BT Infinity run around

[SippyD]

Hi all,
After being 1 day late paying my Post Office home phone and BB bill, they cut me off and cancelled my account.......
This was no biggie as I had been planning to to switch to BT and Infinity.

So I ordered through their website via a wifi hotspot and got an email reply saying that they would be out on the 15th August to do the installation
The day comes and the engineer is a 'No Show', so I phoned them up from the phone box and they said that the eng had been out and connected my phone line but could not find my abode!
Which is strange because 3 of my neighbours have BT service, one of whome is a busyness customer (more to follow on this!) AND when I had PO service, one of my neighbours developed some form of grudge, kept cutting the external part of my phone line and BT Open Reach had no difficulties fining me then.
Hmmmm.

So BT gave me another install date, 24th Aug - No Show...... so I phoned them up and..... They did give me a FREE 1 month pass to the local WiFi hotspot
Got the date of the 30th.... which is a Saturday, yet again a No Show because they dont work on Saturdays........
Phoned them up AGAIN and got the date of 2nd Sept, NO show.
phoned and asked for 'Your Complaints Dept Please' and got fobbed off with another date of the 13th Sept 1 - 6pm and.......
That was yesterday.
Yesterday morning I phoned Open Reach and got confirmation that an eng would show.
Then phoned them at 4.30pm when I started getting worried,
"Yes sir, the eng will be with you shortly."
And again a no show, so I phoned BT and OpenReach and got the old 'I'll put you through'.
In the end, I gave up and phoned my parents to wish them a smooth journey as they are flying out on holiday today. Mother asked me if BT had installed and I said no, muttering in the back ground.......
Mom informs me, that when they changed to BT some time ago, they had to threaten BT with getting in contact with BBC Watchdog to get any kind of 'Speeding up of install', which took a month from that point.

So, do I have to threaten the same?
Is there anything I can do?

Thoughts / advise very much welcome in advance.

 

[Witch consumer]

Yes you can cancel and find a reliable supplier! Why anyone switch to a company that gives such poor service? I'll report back on Mo day when I am supposed to transfer from Sky to Plusnet (who, I am informed are also owned by BT)

 

[SippyD]

Yes you can cancel and find a reliable supplier! Why anyone switch to a company that gives such poor service? I'll report back on Mo day when I am supposed to transfer from Sky to Plusnet (who, I am informed are also owned by BT)

After spending a lot of today waiting for an eng to turn up I gave all this a proper looking into and was some what shocked by what I read.
I also got through to a BT person with a brain - turns out that not only do I not have the service ordered, but was lied to by three operators.
So, while this lady with a brain did her thing, I got onto the ombudsman site and compiled a complaint about BT. I told her that I was doing this and she said that she was putting this in my account notes.......
Though this could be droppings of a male bovine.
Up-shot is she gave me a 'provisional' date of the 24th of this month with notes to say this should be brought forward to 'before the end of this week coming.'

Bit of advise to others - Don't bother asking for the persons name, ask for their ID number, lady with brain did a search for the last person I spoke to and found no one with the name L.Rag
Seems 90% of the call traffic goes through to call centres in foreign climes, so easy for them with 'thick' accents to give false ID's, info blah blah.
Fool me for not noting down times and dates I've called, as the conversations can be traced........Sigh!
I'm sure YOU will get excellent / prompt service.
I'll keep y'all up-dated.

 

[nattie]

After spending a lot of today waiting for an eng to turn up I gave all this a proper looking into and was some what shocked by what I read.
I also got through to a BT person with a brain - turns out that not only do I not have the service ordered, but was lied to by three operators.
So, while this lady with a brain did her thing, I got onto the ombudsman site and compiled a complaint about BT. I told her that I was doing this and she said that she was putting this in my account notes.......
Though this could be droppings of a male bovine.
Up-shot is she gave me a 'provisional' date of the 24th of this month with notes to say this should be brought forward to 'before the end of this week coming.'

Bit of advise to others - Don't bother asking for the persons name, ask for their ID number, lady with brain did a search for the last person I spoke to and found no one with the name L.Rag
Seems 90% of the call traffic goes through to call centres in foreign climes, so easy for them with 'thick' accents to give false ID's, info blah blah.
Fool me for not noting down times and dates I've called, as the conversations can be traced........Sigh!
I'm sure YOU will get excellent / prompt service.
I'll keep y'all up-dated.

I was going to say that you should still make a formal complaint with all the details in post to the Chief Exec's office of the company. I have one rule: they have one chance to put it right ie, one person fails me then the other one has the opportunity to make it right otherwise it goes higher.

I would add that once it is installed then personally I would have gone through their executive team via the CEO's office. You've gone to the ombudsman perhaps prior to a formal complaint being made to them. I know that in financial ombudsman cases that if you go directly to them that the complaint is sent to the company to provide a response initially. I think you need to make it clear about inconvenience and that you were told things that were inaccurate.

One last hint: if they do install it and you feel the last person gave you fantastic service then tell them. We are sometimes not always as quick to say what a great job people have done when things go dramatically wrong and someone finally takes ownership.(I regularly send thank you's to CEO's offices when something goes wrong and that the person I deal with does fix it even if that means it is not done immediately...not the situation in your case since your patience was more than I would have had ).

 

[SippyD]

I was going to say that you should still make a formal complaint with all the details in post to the Chief Exec's office of the company. I have one rule: they have one chance to put it right ie, one person fails me then the other one has the opportunity to make it right otherwise it goes higher.

I would add that once it is installed then personally I would have gone through their executive team via the CEO's office. You've gone to the ombudsman perhaps prior to a formal complaint being made to them. I know that in financial ombudsman cases that if you go directly to them that the complaint is sent to the company to provide a response initially. I think you need to make it clear about inconvenience and that you were told things that were inaccurate. ).

There's a big pit of hot, well fanned coals just waiting to have bodies thrown on.
I've spent the day watching the MotoGP and writing / printing letters to these numpties, I shall have satisfaction.
I cant get on the Watchdog site (requires secure con), so I have to traipse to a friends to send the email I've tapped out
I'm going to claim for lost wages as well, so far they've cost me 28hrs, almost 2yrs worth of service
The last operator I spoke to displayed all the traits of a person doing their up-most to help - Like actually wanting to help resolve the mess and that has been noted in my correspondence

 

[gracetaylor]

BT are an absolute nightmare, I've had nothing but problems with them. I'd say try threatening to go to another supplier to try and get their bums in gear (which I have done in the past, and they gave me a very good price on BT Infinity) but after doing this myself, I wish I had actually gone to another supplier as my internet/TV is appalling and I'm not impressed with their customer service.