BT experience

After nearly six months of subscription I've yet to see a bill.
Week after week I'm told I shall receive the bundle within a few days with no result
I've stopped the DD and demand for payment came like greased lightning straight to my address

The BT experience reminds me of nothing but a Fawlty Towers episode in which Mr. Fawlty tries to fill his hotel and a crowd of Manuels flapping around trying to plug the holes his mismanagement creates

A major item of extreme vexation is that, as an old Italian half deaf and unsure of my pronunciation, I find it difficult to converse, on the phone, with people whose ability to masticate the language is even worse than mine and that therefore my contacts had to be conducted by email with the delays it involved.

In reply to a post by gru44um:

After nearly six months of subscription I've yet to see a bill.

Did you accidentally sign up to paper-free billing (or did BT accidentally put you onto their paper-free trial)?

I have paperless billing from BT. Every month, they send me an e-mail like the following...

Account no. SM****5468
BT.com username : [email protected]


Hello xxx

Your latest BT bill is ready to view online.

We'll take your Direct Debit from your account as normal two weeks from the date on your bill or on the agreed date. You don't need to make any other payments....

I'm born and bread English, but I too can hardly understand anybody in their Call Centre.

Are you saying that you signed up to broadband but haven't received a router and starter pack to actually use the connection?

If that's the case get advice from something like the Citizens Advice Bureau and demand your money back from BT.

So you've been getting free internet ?

Niceeeeee

In reply to a post by epyon:

So you've been getting free internet ?

Niceeeeee

Nope, it's been going out on the d/d he has now stopped, but he signed up to paperless billing and never checks the relevant email address.

I did neither, I just allowed a DD to be established and, as I was used to do with Tiscali, I expected to view my bills on line, unsuccessfully.

Hardly, after six months.
No, the service has been poor overall but there has been some.

You've got it wrong, Roberto. If such had been the case they would soon have put me right. I only have two mail addresses by which they could contact me and neither supply the info.
Fact is that when BT created this parody of Fawlty Towers they omitted to cast characters such as Sybil or Penny that would sort things out.

In reply to a post by G3UZF:

I'm born and bread English, but I too can hardly understand anybody in their Call Centre.

Yeah, some people really should be taught how to use English properly. Perhaps we should encourage them to use their loaf?

Polly.

Stopping the D/D was hardly likely to solve the problem.

They may not be able to restart it either . Depends on what format the "Reference" takes, as that is what you have cancelled.

Have you checked all spam folders, local and remote? Have you a spam filter set to "Delete" rather than "Mark/divert"?

Al so there are several email options for BT to send you communications.

I had to go and find them all so BT would email to the correct email address.

In reply to a post by G3UZF:
I'm born and bread English, but I too can hardly understand anybody in their Call Centre.

Whoops! Should have spent more 'dough' on my education...

Hi, with paperless billing you should have received an email from BT.

Account no. CM****5822 (changed for security)
BT.com username : xxxxxx

Hello Anthony

Your latest BT bill is ready for you to see online.

While you're logged in, you can also:

� check your recent calls
� change how you pay
� chat with BT experts
� check out latest offers, enter competitions and more

We'll take your Direct Debit from your account as normal, ten working days after the date on your bill. You don't need to make any other payments.

Over the next few months you'll notice changes to the online billing website. We're renaming it My BT, and adding things like help, forums and news, so everything you need online is in one place. See for yourself at www.bt.com/mybt

For more about our bills and payments, or to get in touch, go to our help pages.

Best wishes

Warren Buckley
Managing Director Customer Service

This is an automatic email, so please don't reply. To ensure future emails from BT are delivered to your inbox and not treated as spam, please add [email protected] to your address book. This email was sent to you at [email protected]. because you subscribe to BT services.

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's right

No, stopping the DD did bring results, I'm finally in touch with an English agent and things are flowing.

In reply to a post by gru44um:

No, stopping the DD did bring results, I'm finally in touch with an English agent and things are flowing.

Hi, it should have been easy enough to sort with little effort, if you go through the right channels.

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact/c/761#h=ImNhdD03N...

You know what? I've worn my fingers to the knuckle typing away Cust-help messages. Results: a lot of soft flannel but only one, the stabilising of the line, of value and that after I pointed out that 50Kbs download and 700Kbs upload was not consistent with a properly working line.
You seem to wear a BT tag, I want to ask you: How long it would take to download 7GB at an average speed of 50Kbs (50, not 500 nor 5000)? (Roberto your help is required here)
You see, on the first month I was restricted, for three weeks, to that very speed and it took so long to download even the smallest file that I declined to do so till things improved.
Yet three days after the speed was brought up to standard I received a message informing me that I'd used up 7 of my 10GB allowance.
Blinking computer must have had a bad case of withdrawal and stayed up all night to make up. I surely didn't

At 50Kbps (Kilot bits per second) you manage 22.5MB per hour, so around 300 hours.

You are typing a lot again, without giving any clue as to what the problem was
e.g. was the modem connecting at a slow speed, or was something else going on?
In theory ADSL will not connect at below 160Kbps.

Contract would have stated things about 'best efforts service' and that they will attempt to resolve faults, but promise no immediate fixes. The solution is normally to keep paying, and ensure complaint is lodged and fault is being worked on, and once resolved discuss compensation, since you know the period it was not working.

Throughput faults are very difficult, since its easy enough for people to have issues with their own hardware and someone might be trying to use that reason to avoid paying the full fee that month.

I think the speed problem is an irrelevance Andrew, it seems to have been at the beginning of the contract. The only thing he seems to be worried about is not receiving invoices.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You are typing a lot again,
Yes, I've been all through that, I've taken the computer to the entrance, in the kitchen and so on. Initially I read the speed from the old speedtouch modem for I thought that the router could be faulty then I followed the BT link and, I have screenshots to prove it, I was given the speeds I quoted: 50-60 down and 750 up. No problem with my hardware. But, as Roberto points out, the final straw was the failure to produce the, many times promised accounts. As for patiently waiting till next year following the normal procedures, I'm 70 yrs old and when you've reached the three scores and ten "next year" could be somebody else's affair.
However the problem is now fixed: BT has now kindly released me from the contract and I shall be migrating, probably back to TalkTalk for in the south-west other suppliers seem to make a poor show, and with this I will close this chapter.
Thanks to all who have shown an interest. Shall keep an eye on this site and see how other people fare. It has certainly been an eye-opener. Bye.

Easier to understand what you are saying if you move the final "quote" to after the first comma .

Took me over 6 months to get DD set up again for BT Phone as it kept getting rejected by my bank, as BT kept using the identical details in the DD instruction to my bank to set up the DD
Multiple calls to BT India trying to explain the problem and I eventually had to just wait 6 months before I requested the DD to be set up again

On my ocassion after a lengthy phone call to BT, as advised by my bank I asked for the reference used in the DD instruction and was given a BT call reference - not at all what I asked for.

I was a complete nightmare and as I had no DD set up, I forgot nearly every month to pay the bil despite the reminders I had set upl

I still don't know why BT cancelled the DD in the first place!