Appalling service and ridiculous barriers to contract termination

[PaulEvans]

Since I signed up in the Autumn there has been nothing but problems. All connection problems - the service drops out intermittently, it often falls over whenever I click on 'complicated' sites (like ...er.  Google Ads or Google Apps, or Facebook for example). Elements of web-pages often simply display as broken links and I get regualar 'security certificate' pop-ups to tell me that services aren't working properly.

As a web-mail user, I often lose work when a half-finished message gets interrupted by a 'you must restart your browser' message. The cost to my business has been substantial.

I'm desperate to get away but they're trying to hold me to the full term of the contract - to charge me the full cost of 24 months! I opened up a complaint very soon after starting with the service. It involved hours on the phone to their tech support and even more hours in the queue on the phone to their tech support. They were calling me back regularly in the end and were unable to do much to improve the service. It got a bit better but there are still intermittent problems. An engineer was sent to check my line - while he was here he replaced it with a new terminal breaking my phoneline in to the bargain (we were without a home phone for a few weeks until they came back to fix it).

The person who was dealing with me (Carol) eventually called me to say that she still hadn't fully worked out what the problem was but she was moving jobs. The problem was still annoying - totally unsatisfactory from any reasonable service standard - but because the problems weren't quite as bad, because I was busy and because I was working away from  home a lot of the time, and because it was a huge hassle getting in touch with them again and starting the whole process again, I delayed continuing with this into the new year.

At the start of this month, the service kept failing again resulting in lost work, lost time and a lot of frustration. I called again and just couldn't get through. Promised callbacks didn't materialise and I finally decided that I'd had enough and wanted out.

I went through the cancellation process on the website on Sunday 9th January. Filled in the form and the confirmation screen promised a call-back by the end of the next business day. Monday - no call. Tuesday - no call. I called them on Tuesday but had to give up before I got to the head of the queue. I had a business trip for the rest of the week and picked it up again on Monday 18th. Again, long waits in the queue to speak to the Customer Options team. Once I'd got through to them they said that I couldn't terminate the contract unless I could show that the service wasn't working. 

I then queued to speak to the tech support team who started conducting their diagnostic tests again (from scratch). Unplugging things, resetting my browser - all disruptive stuff that loses settings that I need for my work. All stuff that I was certain was going to be fruitless because we'd been round the block on this a dozen times before. In the end, I told them it was all pointless, that I didn't want to go on with it (all taking up valuable time) and that I just wanted to terminate. They said that I had to speak to the Customer Options team as they couldn't authorise this. They also told me to expect a callback from the customer options team later that day. It seems that - because I didn't want to go through the diagnostic tests again - that they then marked by problem as 'closed'.

The call didn't come, obviously. I later found out that this never happens. So next day I call the Customer Options team again. 25 min wait before the call was answered by staff who had no record of my wish to terminate. They told me I had to speak to tech support and after a long argument, I gave in.

So I call tech support. No record of the previous conversations and they told me I had to speak to Customer Options to terminate my service. They could do nothing to help. Another long wait to speak to Customer Options who (you guessed it) said I needed to speak to the tech support team who had to tell them that the service was unfixeable before they'd agree to a termination. So - another long wait followed by a long argument with the tech support team who insisted (again) that they had to go through their diagnostics (again). I objected and said it was pointless.

I asked to speak to a manager and was passed (eventually) to Laura <surname removed by moderator>.

Now here's the best bit: Laura told me that I had to spend 14 DAYS working with them on their diagnostics - that the complaint had to be unresolved for 14 days before they would agree to tell the Customer Options team that my service could be terminated. I was furious about this. After a long argument, I pointed out that my case had been unresolved since I opened the account.

I was then told by Laura <surname removed by moderator> that my original complaint (Carol - see above) had been marked as closed - even though her notes showed that the problem hadn't been resolved! Laura said she didn't know why this was but the system wouldn't let her reopen it (doing so would have solved my problem!).

So now I'm having to waste everyone's time doing 14 days of 'diagnostics'. I'm almost certain that they won't work and I'm sick to death of BT Business anyway. I want away. It's been a terrible experience that's cost me time and money and caused no end of frustration.

I'll keep you posted on how it's going though... let's see if someone can come to their senses.

[PaulEvans]

In my experience, erewego, their diagnosis will be as faulty and incompetent as any other part of their service. In my case, they diagnosed everything apart from the thing that I *knew* was the problem. When I finally got the MAC code and moved away, my service with the new provider was perfect. Their (BT Business) diagnosis was wrong at every point. The problems were not the ones that they said they were and it was plain to see that this was the case.