A continuing saga of stress and pain

[mysteron]

This is a long and complex saga but I am writing this here so that (a) someone at BT might notice what a painful experience I've had and help me, and (b) so I can add to this as things develop and keep tabs on the entire affair

I have used BT Business broadband since I started running my small software company from a small home office in approximately April 2000 and aside from a strange situation surrounding an upgrade about 18 months ago which appeared to have been made without my consent, all my dealings with British Telecom have been reasonably positive. However recent events have caused so much frustration and damage to my business that I feel compelled to complain in the strongest possible terms

After BT no longer supported 'Reply-To' emails on my Apple Mac via Entourage, all my customers and work associates have known my email to be @btconnect.com. Therefore, knowing that on 19th of November 2012 I would be moving home I decided on the following course of action in an attempt to avoid any disruption to both this email address, internet access and, of course, my livelihood.

1. I moved my office to another location where I could attach a new business broadband account to a residential line.

2. I purchased a new BT Business Broadband account under my company name to use at this location and on this line.

3. I arranged for my existing telephone number to be transferred from my old house to my new home on the day of the move.

4. I also requested that as soon as this transfer be completed that my existing broadband account be transferred to my new home and I was made aware by Anthony Coyle at BT that this could take up to seven working days after the telephone number had been transferred.

The two broadband accounts at separate locations meant that I could work from one while the house move was in full effect and when necessary, work from home too. It also meant that there should be no interruption to my work during what is an notoriously stressful time.

On the 19th of November I duly moved house and at some point during the day I received a text saying that my telephone number would be transferred by midnight. However, the following morning, there was still no dial tone evident and so I called the fault line.

They promptly sent an engineer to carry out an investigation and he explained that the cable to the house had probably been accidentally cut by the previous owners when they had a new driveway laid. Given that the previous occupants were Virgin Media customers, it had probably gone unnoticed and that the only way forward for me was for BT to dig up the driveway and replace the cable.

Obviously I requested that this be done, however I also stipulated that this work should not be carried out between the 26th and 30th of November because that's when builders would be digging the foundations for an extension. This left dates between the 20th & 23rd November or from 3rd December onwards and shortly after the engineer left I received a text from BT saying "we aim to fix it by 5pm on 23/11/2012"

On the 26th of November I was advised by one of the builders that someone from BT attempted to dig up the driveway but he turned them away. However the real problems started two days after moving into my new home when on 21st or 22nd of November I finally managed to get into work and attempted logged on to my email via my new BT Business Broadband account, only to find that there was a problem logging into the @btconnect.com address which all my customers use.

A call to BT business support line (and all the waiting that this entailed) revealed that for some inexplicable reason, instead of transferring my original BT Business Broadband account along with my old telephone number, someone at BT had cancelled both my Business Broadband and my email address too!

Thankfully the person I spoke to was able to reactivate my email account and give me access to emails that had been accruing during the house move. But sadly, she was unable to reactivate my BT Business Broadband account and explained that I would have to purchase another Business Broadband account if I wanted to have this at my new address.

I duly ordered a new BT Business Broadband account but was then told that none of this could be carried out until 10th December. However, given that I had heard nothing at all about the fault on my telephone line and myself, my wife and my daughter have been reliant on our mobile phones since moving in on the 19th November, I questioned how any broadband facility could be assigned to a non-existent telephone line.

With this in mind and given the fact that I had not heard anything from BT since the text saying "we aim to fix it by 5pm on 23/11/2012" gave me reason to call Virgin Media and ask "If BT are incapable of doing anything before 10th December, can you connect broadband and telephone to my home any quicker?"

They were able to do this within 5 days and so as of Saturday 1st December 2012 I became a Virgin Media customer while I waited for BT to dig up the drive and repair the cable and reconnect my original telephone number.

As if this wasn't stressful enough, my new BT Business Broadband connection had (and continues to have) problems, the main one bring that despite being given a theoretical maximum speed of 12Mb per sec, after installation I encountered a max 1Mb per sec download speed and regular drop-outs and disconnections.

I have to say that while an engineer did come out and rectify this (albeit temporarily) every attempt to find a solution that didn't involve me repeating the same thing again and again to yet another person who couldn't actually do anything constructive despite me spending hours on the phone, lead me to the point where I forcibly expressed my frustration to one BT employee who decided that it would be a good idea to tell me about the £99 charge if an engineer visits and finds the fault down to me. 

Indeed, as a consequence of this uncharacteristic rant induced by BT letting me down repeatedly, I felt not only had I been let down so many times by BT but I had also let myself down and I duly cancelled the new broadband account to my home line in favour of the Virgin Media connection.

However, I still needed to make sure my original @btconnect.com email address remained active indefinitely so yet again called the seemingly impenetrable BT Business Broadband phone line and after speaking to no less than five people in five different sections, eventually was told that this email account would be attached to my singular BT Business Broadband account

All seemed to work fine until I went to check my email a few days ago and was met with a message saying my account was invalid. Another call to BT eventually lead me to Kenechukwu Onodu who took the time to understand my situation and then explained that the @btconnect.com had not actually been transferred to my active account and attempted to do it while I was on the line. He told me that it was done and that it would take 24 hours to update but looking at my account on-line yesterday, I see no evidence of this

In the interim, an engineer called to investigate the lack of Broadband Download speed and thankfully he managed to facilitate an increase from 1Mb per sec to nearly 8Mb per sec but, checking my speed yesterday, I am now back to 1Mb again and so I filed another fault report on-line via the BT website. 

And remember the previously requested broadband account that was due to be installed at my home on the 10th December but which I cancelled after all this grief? Well, it'll come as little surprise to know that on the 8th December a router arrived at my house in readiness for the engineer to install it. Thankfully on the 10th December no engineer arrived to install it - proof that there IS some inter-departmental communication on occasion.

However, on Saturday 15th December two identical letters arrived saying that this account was all set up for billing!

So here I am, still caught like a rabbit in the headlights of incompetence that is BT Business Broadband and far from being simple and stress free, it has been so full of frustration it beggars belief.

The truth is, I only want three things:

1. To have a BT Broadband Account that has a modicum of speed to it (6Mb per sec would suffice…surely it's not that much to ask for?)

2. To know for certain that my original @btconnect.com email is attached to the above account and will remain so.

3. To know that the only account BT Business Broadband Account I have and am paying for is the one above.

Sadly, I suspect that this may never happen and I'll be forced to lurch from one problem to another until my contract expires and I'll be able to look elsewhere. I'm sorry BT but while I may talk to individual people within your organization who try and rectify things, it seems that the system of communication between departments is flawed beyond repair. Seriously, the phrase 'ass & elbow' is very applicable here.

Nonetheless I remain ever hopeful

[markp]

Hi mysteron,

I am sorry to see you have had so many problems.  I have sent you a PM (private message) can you  please respondto this and I can have a look at what is happening for you.

Regards

Markp

BT Business Forum Moderator

[markp]

Hi mysteron,

I am sorry to see you have had so many problems.  I have sent you a PM (private message) can you  please respondto this and I can have a look at what is happening for you.

Regards

Markp

BT Business Forum Moderator

[mysteron]

update - since posting this the following has happened:

1. I've suddenly had a reliable connection with an average of 7mbps which is acceptable in my area. 

2. I've had an email and telephone call from BT, the call asking me to to through the entire saga with them and the email saying that they're putting my line back on a training period over the next 10 days and that the email issue has been referred to the advance diagnostics team. Nothing has been heard back from the latter but I understand that the person who's been assigned my case is 'on-the-ball'

3. I had a couple of PMs from people here trying to help

4. The Router that was sent for the cancelled line has been returned and I'm hoping this is the end of that account.

5. Yesterday I was able to contribute to the weekly podcast I'm contracted to do via my work. This is the first time that's been possible with this line and I'm hoping this will continue unhindered. 

So it seems the will is there to get to the bottom of this and sort it out. Fingers crossed there's some light at the end of the tunnel.

[mysteron]

I'm pleased......no, I'm absolutely delighted to say that this seems to have been sorted. Thank you to those at BT who took the time to read this and respond, and more importantly, put it right.

Happy Xmas

[mysteron]

Well, I thought it was too good for the saga to be completely over and today that's exactly what it turned out to be

Today I got an invoice with the same account number as the aforementioned cancelled broadband account.

Obviously I needed to try and find more but this wasn't exactly simple because on the invoice it's simply billed as 'Service charges' but the clue is in the fact that the period from which the billing starts is the exact same date from when my broadband account was cancelled in favour of one from a more on the case Virgin.

Another call to BT Billing confirmed that while I cancelled the broadband account it seems this invoice is for 'email services' linked to that account. Email services that I've never used, I hasten to add

So now I'm in a situation where I'm waiting for a call from BT back office once they've looked into my claim that I owe nothing because the entire account was cancelled...not just the broadband.

More updates as and when

[DanSmith87]

My guess would be that the charge for E-Mail services is not, in fact, for the new E-Mail address that came with the broadband that you're currently using, but for your original E-Mail address that has supposedly been moved over. BT are very good at setting up an additional account when moving/installing broadband and so you end up with two broadband accounts for a period of time.

I'd check to see with the the account number on the bill is the same or different from your old ones, as if it's the same, they're still charging you for your existing E-Mail address, instead of having moved it over.

[bombinho]

Lucky you. When they did a similar story with me I did not know this forum. They just switched me off 4 weeks prior to the agreed date (+refused to turn it back on as it only was 4 weeks prior to the agreed date)and instead of switching the new line on at the date they had promised per email I had been told that nobody ever scheduled an engineer in the new place so they would not do anything about. Tough luck. My own fault, why had I believed the promises.

[mysteron]

Aaaand another update...

Needless to say no call from BT back office happened and yesterday I received a RED Reminder for this account, threatening, of all things, recovery of any equipment - the same equipment I sent back because I CANCELLED this account.

Obviously I'll be spending another few hours on the phone today in an attempt to get this part of the saga sorted but I doubt I'll get anywhere. Perhaps it's time to start sending them invoices for my time as over the last few months I must have spent close to two days trying to sort this out?

Utterly horrendous

[mysteron]

Navigated through the voicemail hell and spoke to someone today who was trying to be helpful but who could only write it all up (again) and pass it back to the Billing team with a request for them to contact me.

Even I'm losing track of what's occured and when and which reference number is applicable to what, such are the many, many errors and twsts and turns. It has genuinely turned into a Kafkaesque nightmare.

More soon, no doubt

[mysteron]

Someone from Billing called me today to say that this was issued in error and that I'll receive a bill for the sum of £0

Perhaps my final update is looming? (or have a just tempted fate?)

Fingers crossed