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AIBU?

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Original poster

to think that bt are absolutely shocking!

44 replies

kazza446 · 20/12/2013 21:49

We have recently cancelled our sky package and gone to bt for full tv, broadband & telephone package. This is our 3rd attempt to switch over, each time theyve cocked it up in the process. I was quite positive that it would be a success this time. We received confirmation email last night to say they would be here today between 8am - 1pm. Had to arrange a sitter to come over as my son was poorly and needed a doc apt this morning. By 12:30, still no sign so husband rang them to be informed the engineer had been held up but would be with us soon. Still no sign by 145, so again had to arrange a sitter to stay with my poorly son while I went to school for church service and to collect other 2 kids. Husband chased bt again at 3pm to be told no engineer would be with us today as the one due to come out to us was not qualified to do the work. The earliest they can now book us in is 30th Dec. Our sky is still working but will go off in next few days meaning its likely our kids will have no tv over Christmas. I am so mad!! Should I just cancel the package with bt? If this is pre-customer service I wouldn't like to think how we will be treated once signed into a contract. Incompetent Bar stewards!!

OP posts:
ivykaty44 · 20/12/2013 21:51

if this is your third attempt and it still hasn't gone right - then it is a big red flag warning, what are you thinking?

Call and cancel and tell your provider you have now you want to stay

edwinbear · 20/12/2013 21:53

I once went an entire year without the internet service I was paying BT for, purely because shelling out £30 a month or whatever it was for nothing, was preferable to having to deal with them.

edwinbear · 20/12/2013 21:54

And yes, cancel it, and run as far away from BT as your legs will take you.

Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme · 20/12/2013 21:55

When my

Original poster
kazza446 · 20/12/2013 21:56

Dear god. I'm frightened now. Think I will tell them to shove it!! Thanks peeps!!

OP posts:
Original poster
kazza446 · 20/12/2013 21:57

edwinbear I'm 39 weeks pregnant so my legs won't take me far these days lol!!

OP posts:
ThePinkOcelot · 20/12/2013 21:58

Cancel now and stay with Sky!

Original poster
kazza446 · 20/12/2013 22:00

thePinkOcelot is that you speaking from personal experience?

OP posts:
edwinbear · 20/12/2013 22:01

If you are 39 weeks pregnant you do not need the stress of dealing with BT. Maybe if you get to 41 weeks and bump isn't here, give them a call and try to arrange an engineer to fix a fault on the line. The stress will bring labour on nicely.

Original poster
kazza446 · 20/12/2013 22:01

edwinbear I think your comment says it all!!

OP posts:
Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme · 20/12/2013 22:02

Ffs.

When my DPils phone line went down it was off for eleven weeks. Every day we phoned we got a promise that it would be fixed by the end of the day and a profuse apology. We got told it was our cable, the cable outside, the cable in the road, roadworks on our road (there were none), roadworks on the main road (again, none), no traffic lights available in the whole county for the roadworks needed to rectify the fault, it went on and on. Then they said an engineer was at the house fixing it as we spoke. Um, well we're here and there's no engineer. Then they said he was in our road, just outside our house. We don't have a junction box in our road.

It was utterly farcical. Eventually we got our local MP to intervene and then it did actually suddenly work again. Never got to the bottom of it.

It was like they made up the most random excuse they could think of every time we phoned. We thought perhaps they were running a sweep on the daftest lie they could muster.

I wouldn't use BT if my life depended on it.

Original poster
kazza446 · 20/12/2013 22:02

I'm having a c section next Friday. We may be couped in for a while, hence why some tv package is preferable over school holidays!

OP posts:
edwinbear · 20/12/2013 22:05

Please, please do yourself a massive favour and tell BT where their engineer can park his van.

Original poster
kazza446 · 20/12/2013 22:08

ilovemydogandmydoglovesme that has just reminded me of an episode at work where our phone line was down for around 8 weeks. They put us an emergency temporary line in but somehow diverted it to some poor old bugger who was getting all our calls. I spoke to them to tell them it still wasn't working. They reassured me it was and that they had just had it confirmed by Doris. They werent having it that I was alone in the office and that we never had a Doris working for us. Bunch of idiots. What was I thinking?? Personally I'm a tight arse and would do without any tv package. We seem to be paying about £60 a month for utter crap!!

OP posts:
Original poster
kazza446 · 20/12/2013 22:10

[Smile]. I think I will edwinbear

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NadiaWadia · 20/12/2013 22:19

They are crap. Don't do what they say they will do, and you can never get through to anyone who can actually take action. The call centre staff in India are lovely and polite, and promise to sort out the problem, but then it happens again. And again.

When we moved to a house with no phone line, they said we could have the line installed for free if we stayed with them 18 months. Of course they then went on to charge us. We had to contact a special e-mail service for people that have complained about them on forums before anything got done.

And for the broadband, they sent our new 'home hub' to an old address of ours (the house before the house we were moving from, somewhere we had not lived for 6 years). We complained, they sent it out again. To the same old address. And repeated this twice again. Each time we were charged for the delivery. (We managed to get the money back in the end, and get the home hub delivered to our actual address).

But they really are breathtakingly incompetent.

MesM · 20/12/2013 22:40

We had nearly 10 weeks of terrible service when we tried to change package. Bypass the customer services centre who as someone said are polite but useless and contact them on twitter instead. Our problems were resolved in under 4 days and they gave us an HD box for free as compensation. If we'd stuck with the call centre we probably still wouldn't have TV, broadband or a phone!

poweredbytoast · 20/12/2013 22:42

Bt changed my number. Without being asked and without telling me. I had some interesting chats with the call centre staff trying to sort that one out. Them: " Are you calling from the number you wish to speak about?" - Me "Well.... Yes and no!"

CornishYarg · 20/12/2013 23:13

Avoid them like the plague! When we needed a connection set up for our new house, we were told an engineer would come to the house to do it on a particular morning so I took the morning off work. No one came so DH phoned BT and was told he was running late so would come in the afternoon. So I took the afternoon off too, only for him not to show. DH called BT again and was told the engineer hadn't actually turned up for work that day!

It took a further 8 weeks and numerous calls till we were connected. No engineer needed btw. BT charged us £120 for their connection "service". In our complaint we demanded compensation for my unnecessary day off and the cost of all the calls we had to make to them. They said they would only compensate for the latter but wouldn't in our case as we'd moved to another supplier... Fortunately a further complaint through their internal dispute resolution was more successful.

Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme · 20/12/2013 23:22

If you've cancelled your sky you can install a Freesat box and run it off your satallite dish. You'll still get lots of tv channels. Then just set up a new broadband and phone line with someone - anyone - else!

ConventGarden · 21/12/2013 00:04

shudder
I have no words to describe how horrific my experience was with BT. no words. no words. they are CRIMINAL.
yeah agree tell him where to park his van :-)

Original poster
kazza446 · 21/12/2013 00:11

Oh lordy!! CornishYarg that's exactly what happened to us! We were given a morning appointment but never turned up so dh called them, to be told he would be with us shortly as he was held up at another job. When we chased it at 3pm, we were told that the booked engineer wasn't qualified to do the fitting so wouldn't be coming. This is the third time. On the other 2 occasions, a year or so ago they lost both records of our bookings. Really don't want to use them at all now. I may just be a skin flint and use freesat. Will save money and get kids netflicks instead x

OP posts:
Original poster
kazza446 · 21/12/2013 00:12

poweredbytoast that is so funny! How on earth can one company be so incompetent??!!

OP posts:
casawasa · 21/12/2013 00:14

Are you on Twitter? I find a nice, public tweet about issues like this generally helps most companies get their arses in gear!

EBearhug · 21/12/2013 01:33

I won't ever be a BT customer again while I have any choice over it.
But I was horrified to discover that Orange are even worse.

BT were actually good and did exactly what I wanted in the end after I got a special customer advisor to deal with it - but by that point, I had ended up crying down the phone at them. Good customer service should be the default, not what you end up after a lot of distress.

Unfortunately, the level of customer services with all telecoms companies seems pretty low, regardless of who you are with.

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