It must be your card". Resonable enough, it must be at least 2 years old (when BTV had Setanta) so agreed.

Ring BTV again. Ahh India. "Turn your box off and on again" "Actually I just need a new card" "Try Wiping your Card" "I actually just need you to send me a card" And this went in circles for 30 mins. BAD CARD. Eventually he got the thread and put me on hold. "We've ordered you a new card and that should solve your problem"

3 Days Later the Card arrives. Did it work?...................................

Of course it doesn't work. An hour of Sky Sports blank picture later, it still doesn't work

Perhaps it needed to be re activated. Tried online and got the message "Error, this card has been re-activated in the last 5 days."

Back on to India Telecom.

Turn box off and on. Remove card, wipe card, re-insert card. Card not recognised. BAD CARD. Turn your box off and on again. Try Wiping your Card. And this went in circles for another 30 mins. "Let me book you an engineer". Head drops, I'm now close to tears. The engineer has already been out, I can't see what else they can do but I'll play along. He's coming along next Thursday. I'm going to make him a bit of lunch as there will be little other reason for him to come round and we'll need to have a little sit down chat about the state that BT is in.

To all the poor people that have suffered at the hands of BT I need help in 4 ways

1. Does anyone know a Phone number I can ring to speak to a resonable, sensible, right minded individual at BT (India or UK) who isn't going to read a script to me.

2. A line of complaint. Who is the ombudsman in this area

3. Also the e-mail/contact address for a manager of BT.

4. Does this constitute a breach of BT's contract with me to provide a service, can I get out of the contract and race over to Sky TV? I'm ditching the Sports service tomorrow but we only re-subscribed to get SS1 and SS2

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

[masona2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave1403

1. Does anyone know a Phone number I can ring to speak to a resonable, sensible, right minded individual at BT (India or UK) who isn't going to read a script to me.

2. A line of complaint. Who is the ombudsman in this area

3. Also the e-mail/contact address for a manager of BT.

4. Does this constitute a breach of BT's contract with me to provide a service, can I get out of the contract and race over to Sky TV? I'm ditching the Sports service tomorrow but we only re-subscribed to get SS1 and SS2

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

Hi Dave,

1. Ring the Vision helpdesk on 0800 111 4567 before 10pm and you will get the UK people.

Explain you had a silver box which worked fine, but your current card won't work with the new black box. If you still have the silver box, ask if you can use it again.

2. No, you cannot complain to the ombubsman, until you first complain to BT. And it is logged as a complaint. Then the BT wheels will start rolling.

3. You will not need a managers email address once you complain. Tip - do not lose your rag, even though, reading the above, you have cause to. Be forcefull without going balistic.

(Losing your rag will not endear you to the people you are having a go at and it's not their personal fault and you'll get no where).

4.Yes it does.

They have supplied you with a new box which, because it won't work (with your current card), 'is not fit for purpose'.

This constitutes a breach. As such, and I have to be careful here, as it's English Law legal stuff, you should be entitled to one of two things -

Cancellation of your new contract or a substantial refund/future credit of monies for 'non-provision of service'.

Phew!

Hope this helps.

[dave1403]

Thanks Mate.
On it tomorrow

[intercept]

Not good.

Does the card still work in the Silver box? If so then would that still constitute a breach of contract?

[DeanDS]

Have you tried a hard reset? (Power off at plug, hold down the "OK" and "Down" buttons,switch power on)
Worth a try

[dave1403]

Hi Intercept, I'm plugging the silver box back in tomorrow to check. (Ars v Tot at 1pm) They turned off the Old card but you never know. And it's an interesting question about the breach of contract. They say the Silver boxes won't work by the end of the year though.


and DeanDS
Brand New Box Pal (as was the other black box the "engineer" tried), it's a poor state of affairs if you have to hard reset a brand new box. Also it wasn't in the Script I was read in the 3 calls to BT India so it's probably not that.

I suspect its a software issue but they haven't had anyone with any real knowledge check the problem yet

I've got someone from BTV own forum having a look. Giving them till 7pm Monday for a resolution then Cancelling the whole kit and caboodle (is that the correct spelling of caboodle ) It's time to give another supplier a go. (cough Sky cough) £30-£40 a month may seem excessive for a TV package but so is £18 (Price of my SkySports Sub alone) a month for a blank picture

Thanks to everyone for replying, it's appreciated when your getting passed around by BT.

[masona2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave1403

They say the Silver boxes won't work by the end of the year though.

Whoa! Pardon?

1. Did you ring the helpdesk? And what is the problem?

2. Please expand on the above.

Why won't the silver boxes work within 5 wks? What exactly did they tell you?

[noise747]

BT, bunch of clowns, no, surely not?


You only just realised that? i did find one person that was ok, that was when I first went back to BT broadband and I had problems with the mobile phone they sent me, he sorted it out.

But I agree, getting though to some people at Bt is like talking to a brick wall.

[DeanDS]

I'd still try a hard reset, what's to lose? Just because it's not on the BT scripot, doesn't mean it won't work. As it reloads the software then if there is a software glitch like you suspect it could cure this.
It could possibly be that the new card has a date where it become active, I was sent a new card but it didn't become active until a certain day, might be worth enquiring about.


Actually as you have the silver box still i'd try that first to see if it is the card or box, if the card works in the silver box I'd then be inclined to do the hard reset with the black box.

[madmusician]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave1403

They say the Silver boxes won't work by the end of the year though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by masona2

Why won't the silver boxes work within 5 wks? What exactly did they tell you?

Ditto the above: is this actually true? If so, do we lose all the recordings we've got saved on our current boxes (I assume we must, which would be a huge pity).

[scotty2808]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave1403

They say the Silver boxes won't work by the end of the year though.

This is 100% false.
They probably meant your silver G1 box will not register on the Vision system. Any Vision box not enabled at the back end will fail to work properly rendering it useless. Your original G1 serial number etc will likely be in the pipeline to be removed from the registration server database.

Whatever's happened to you is not good - but there is absolutely no way what you have said is true, only a misinterp either by the BT person (you spoke to) or yourself IMO.

[lowebb]

As much as I want to add to this flamer, I'll not.

All I'll say is that is the most entertaining story I've read in some time. It's hilarious cause it's true!! Classic, love it!.

Feel bad for you though.

[intercept]

There is absolutely no truth in this "silver box expiry" nonsense.

[dave1403]

I'm not sure of the validity of what anybody is saying about it not being true about the BTV Silver box not working (or my understanding of it).
The letter with the black box says we needed to watch everything we'd recorded on our current box within 4 weeks and replace the box or it wouldn't work properly.
While I can't comment/speculate what "work properly" actually means it doesn't sound good. I wouldn't like to say that it's simply nonsense/false and I wouldn't bet on it continuing to work in-definately (assuming BT wouldn't send me a Black box for no reason)

Seems like a strange thing for everyone to get hung up on though
C'est la vie

We're using the Silver Box (with working BTV Sports Card) until it fails though. Then I can start the fun "piggie in the middle" games with BT's Engineers and call centre staff again.

[scotty2808]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave1403

Seems like a strange thing for everyone to get hung up on though
C'est la vie

Dave - I'd speculate it's because you said

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave1403

They say the Silver boxes won't work by the end of the year though.

rather than

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edited-dave1403

They say "my Silver boxes won't work" by the end of the year though.

Your quote suggests every Silver box will not work... the edited-Dave version suggests the reality...

[masona2]

Agree.

BT are right now working on their next generation HD box, which I suspect will be a full-blown Youview box (but that is just speculation).

No other Vision users (other than those who have, out of the blue, been sent new boxes) have been given notice of a need to change their box.

[steveq3]

I used to have a grey box but now i've got a black one, all i needed was a can of spray paint

[Pure Genius]

BT ?

a bunch of clowns? surely not?