Thursday, 6 December 2012

Completely Unacceptable National Telephone Service

BT must have been delighted when Deepwater Horizon exploded and pumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.  Not because they hate seagulls (though who doesn't?), but because for a couple of months, the UK's foremost telephone provider got to only be the second worst company in the world with the word "Britain" in their names.

In the two months and dozen-odd phonecalls since I first let BT know I was moving house, they have:
  1. Forced me to wait a week so that they could "correct the code" on my new house, which was listed in the wrong county.
  2. Failed to disconnect my previous phone-line despite being told - twice - when I was leaving.
  3. Charged me for the seventeen day period between my leaving and getting their shit together.
  4. Billed me £130 for a new landline despite assuring me I would get free installation in exchange for extending my contract.
  5. Cancelled the installation of that new landline last week without telling me.
  6. Left me on hold for half an hour whilst they tried to find out why they'd cancelled, for which they still haven't been able to find a reason.
  7. Told me the next available installation date wouldn't be until the 16th of January.
  8. Told me they could arrange an earlier visit than that, only to tell me they in fact can't, and never could, because early visits are only for emergencies, not clearing up their own mistakes.
  9. Promise to have a complaints handler phone me to help with my problem, who didn't phone on the day promised.
  10. Told me I might be able to get the money BT owes me as a discount on later bills, rather than actually reimbursing me - if indeed I get it back at all.
  11. Hung up on me twice whilst I've been trying to sort this all out.
  12. Refuse to give me free access to the BT wi-fi service I'm in the catchment area for.
It's that last one that's really enraging.  They know they've screwed up, they know there's a way to give me at least some of what they promised to deliver whilst they sort out their mistakes, and they just won't do it.

UPDATE: Fifteen minutes after I posted this, BT rang back to tell me they've given in on points 10 and 12.  So that's definite progress, at least.

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