Squiffy Teddy Does… BT

 

 

After a recent change of location for Chopsy Towers, it because a necessity to get a phone line. The building landlord had installed the line; all we needed was a phone line provider to flick the switch.

 

We most ridiculously decided to try BT and so we signed up online aware that as doing this we had a cooling off period before we committed.

 

Through our dealings with BT we nearly have been committed, as they have driven us insane.

 

When signing up you chose the package you want then wait to hear back from them to see if you have to pay the £120 connection fee.

 

 

Order Date 11 November 208: Product summary One-off Monthly

New line with Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan at no extra cost

Connection of a new BT landline with unlimited UK* landline calls after 6pm weekdays and all day at the weekend.

Just pay line rental on a 12-month renewable contract, saving you over £32 a year. One-off connection charge of £124.99 only applies in some cases (subject to survey). 

 

Total one-off charges  £124.99    

Total monthly charges     £10.50 

    

 

 

 

We waited for our order confirmation to find out if we needed to pay a connection charge.  We  did:

 

 

 

Sent: 12 November 2008 07:18:15 I am delighted to receive your request for BT telephone service at your property.

 

Your order number is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Please quote this order reference number on any contact with us.

 

I have arranged for an engineer to visit your property on 19/11/2008 between 0800 hrs and 1300 hrs to connect your services. Please see the full details of your order below:

 

There is a connection charge of £124.99 (including VAT). Your line rental has a minimum 12-month term. Please note that if you cancel your service within this time, a cancellation charge will be added to your account.

 

The telephone number is xxxxxxxx. Please note that I cannot guarantee this number until your line is connected. Your telephone number will be ex-directory.

 

I have ordered unlimited evening and weekend plan for your calling plan as requested. This costs £11.75 (for paper bill) or £10.50 (for paper free bill) per month (including VAT). Further information on all our available calling plans can be accessed online at: www.bt.com/callchanges.

 

Please note that all prices include VAT and you can cancel this order up until 12 midday the day before your line is connected and there will be no cancellation charge. We provide telephone service subject to our standard residential terms and conditions. You can read them at www.bt.com/terms.

 

Sunny Arya

eContact Customer Service

Ref: xxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

After reading this we thought Nah! We weren’t going to pay £120 to BT so we will go with Virgin Media who are only £30 for a full installation. We cancelled the order within our allowed time.

 

This turned into the most epic battle of distantly located customer service call centres against the meek and mild Chopsy towers.

 

 

 

 

Sent: 13 November 2008 16:49:04 To:             residential.services@bt.com

 

Hello,

 

I would like to cancel this order please as I have been informed that the house is already connected and I shouldn’t have to pay a connection fee.

 

In any case I have been offered a much better deal by Virgin Media and will not have to pay a connection charge and will get cheaper internet with it.

 

  

 

Sent: 14 November 2008 04:28:39      

Dear Mis Smith,

 

Thank you for your e-mail dated 13/11/08 regarding the cancellation of the order for the new line.

 

As requested, I have cancelled the order for the connection of the telephone line. I can confirm that the order is canalled and hence the line will not be activated at the property.

 

If I can help with anything else please reply to me at this e-mail address.

 

Thank you for contacting BT.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Suzu Chhetri

eContact Customer Service

Ref: xxxxxxxxxx

 

Sorted we thought, unless ‘canalling’ the order actually means “let’s wind the customer up as much as possible”:

 

So then on the 19th of November, we had a phone call on the old mobile dog and bone whilst out of the property. It was a BT engineer who had come to connect the line and had found nobody in.

 

We explained that we had cancelled the order and he should not have turned up. He apologised and went on his way.

 

We then contacted BT again to make sure that they really had cancelled the order.

           

 

 

Sent 19 November 2008 11:31:12 To:             residential.services@bt.com

 

Hello,

I would like this cancellation confirmed please because I have just been contacted by a BT engineer who has apparently turned up at my property to connect my phone line. 

 

Regards.

 

 

We very shortly had an email reply, and someone phone up from BT on the worst possible phone line to make sure we were happy. Happy my behind.

 

 

19 November 2008 11:50:54

 

Thank you for your email dated 19/11/08 about confirmation of the cancellation of order and I am very sorry to hear of the difficulties you have experienced.

 

I confirm you that your order number: xxxxxxxxxxxxx has been cancelled which was placed for a new line installation. I also confirm you that there is no engineer visit scheduled for you now and you will not be charged for any fee on the basis of this order.

 

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me again via e-mail and I will be glad to assist you further.

 

Thank you for contacting BT.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Pawan Kumar

eContact Customer Service

Refxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

So we went on our merry way, connected with Virgin Media and all was well until a bill from BT dropped through the letter box.

 

 

So, we phoned them up. For a company who deal with telecommunications their call system sucks. Automated systems and not one button option to press if you are not a BT customer and they are billing you for a service they never installed.

 

Eventually we got through a lovely lady who told us the order had not been properly cancelled and would do it for us now.

 

So stupidly we took her word for it, believed the order to be now properly cancelled, and we went on our way again.

 

But. A nagging doubt lingered. The direct debit was due to go out on the 11th of December. So we went to our bank and cancelled it.

 

On the 11th of December, BT tried to take out £160 from our bank account. This was now war. So we told them so:

 

 

 

Sent 11 December 2008 To:             residential.services@bt.com

I AM GOING TO BE COMPLAINING ABOUT BT TO THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE AUTHORITY.

 

 I AM DISGUSTED WITH THIS COMPANY.

 

I HAVE HAD A BILL FROM BT SINCE THIS EMAIL, WHICH I HAD TO PHONE UP AND CANCEL.

 

THEN TODAY I HAVE FOUND BT HAVE TAKEN OVER £160 OUT OF MY BANK ACCOUNT AND ALTHOUGH IT WAS CREDITED BACK IN, THE DIRECT DEBIT HAD BEEN CANCELLED AND SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT OF MY BANK ACCOUNT.

 

THE FACT IT LEFT MY ACCOUNT AT ALL IS DISGUSTING IN LIGHT OF YOUR EMAIL BELOW.

 

I WILL NOW MOST LIKELY HAVE TO PAY CHARGES TO MY BANK BECAUSE IT MADE ME OVER DRAWN.

 

PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME IN DEPTH HOW THIS HAS HAPPENED AND WHY THE COMPANY IS SO INEPT.

 

IT IS ALL IN BLACK AND WHITE IN FRONT OF YOU. WHY HAVE YOU COCKED THIS UP AT EVERY POSSIBLE LEVEL?

 

 

 

We had no reply to our email.

 

 

 

At 17.25 we phoned BT to complain. After waiting for 5 minutes we spoke to someone for 2 minutes who wilted and put us on hold. After a further 10 minutes the person on the phone returned. She was upping our call to management after we told her the explanation she was giving us was quite frankly drivel.

 

After waiting again listening to some of Mozart’s finest, BT’s finest returned in the form of somebody called Shuvha Romeo Oscar Yankee, We assume he meant he was called Shuvha Roy.

 

Despite telling Mr Roy our tales of woe, Mr Roy failed to understand where we were coming from, though in fairness at no point did he defend our accusation that BT had tried to steal money from our account.

 

We made it perfectly clear that BT had tried to take the money from the bank account but that Barclays had stopped it. We actually made this perfectly clear several times at ascending but polite pitches.

 

Mr Roy explained to us that the bill had been sent to us because we had a phone line installed and it was being used. After a fruitless 10 minutes trying to persuade Mr Roy that a phone line had never, ever been installed we asked Mr Roy to tell us the phone number. He did. We asked him to phone the number. He told us he couldn’t because the phone line had not been installed. Bingo, we thought we were on to a winner, but no rather like BT, Mr Roy just couldn’t make the connection. We wanted to cry.

 

A painful 30 minutes later, Mr Roy promised me faithfully that BT would be paying us the sum of £160 and we thanked him. We thanked him because BT didn’t actually owe us this money but as he was very adamant that BT had to pay it back we quite frankly could no longer be arsed to dispute this point.

 

We are not optimistic because BT makes a charge whenever a direct debit doesn’t work so we are expecting more hassle.

 

We are waiting for £160 from BT and more problems.

 

 UPDATE 12th December 2008

Another letter from BT

 

UPDATE 15th December 2008

Over one month later our BT debacle is still going on

From:	Residential Services (residential.services@bt.com)
Sent:	15 December 2008 08:45:03

Yours sincerely,

Colin McGarrigle
eContact Customer Service
Ref: xxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 and

Just how rubbish are BT?

and

Just how much are BT going to lie to their customers?

Having given BT every opportunity to get this problem sorted, and had them double, and even triple check this, they still tried to deprive us of £160. We do not accept Mr McGarrigle’s brief explanation. It is bunk. We emailed them and phoned them before the money left the bank account, and were given more than enough chances to check the cancellation was done correctly.

 

 UPDATE 17th December 2008

We have received yet another letter from BT. We phoned them up to tell them what we thought of them. We told them we hoped the conversation was being recorded for training purposes.

Their system was down and we should be getting a call back within 48 hours.

UPDATE 1ST JANUARY 2009

We are still waiting for the call back phone call that Nicholas promised faithfully we would receive. BT simply did not phone back. It was one of many lies.

We also got back in to find a new bill from BT

 

UPDATE 2ND JANUARY 2009

We phoned up BT at 10.30 am to query our phone bill. We spoke to a customer service advisor who was called Swati Jain. After another phone call assuring us that all was fine and that we should have received another letter telling us so, though she didn’t understand why we had not received it, she confirmed that BT were going to credit the money into my account.

She would not put us through to a manager and could not understand why we did not trust what she was saying.

Quite why it has taken this entire page worth of effort to try and cancel a BT phoneline we never had installed we do not know.

It has taken two months of calls to BT (which are not free from a mobile). This is disgusting service and Chopsy Baby would not recommend anyone going with BT. It may have its faults but we would advise people looking for a phone line provider to go with Virgin Media.