British Telecom -- like sticking your head in a blender, but less fun
There appear to be at least three departments at BT that aren't talking to each other (or themselves) and between them all, I've been put through a meat-grinder. First, there's the billing department, who seem to call me every other day to tell me that I need to put a deposit down before my line can be installed, and then, when I remind them that I've provided them with a credit card on three separate occasions, promise to call me back (and never do).
Then there are the schedulers, who keep calling to confirm a November 1 installation date, and every time I say, "No, we agreed that you'd install on November 6th -- that's why I cancelled a flight and a day's worth of meetings to be home for you." Why, just Wednesday a BT rep assured me that the installation would be on the sixth, not the first.
Finally, there are the customer service people, who insist that someone needs to come out to "install" my line, even though there's been a working BT line in this flat for the past ten years, and all I want to do is switch it back on again now that the tenants who rented the place while we were in LA last year have gone.
Thursday morning, a BT engineer called to say that he was on his way (it being the first) and I told him, no, I'm not in today, you're supposed to be coming on the sixth. Since then, I've been on the phone for two days with BT, speaking to customer service rep after customer service rep, none of whom can explain when -- or if -- my line will be turned on (though several of them have told me firmly that no work can be done until I put down a deposit).
Now it seems like I'm going to get installation sometime before the end of the month. Maybe. Who knows? At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if BT's next step was to burn my house down and dance in the ashes.
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When the techs finally do arrive, you should insist that they show you their form 27B/6.
You are not alone, I am still fighting BT to obtain reliable broadband connectivity and am navigating fruitlessly in the hellish Customer Service archipelago without any tangible results.
I live in the US and I have family in the UK. We've had our domestic phone service provided by them since the dawn of time (well, since they got privatised) and so to get broadband from them too seemed like a good idea and a hassle-free solution.
The problems began from the moment I ordered the service - it took longer than stated to arrive, then one customer 'service' person told me it would take 'another couple of weeks due to an unforeseen delay' on the day it turned up. Then I waited a week - unnecessarily as it turned out - because 'it needs to be activated' (?) - then, joy of joys, it seemed to be working.
A month or two later, back in the US and a long way from the BT supplied hardware, I lose connectivity. When I next go back to the UK, I find the broadband modem needs power cycling. I do so. A few hours later it drops the connection and needs another power cycle. The nightmare begins again.
BT of course are completely useless. Their website goes so far as to recognise the problem, and blames it on 'nearby electrical apparatus in your house'. So, I have a few hours of conncectivity before 'something' goes wrong with BT's crappy gear, or their line, or their network hardware, or...
I'm still paying and dealing with Customer Service (ha!) in the vain hope it will all work reliably again. But I can honestly say I loathe BT with a passion simply because of its utterly shoody service, disregard for the customer and its 'oh well, it's probably your fault' attitude.
In the US I have broadband via cable and it's 100% reliable. What a difference.
I feel your pain.
It was quite the adventure getting our DSL installed in our first flat in London. There weren't enough lines for the building, so the first thing they did was put in some kind of digital aggregator to share the copper to the exchange between our flat and another. Now since this is essentially using a dsl connection to multiplex local voice traffic, it's not compatible with actually having a dedicated data connection. But that didn't deter them, and we had telephone service for a whole extra day before the dsl tech showed up and say, "this will all have to be redone."
He dug under the pavement, then crawled up a pole out back and somehow found a free line pair from which he ran a new cable. And to this day I'm convinced we wouldn't have have a connection if he hadn't spent the rest of the morning parked on our sofa, on his mobile, talking techs at the exchange through wiring up the other end and completing the provisioning.
They were renovating the mews behind our building and adding a bunch of new flats (caused endless trouble with the post). I asked how they were meant to get phones if there weren't any free pairs available, and he patiently explained that first, several people have to call in, then techs would determine that they couldn't get phones, and *then* a flag would be raised with long term planning about the need to get a new trunk laid!
On the other hand, once it was up, the BT dsl line was rock solid, and I got 5 static ips. Even if the pings all went through Manchester. Way better than the high-end "business class" crap I have now from Telus. Something to be said for ISP competition.
So there's good with the bad. And cultural differences. :)
"'Damn and blast British Telecom,' exclaimed Dirk, the words coming easily from force of habit."
-Douglas Adams
I'm getting a Virgin Media banner ad next to this post. I think Boing Boing is trying to tell you something.
i feel your pain cory Bt are one of the worst compnies to deal with. to be truthful you should have gone with virgin media. at least they can get a line installed same week. (im not a virgin shill, just a happy customer)
Well, I got a BT line put in at my new flat in Elephant & Castle last week. Since it'd been cut off last year apparently an engineer had to come and reconnect it at a cost of 125 pounds. I'd asked BT that they call me a half hour before they showed up, so I had time to leave my office and get home to let him in to do his thing. But, he called when he was right outside. Regardless, he hung around and I cycled home; I got there in 20 minutes and he did his thing, and now I have a phone line and 4 days later an extremely fast BE broadband line.
So, I wouldn't say BT is all bad. In fact, in my 4 years living here, in 3 different flats, I haven't had a bad experience with them or their work standards, compared to what I was used to in Canada.
Painful, I know. But we have the same problems in the States too. Just do a word-replace of BT for SBC (now AT&T), and your story would accurately explain every install they've done for me. Forget for the moment the scheduling and billing snafus. For some reason, they insist on sending a tech, even though a line was only previously used. In homes where the access point is EXTERNAL to the premise, they STILL insist someone be home "just in case". After all the ultimate bungling, I finally cut the cord. I switched to cable internet and Vonage. Until fiber-to-premise earlier this year. Now I'm married again to that infernal beast, AT&T. In my online banking system, the account is labeled "ATT fuckers" in permanent memory of their terminal incompetence.
Sounds like AT&T. Perhaps they share a staffing manual or some call centers.
Last year I was activating phone service at my place. It's in an apartment complex, so when I called to set service up, they said they could just flip a switch at the office, which they would do on the first of November (estimated date to best of my memory). "I don't need to be home for it?" "No." Come activation day, while at work, I get a call on my cell phone (which was in my desk drawer; I was in the restroom) from the installation guy, letting me know that my phone wouldn't be installed because I wasn't at home and he couldn't get in to install the phone jacks I supposedly ordered.
Next day, after two hours on hold (45 minutes of which was being transferred to someone who then said "oh, that's not what this number is for), I manage to convince them that I don't need any installs done inside my apartment. They finally come out (about a week and a half later) and do the install, and this time I know they're coming. The tech calls my cell phone this time, says "hey, your phone's installed," and I never actually meet the guy.
The fun part was, during another call a few days later to change the services I was getting, when I asked why I was being charged for service beginning on my first supposed install day, rather than the week and a half later when service was actually installed. The conversation ended like this: "So it's company policy for you to charge people for services they aren't receiving?" "Yes, sir, that's correct."
I did learn a lesson earlier this year with Time Warner about call centers. Two months of phone tag and about four incompetent operators resulted in me being overcharged AND having my cable shut off. I called and spoke with one clueless operator who thought sending me to a channel listings website would solve my problems. Got cut off, called again, talked to someone who solved my two-month problem (that previous operators said was unfixable on their end) in about 5 minutes, PLUS gave me extra account credit for my trouble.
Lesson learned: If the person you're talking to on the phone is difficult and/or incompetent, hang up and try again. The one who knows what s/he's doing is out there if you keep trying.
when we moved into our flat in london last year, i called BT who supply our next door neighbours with broadband internet. after a week of spending up to an hour and a half on the phone being transferred around - each time being assured i was on my way to 'someone who could help me' but actually just being put back in the queue - i was informed they couldn't supply me with broadband anyway.
we then talked to pipex, who supplied us with very good broadband, but got our monthly payments wrong. we tried to correct this over nine months: we called, we emailed, we wrote letters. nothing happened. mainly we got told that, for pipex, customer service and customer care are two different departments, and that it is not possible to talk with customer care (ie, make any complaints, question service etc) on the phone: they only respond to email. this was extremely frustrating, as our emails were not answered.
two weeks ago we hit the point where it was a year since they'd started supplying us with broadband. suddenly they got in touch, and the payment situation was easily rectified.
i spent a good part of this last year in a rage at the incompetency and lack of customer care such companies can show. in total i calculated that setting up broadband, and setting up my account for broadband, took a whole two and a half working days of solid communication.
My niece (in rural Wales) has been waiting on Bt for over a year now; mostly they just fob us off but occasionally they send a nice letter explaining how they're going to have a meeting to decide if they can afford to 'provision the service'.
The really funny part is that for a short while they did in fact provide her with broadband albeit rather unreliably. So the line *can* work....
Sigh.
And it seems that until Bt 'fix' the line no other company is able/willing to provide service either.
If anyone knows a high-up in Bt for the central wales area, do please let me know how to contact them!
There must be some kind of global training centre for telecom co's customer service... here is part 1 of experience with Bell Canada:
http://hughmcguire.net/2007/08/11/love-letter-to-bell-v1/
You've seen "Brazil", right? That movie really is rooted in reality. For "Central Services" read BT + every other utility provider in the UK. It's part of our proud cultural tradition.
While we're on cultural traditions: if you eventually get BT to send someone out to your house, make sure you offer a cup of tea and biscuits. If a job takes several hours one should additionally offer a bacon sandwich.
While you're waiting for this snafu to be resolved (or not), why not enjoy a relaxing text-adventure game?
Just to add another side, although I've received very ropey service in the past. The last time I had to deal with BT was waiting for a Be connection to be activated. Just before the day of activation I checked my line to receive no dial tone. I phoned BT and was told that I would be charged for the call out if it was my problem. I ended up speaking to a tech guy and explained I'd removed the socket from the wall and plugged the phone directly into that. The engineer that came out said something like "Oh, it seems like you're line is disconnected at the exchange". He said it was nearby... drove there, plugged me in, comfirmed it was working by phoning me. End result was, despite problems with BT and a shared house, my ADSL was activated on the day it was meant to be. :-) Admittedly this was just over 2 years ago but the guy that helped me out was friendly and knew what he was doing. Since then no problems. Not bad for a shared house in london that, when I last did a check, had something like 4 BT lines (dead mostly) and several NTL tv/phone lines (they did not offer internet back then).
If you have the choice avoid Virgin Internet. I'm sure the service could be good but the companies they have acquired it from, such as NTL/Telewest etcv, have such atrocious customer service I doubt Virgin's is going to recover soon. My parents homes connections dies Friday night and most of Saturday.
File under "Some things never change!"
This reminds me of Lily Tomlin's Ernestine Phone Company skethes from the Laugh-In era.
"If you don't like it, try two dixie cups and a string!"
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're The Phone Company!"
Ah, good times. 30 years later - it isn't so funny anymore, eh?
As in most utility companies in the UK, the engineers are great people. They're honest, helpful and try to get the best job done.
The problem is in Sales & Marketing. Trust me: Scott Adams is an optimist. Assume that everything that they say is a lie. Check it. Really. Do the math. When you catch them in a lie, write it down, then shout at them. Remind them about their lie with plenty of decibels. Frequently.
If they lie a second time, roll out the harsh language. Hold nothing back. Remember: politeness is weakness.
For instance: when I ordered a second phone line (before ADSL), insisting that I did NOT want a split line (DACS unit), they installed a DACS anyway. That evening I spent about an hour on the phone (to the amusement of the neighbours) and the DACS was removed the next working day. Result!
I've also stopped receiving sales calls. Bonus! ;)
"At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if BT's next step was to burn my house down and dance in the ashes."
i can't read this line without doubling over in laughter! i've spent the day trapped in a kind of Noh Theater/parallel universe with Comcast here in the SJ/Bay Area trying to get them to properly install a couple of cablecards so i can use my new HD tivo box... its almost midnight... one of the two cards keeps threatening to start a nuclear chain reaction and sink down to the earth's core, and the folks at Comcast keep asking me to "make sure my tv is set to channel 3"...
quite frankly, i'd LOVE to be able to get my television from a couple of tin cans and some string!
thanks for the deep, cleansing belly laugh!
@ 17 NIHIL
You've got it dead right. Especially about the lies and the efficacy of sticking it right back to them. Sales and Marketing people - in the UK at least - tend to be moronic box tickers, obsessed with their own targets and able only to parrot meaningless managementspeak phrases. It's what happens when you have bean-counters running things - the business loses sight of its customers.
Relax. Yes it's a pain, I've done it in LA, Riga and London within the past year and am about to do it in LA again.
The easiest way to solve the problem is to invoice BT for your time. I've done it and things move very fast when they receive that letter. I'd also suggest you get a 3G adaptor for your computer to allow you access to the net and VOIP while you wait.
This isn't that big (of a - insert if American) a deal unless you're very lucky and there's nothing more pressing in your life.
Back to actual information/entertainment please.
Cory, write to the CEO. There is simply no other way to deal with BT. Believe me, I've tried. And for anyone in Mud Island who wants DSL, I heartily recommend Entanet resellers over any of the brand-name boys. Does exactly what it says on the can, 19.99/month, no contract. Virgin are on the way down now that's who they are - when it was Telewest, they had a reputation for reliability and good service, which NTL and Virgin have managed to completely squander.
P.S. If you do write to the CEO, plz to post correspondence here for shits n giggles, mmmmm'kay?
While it might be worth persevering with BT (as other people have noted, their customer service can be dire, but once you actually get an engineer around, they tend to really know what they're doing), I can't help but wonder why you don't just go somewhere else for your needs? In London especially, there must be other choices..?
Here's a snippet of classic dialogue from Homestarrunner, when an angry Strong Bad tries to deal with a clueless call center operator (played by Homestar) in "ISP":
There is a phone ringing sound and the screen is split by a phone cord with Homestar Runner in the office on the left and Strong Bad on the right. On Homestar's cubicle wall there is a Post-It Note that reads "Note to self: Chew more." Homestar wears a headset.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Thank you for calling the internet, may I have your account number or identity theft, please?
STRONG BAD: No, but you can have a heapin' helpin' of my unbridled rage!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {reading slowly from sheets of paper} Ma'am, please calm down. Your CD tray is not a cup holder. {turns page} I cannot help you clear your browser cache. No, I'm not in India.
STRONG BAD: Shut up and listen. {Homestar drops the papers in surprise. Strong Bad bangs his hand on keyboard} My internet is crawling along like... something... funny... that crawls along.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: All right, I can help you with that. Please hold while I transfer you to someone who can help you with that.
STRONG BAD: {incredulous} What?!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {singing} Doo doot. Tch. Doo doo dit. Tch. Doot doo doot. Tch.
{Cut to a long shot of the office as Homestar stands up. Homestar is the only visible tech representative.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {still singing} It's the hold music, do doot. Tch. Pa doo doot. Tch. Boodoo doo doot. Tch. {high pitched voice} Hold music!
{Cut back to the splitscreen as Homestar sits down.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {in a telephone voice} Thank you for holding. Your call is very unportant to us. The next available representative wi— {normal voice} okay, I'm back! Lemme just verify your address so I can send you my weight in free sign-up CDs.
STRONG BAD: Ugh, enough! {bangs hand against keyboard again} I'm marching my pasty white bwathom down there to talk to the man in charge!
{He slams the phone down and walks offscreen during Homestar's next line.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: I'm so glad we could get that resolved. Is there anything else I can—
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail152.html
http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/isp
At work, we've been waiting six months for BT put a new line in. It's half done, there's a buried cable that doesn't attach to anything at either end.
Sounds exactly like my experience. I blogged it, of course.
A common experience of BT then.
My mum had to threaten BT with Ofcom to get them to do something about her appalling broadband speeds. I can strangely confirm that after she waved the Ofcom beating stick her broadband suddenly increased by between 5-10x.
Have you thought about alternative services like Virgin? Among other things it means you can get an Internet connection which isn't throttled and doesn't have 'data' plans.
Not that this'll help in Cory's case, but one the best tips I've heard for getting an engineer to your house early in the day is with the "bacon butty bribe":
When you're speaking to phone support requesting a callout, make sure they can enter support notes that the engineer can read, then ask them to write in "free bacon sandwich if before 10am".
Now, if you're a service tech flicking through a stack of morning callouts, and you get to choose which order to process them, who are you going to want to visit first? :) (Doesn't work on veggies, natch.)
Just forget BT and go with a cable company instead. You'll get another phone line installed, but what the heck, just go for it. You'll have the satisfaction of not paying any money to BT, if nothing else.
OMG BT is almost as bad as Sky. I had to get a BT line in to get Sky broadband and just getting the phone line in took 3 months. (Connecting to the internet took another 4 if you can believe that).
Took a day off my lucrative contracting work to wait for the engineer. He was meant to come between 9am and 1pm. He rings 4:30pm: "Sorry, can't come today. How's tomorrow?".
Eventually the line goes in but there is a problem at the exchange with 'tie pairs'. No-one at BT can tell me what these are. Nobody can tell me when they'll be fixed. BT blame Sky. Sky say it is a problem at the exchange. They blame BT. I get dizzy.
7 months(!) after I order Sky Broadband I'm online. I only waited this long because I was desperate and every fortnight they'd say: "Really sorry, 2 weeks it will be ok". Moved to Virgin at my new place: rang and then 3 days later I'm online.
Never using BT or Sky again for anything. Ever.
Seems like a British 'customer service' pandemic. Don't get me started about HSBC...
I'm actually trying to get the BT line installed so I can get DSL and get OFF Virgin broadband. The company promises 20Mbit, but our line tests like 100k. The "customer service line" costs 0.25p/minute (!!) to call, and they are vile, sarcastic scumbags. I can't wait for the BT line to be installed so I can ditch Virgin.
As much as I love England and the English, I've always felt there should be huge banners at Heathrow and Gatwick reading: "Welcome to Great Britain: We Apologise for the Inconvenience."
Still, mustn't grumble; there's a war on.
It used to be worse. No, really, it did.
If I had a shiny penny for every time I've had the following conversation, I'd have at least four or five shiny pennies.
Me (in a telephone box, for it is the days before affordable mobile telecommunication): Hello?
BT customer service person (bored, as they work for a nationalised monopoly): Yes?
Me: I've just moved into a new flat, and I'd like the telephone to be connected.
BT: Please hold, I'm transferring you to [muffled].
Me: [Hums patiently]
BT: Hello, line connection services, how may I help.
Me: I've just moved in... [etc. etc.]
BT: Okay, well first I need to know the number of the line you want connected.
Me: I don't know, there's no telephone and the line is dead.
BT: Oooh, well we can't connect you unless you know the number.
Me: I know the address. Don't you have a record of the number?
BT: We may do. Let me pretend to check...
How to get your way with BT:
1. Raise a complaint.
2. Tell them you won't pay your bill until the complaint is resolved (this may result in your line being disconnected if you actually don't pay the bill, but they can usually reconnect it pretty quickly once they realise they've screwed up, and it just gives you more ammunition for your complaint).
3. When they fail to resolve your complaint, ask for the number for Complaints Review.
4. Call Complaints Review. These are the people in BT who actually know how to get things done.
I can feel your pain, but my perspective is that I used to work for ISPs. I used to work for Pipex and Freedom2surf.
You think it's weird as a customer, try being a service provider, and having to deal with BT. We cop it from the EU and BT.
Getting it installed in the first place is just the first of what can be a long unpleasant ride.
It really depends on the engineer that arrives, sometimes they are contractors, and they just want to get in and out ASAP, the actual employed by BT ones seem to be better.
ADSL can drop due to:-
Your PC power supply EMI
Being next to a rail line
Rain/Snow/Very hot weather
Diesel generators
Refrigerators
longer than 10m phone extensions
DACS
Radio suppressors on the line
Weird Customers cases I had:-
EU lives on an RAF base, the DSL dropped every night almost the same time...cause..Radar
Again every night at 6.30 it would drop out for an hour or so...when the Microwave was on..you guessed it.
I had someone ring to complain we cut them off, but we couldn't figure when he lived as the number wasn't one of ours..He was using his neighbours WiFi point and we cut that guy off for non-payment
Someone called to say there house was hit by lightning and half the lights and white goods were fried. Do I have any idea why the DSL was down?
(I am not kidding)
Bt Weirdness:-
No late call outs to South Wales as no BT engineers lived there.
We spent a lot of money on routers to face the BT routers, and that bandwidth cost a lot as well. Our bandwidth usage charts flattened out at 75% of what we paid for. We called BT to see what was going on, they had a look, nothing they said..a few hours later our charts went over 75% for the first time in 2 months.
Council weirdness:-
A BT crew where told by a local council officer to close down their excavations, as their warning signs were a few cm to small.
I would have to ring BT and was on the line to BT Wholesale for about an hour a day. The basic tool is a Whoosh test. The ISPs got a cut down version. Sometimes I would get someone rather new, and I would have them read out their result and I would have to tell them what it meant.
ISP Tech support is a rubbish job, everyone who does it, hates it, and really wants to do something else, and the pay at Pipex was ridiculous, and I'm sure most of the other ISPs are the same. At one stage they advertised for people who could use Outlook Express and Internet Explorer to join Tech Support, and they would get training. You can guess how well that went.
I seem to be in rant mode..I'll turn it off..
My own experience was good, old phone line was disconnected, BT man arrived on time, he put in the house wiring, but needed a crane to get to the pole outside, but said it is usually a 2 week wait!! He made a few calls and it arrived an hour later, and I had a phone. My ADSL has been perfect for 4 years, but I'm about 500m from the exchange.
Best of luck
If you've had such a bad experience of Virgin (who I am guessing used to be NTL in London) then I can't blame you - However it seems like a case of 'out of the frying pan, into the fire' transferring from Virgin to BT?!
My experience of Telewest/Virgin in Bristol, UK has been fantastic. I have 4mb broadband and have no problem getting the promised speeds, specially with services like Bittorrent which is something I often use.
Same trouble for me over the last few weeks: two broken engineer's appointments and ten hours getting sent round sales, billing, service and even Credit Referral. Sometimes they'd just cut me off.
In any case, Old Ghosts (23) might just have it: I sent a mail to Ian Livingston and some other senior addresses, had a reply within half an hour, a call from their secret ninja help team within the hour, and today - a Sunday - they've been like my BFF, calling to set up a Tuesday engineer's appointment (we'll see if he turns up).
Bully for me and everything, but I consider it wholly nuts that I've had to write to a CEO of a major corporation to get adequate service and a decent response to a problem.
Interestingly enough I managed to get BT to install a phone line and DSL line into a squat when I was in London - probably around 2002 or so. I was visiting my (now ex-)girlfriend who was living in a squat with some buskers, and brought ethernet cable, crimpers and other networking tools with me in my suitcase (from the US). We got the line ordered and installed shortly after I arrived and they came to the house and turned it up. Within a few days I had wired up a few of the bedrooms and they all had net access.
Maybe if you try getting it installed somewhere you don't actually live it would go faster! =)
When i had my BT line installed in London four years ago, (I needed it for my Virgin Broadband connection) it took three engineers three seperate visits. The first looked around a lot and scratched his chin...
The second made holes in things and generally made a mess. At one point he found an 'unused cable' crossing the hallway and decided it needed cutting through as it 'wasn't being used', I stopped him with the cable between his shears. Later I checked what the cable was: it was my burglar alarm.
The third came and tidied up the mess and loose ends left behind by number two.
The line worked well for a couple of years until we moved out, flat was let and AFAIK it fell into disuse, the tenants preferring to use cable.
The current tenants are currently enjoying a running battle much like yours with BT telling them there is no line at the property (oh yes there is!) and it will cost £149 to install a new line... As you might imagine, they're not getting very far...
BT have just cut my broadband speed from +-4900kbps to 480kbps. No explanation, no contact; I discovered this after three quarters of an hour on the phone to their technical department going through the usual rigmarole of unplugging filters and power cycling my modem.
Apparently the maximum speed of my local exchange has been downgraded to allow them to connect more customers. Great. Has anyone else in London experienced the same thing?
I had a four week nightmare with BT. They cut a line off despite being asked to 'cancel the cancellation' several times. So, no line, no broadband, no apology!
I was that annoyed that I have created a site for other to share their rants on:
http://www.ComplainAboutBT.com/
Its a bit different in that you can opt to give BT the chance to respond on the site.
Kevin