Livid. Totally livid.

Over a week ago BT agreed to come tomorrow and install a line. Tonight with less than 24 hours notice I am told that the appointment has been rescheduled.

Whats worse is that I have arranged my day tomorrow around the engineer coming and have an 0800 number going live tomorrow too

Whats even worse (if possible) is that I was called by some foreign dude NOT in the UK who didnt understand a flippin word of what I was saying even when I said I was losing money he was just repeating the same thing over and over.

Useless flippin scripted monkeys.....start to panic when you take them away from their script

That doesn't sound too good for me...I've got two lines booked in for next Wed - I had to chase the order up with over 3hrs of being passed around and the excuse I kept being given was due to excpetional broadband orders to which I politely said my lines won't be having your broadband on them and gave them the option of agreeing a date or canceling the orders. Time will tell I guess.

Well dont be surprised if you get a phone call 24 hours before cancelling the visit. Be aware this call will be from outside the UK so try to arrange a interpretor to be on-hand for assistance in understanding

I cant swear on ds, but believe me BT are the biggest bunch of beeping beepers in telecoms industry

i know the indian "help" desks arn't the best in the world, but the majority of big business's and bank's out source their call centre's outside of the UK. this is purely a cost issue. True they work from a script but they are just doing their job. instead of bad mouthing them on the forums, why don't you complain to the chairman's office to get somat done about it. p.s incase you were wondering i'm just your regular engineer who's sick and tired of hearing of EU's(end users , that's you) moaning about india everytime i knock on a door.

Looks like Openreach contacted BT Retail and told them that they weren't going to be able to make the appointment so BT Retail phoned you to tell you that and to book a new appointment.

As for losing cash, was it a business line you ordered? If it was for residential purposes then why would BT Retail care, sorry to be so blunt, about your losses?

Anyway, all orders are subject to survey and change etc etc so nothing is guaranteed anyway. It is a pain in the rectum but it is the way it is.

Give me the chairmans office address etc and I will do. Next, I've never been anything but polite to engineers who call.

Its very easy isnt it to rubbish someones complaint by suggesting its just crazy ranting at anyone who will listen

I'm not really interested in the ins/outs of why I've been let down.

Isnt the fact its happened less than 24 hours before the appointment is due any consideration????

There is no survey needed. The line in the property is present, no wiring required, but its been ceased for a long time (old cottage, but still NTE5 so not that old) so I need to be here to let the engineer into the property, so I havent booked any jobs for today....

I'm self employed so not booking jobs equates to not being paid

I hate being stood up

Ultimately, no. If Openreach have given your CP short notice then that'll be because Openreach found, at short notice, that they would not be able to make the appointment.

For most people, it is better to be notified the day before that the engineer isn't going to turn up instead of during the appointment slot.


There may not be any problem at your property end of things but that means very little. There may be problems in the field and an underground engineer is required and none are available or a hoist may be required as it is on a D-pole and there are no hoists available etc etc. These things only come up at short notice.

NO, for most people who take time off from their work schedule its better not to be let down by BT in the first place

Yeah sure, its better to be let down 24 hours before than 1 hour before but ultimately, if someone has organised their day/work/etc around the appointment 24 hours notice is still not good enough.

Whats far worse is the response, or lack of, from BT. A phone call I was promised hasnt happened......shall we just accept that customers are just a number to BT and where they let one down, they have another new mug waiting in line

im reading this forum and seeing that an engineer has to come fix your lines?? I dont see why that has to be,if you have been disconnected and now bt tell you , you need a new line,all they have to do is re connect, no engineer needs to call, they can do this all automatically
I feel something really should be done about BT and the way customers are being treated
Some numbers i have dialled i get through to India and those people have no clue what i am saying, and i dont them, so why are they taking calls, i thought people who worked for BT were trained, what happened,when did it all start to go downhill, i have been trying for almost 3 weeks to get my line back,but finally i found a number and got through straight away, and "fingers crossed" my line is going to be re connected on Monday, i phoned that same number one week ago, but the woman fobbed me off, i could have been back with my phone and internet, if that person had not been too lazy, icould write a book about my experiences in the three weeks,i was even thinking of setting up home in the phonebooth, as i spent more time there, than at home...anywAYS, TO GET anywhere you need bt re connect number and a good person to help you at the other end of the line, if i get back on monday i will issued out all the phone numbers

And I agree. However you need to live in the real world. Things don't go correct 100% of the time


Then what would be a reasonable amount of time for them to tell you they were going to fail the appointment?


Now that isn't acceptable.

I appreciate things dont go right all the time, but this isnt a mistake or anything like that, its BT putting something else ahead of a customer and making that decision at the last minute; they didnt give ANY reason WHY they were cancelling - not acceptable.

A reasonable amount of time would be 3 days, or I wouldnt minded so much if the call had been from someone in the UK who could do more than just say were gonna turn up a week late sir and who was able to communicate on a decent level fgs

Bearing in mind I have pay a reconnection charge because the line has been off more than 6 months, I dont think its too much to ask that an appointment is kept or that I'm told by someone in the UK rather than just one of their trained robots (and not very good robots at that)

That'll be because Openreach gave BT Retail a small amount of notice as well. As for not telling you why it was cancelled the information given by Openreach to the CPs these days is minimal so the person who called you probably wasn't aware themselves.


But Openreach wouldn't know 3 days in advance that they weren't going to be able to make the job. The business works on far shorter timescales than that.

Well these are issues that need to be resolved so customers are not let down in this manner.

the line to youre cottage may well be intact from the dp but if youre line has been ceased for a long time and looking at the area you live in the actual line to the dp may have been diverted to another dp as there may well be a line plant shortage which is not uncommon in rural areas especially as more people want adsl . an engineer may have been on the job to prove a pr to the dp in which he found this could not be completed so it may have been passed back for the planners to find a route to feed the dp.hence the cancellation

While we are on the subject of BT and complaints. Could somebody give me a postal address to send a letter of complaint off to them? I have some outstandng issues I need to get sorted and e-mail is not proving any good to me. A complaints department or whatever would be good.

BT Centre
81 Newgate Street
London

bt re connect 0808 100 7722
switch back to bt 0808 100 4041

I think when i get back on the internet i must look further into the way BT handle things, and mess people around

bt complaints 0800 555 257
dont foget to phone these numbers from a phonebox as it wont cost you anything

6 days ago I emailed BT about this whole issue.

Try and contain your surprise....I have yet to receive an answer!

Have tried calling bt (obviously from a phone box) and stood for 35 minutes waiting for my call to be answered..in the end i gave up.

When I emailed BT last week, I got a reply from them 10 hrs after I sent it.

I do hope that you get everything sorted out very soon.

Lucky you!

If anyone from BT is reading this, then below is your response and allocated ref number:

--
Residential Services <residential.services@bt.com> to me
show details 13 Sep (5 days ago)
Thank you for contacting us. This is an automated acknowledgement of your complaint. We are sorry that you have had cause to complain. We take any such matter very seriously and will do all we can to resolve the issue for you.

There is no need to reply to this message. Your case has been successfully raised and has been directed to the eCustomer Services Team for action. Your unique reference number is 070913-005271.

We are currently experiencing a very high volume of emails due to increased demand for information and ordering of our range of Broadband products. We apologise in advance for any delay this may cause and we will aim to reply to you as quickly as possible. If you need to contact us again on this matter, please email us quoting the above reference number.

With kind regards,

eCustomer Services Team

I also got one of these emails as well, but on mine they blamed the poor weather, for their delay in not replying sooner.

My issue seems to have been resolved and an appontment has been scheduled. Lets hope they turn up this time!

I think also I'm getting half my connection charge back at some point (thanks sharon x), by rights afer wasting two days of mine it should be them owing me money, but anyway, 50% is better than 0%

Where do I start......we arranged for a BT line to be installed into a property we was due to move into....date: 24th August....we also ordered broadband.....paid in advance for broadband and also paid £50 deposit for landline. Landline activated ok on 24th August....however, house move fell through, therefore didn't require the services. Rang on 28th August and asked if our account could be transferred to our current address so we didn't suffer any cancellation costs (as we'd already cancelled our virgin media accounts). We had to cancel the broadband order as until they'd set up the new line, we couldn't have it. This was due to happen on 31st August.....nothing....landline still active and no telephone line in our current address. I have been on the phone ever since, sometimes for 4 hours being passed from one department to another and then back again . I've been fobbed off so many times you just wouldn't believe. I finally got through to somebody called Ann in Customer Options who told me that she'd cancelled everything and I would get a refund of my deposit. Well you've guessed it....nothing, landline still active. I've emailed the complaint in 3 times and even contacted Open Reach, and got a response but only to contact BT! What do you think I've been doing??! I then spoke to a very helpful man again in Customer Options who said that he can see I've been trying to cancel, but for some reason the system won't do it (due to the transition of a new system??). He has now set the wheels in motion to cancel all of our accounts as they're only trying to take money for something I've been trying to cancel for now 3 weeks and charging me for broadband that I've never had! However, the line is still active in a house we don't live in. Has anybody got any advice here?? Thanks

When something goes wrong BT is the hardest company to get a resolution from, due in part to stupid foreign call centres and and red tape and restrictions on advisors in the UK.

I'm afraid I can only echo your sentiments - whilst I am happy I got my issue sorted, its a little bit like having malaria and getting better, it would have been better not to have got malaria in the first place.

Since this thread is on page one of google search perhaps BT will eventually get the message that the service they provide is on the whole not what it should be.

This isnt to say there are not individuals within the organisation who do care, but when all is said and done, the way their system works leaves many of these people who care as frustrated as the customer.

At my previous address I was due to move out on the first, the new people rang BT and said they were taking over the line from the 1st, BT disconnected the line immediately and reconnected with new peoples number, an incompetant mistake which made my number unobtainable to callers and was a nightmare to resolve because of a foreign call centre (yet again).

I would have thought that the order process should be handled entirely by UK customer service until it is satisfied by both parties.

Lets see how quickly and efficiently BT produce a bill for me