I have been in business for 3 years and rely heavily on incoming calls and diversions onto my mobile phone. We moved offices (only went across the road, same exchange line) and we wanted to transfer our number for obvious reasons! This was December 2011 after a number of errors, start date being cancelled, wrong numbers, line not working, diversion cut off we were still waiting mid January 2012. The annoying thing was the time spent for me to sort the problem and being constantly "Fobbed off" I was told I should have a contingency plan for not having access to a phone, I advised them that I did....I had organised a divert until the line was fixed, this was only on for a few days then they cut me off, I worked from home even though I was paying rent on premises that I was unable to use, BT told me that was not their concern as they only paid for actual financial loss if I was expecting any kind of compensation it would be very difficult to prove especially as my business was not seeing people off the street, Employers ring me or email me with the referrals, I know I lost a contract through the Employer being unable to contact me and he believed I was out of business, I would have been unaware of this but the work went to an ex colleague who rang concerned I had gone out of business! Later BT talked me into a mobile phoning stating that there would be no charge for my divert if I was contracted to them! Made sense even though I was annoyed at them, thought no sense in cutting off my nose etc so arranged to have a contract with them, I stressed the importance of having my number ported straight away and was reassured that it would be done, probably within 2 hours! One week later I was still without my number! I sent the phone back and had to go to my previous supplier cap in hand to ask them to take me back! This cost me more money as I was treated as a new customer and had to pay for the handset they had offered to give me for free to keep my custom! I could go on but my experience has been a total nightmare and as soon as another supplier becomes available in my area I will be opting to go with them! BT offered me a couple of months free line rental as a good will gesture! Don't think my business is going to survive this as I continue to struggle! I am going to my local paper to see if they will do a news story! I did not want to do this as I don't want to admit to the public that I am struggling! I requested compensation from BT to not only compensate money lost through lack of clients but also the cost of me having to get the message out to my customers that I am still in business! Advertising is very costly, I would have liked to pay for a full page feature showing that I was prospering and moving forward instead I am going to have to see if the paper will do a story explaining why I was let down by BT and the effects this has had on my business. BT advised me that I was on a loser if I even thought about taking them to court as the cost can be in the thousands and that people very rarely win their case! They are probably right but this doesn't mean I should just accept their appalling service! Hope you had better look than me and that your business managed to weather the storm! Mine certainly didn't!
