Hi there.
I have been a BT business customer for over two years.
THE PROBLEM
I have been having problems with BT over the past year, with slow and dropped connections. It's a BT business account. Although when I speak to business customer services, the service is great, but unfortunately the broadband connection itself has been slow and dropping several times a day, and has been significantly worse over the past few weeks. Fortunately (or what I thought at least), my contract was up this month.
THE NOTICE OF DISCONNECTION
So with that, we decided to end our service and use Virgin, who have just installed fiber optic cables along our road a few months ago. After calling Virgin we had an installation date for the 18th, so naturally, I gave notice and booked a disconnection on the 19th. The BT customer service agent agreed that the 19th is the best date because it would give me time to delay if there is a problem with the installation of our new service and save paying for two services. I agreed and proceeded to confirm my notice of termination.
THE REQUEST TO CANCEL/ DELAY THE DISCONNECTION
Unfortunately, the virgin installation wasn't as simple as we hoped (being a new building) and it will take 3/4 weeks before they can come back. So naturally, the first thing I did was call BT to cancel the disconnection booked for the following day (tomorrow). I got through to someone at15:03hrs and told them of my intention to cancel the disconnection.
The customer service advisor, who was very polite, told me that unfortunately, the termination of service is imminent and that they are not able to stop the disconnection for tomorrow. However, she would contact the Order Management Department who would attempt to stop the disconnection. I was told to expect a callback. However, if I didn't get a call back by 17:30hrs to call back because the department closes at 18:00hrs. Well, no one called. I couldn't get through to them on time.
NO INTERNET FOR A MONTH
The time is now 21:29 and I have been on the phone to customer services who said that the Order Management Department left at note 'around 3 pm to say that they can't stop the disconnection because 'it's too late.'
I was advised to call in at 9 am and speak to them, despite them leaving a note to say that they are unable to push back the disconnection.
So now... despite doing everything I was told by BT (giving notice, getting a callback, calling back), I am looking at the prospect of being without internet for my business until the end of January.
Why was this so hard to organise? I am completely bewildered, by the service, even right to the very end, as I now expect to be disconnected shortly.
So very disappointed. Is there anything you can do to help? Please.
Hi GraciousPhoto
Firstly, apologies about the lack of reply - I have been on leave and this should have been picked up sooner, so I apologise about that. In regards to your issue, whilst I am not in the order management team myself, I have seen instances before where a cancellation goes past the point of no return and nothing can be done. This usually occurs a working day or two before the actual cease date - if that past the point of no return status was reached then I do not think anything can be done to stop it.
Did the service actually cancel off for you on the 19th, or did you manage to sort something out with the order management guys? If it ceased already the only thing we could really do is reprovision the line, but that would of course link you in to a new contract, which I appreciate is not really feasible if you are moving to another service provider. If you feel that the service ceased off due to bad service however I would recommend getting back to our order management team and raising a complaint for that - whilst they may not be able to reprovide the service, they can investigate if malpractive led to your line ceasing off when you had requested it not to cease - and if that is indeed the case then there may be some sort of goodwill we can offer.
I do hope you can sort something out with this!
Regards
Ryan