The following has already been posted in another topic. My mission is to turn people away from BT because of their terrible customer service.

There are plenty of comments about BT broadband and service. The majority of these mutually support the proposition that BT provides an inadequate broadband service, offers appalling customer service and is virtually un-contactable, except by means of an Indian call centre that appears to be staffed by the technically and commercially incompetent. Additionally we all hate all of the waiting EVERY time a call is made to BT. That strange "Is it a man or a woman making the pre-recorded announcements?" is clearly designed to annoy me personally! "We are very busy at the moment" is pure arrogance. My response is, "I'm the customer and I'm paying for better service than this."

I wonder how it is possible to get the message across to BT senior management, including the clown that got himself profiled in last weekend's 'Mail on Sunday', as well as toothless Otelo, that payment of the monthly service fee must mean that BT provide users with an adequate broadband service at consistent speeds, an acceptable level of customer service and that the current arrangements are totally unacceptable.

I changed on Dec 6 from BT Yahoo unlimited at £26.98 p.m. to BT Total Broadband Option 3 at £19.99 p.m. for one year. Anything that could go wrong went wrong and soon after I began to rue my decision to stay with BT, mainly to get the home hub for free and then cheap internet calls. It just goes to show there's no such thing as a free lunch.

During this rant, you do not state WHY you wanted to leave BT and/or what you proposed to replace your broadband service with.

Indian Call Centres are an abomination and should be stamped out - PERIOD. They do nothing for the customer and simply save the company concerned money so read this use as CORPORATE GREED.

Your principal problem is that you have contradicted yourself and I don't think that YOU have a leg to stand upon. You cancelled your contract and then accepted the new one, then you decided against it and when you tried to use the 'cool off' period (which I am not sure applies here) and didn't get anywhere, you took unilateral decisions against the Ts and Cs of your contract. Every time I have dealt with BT on behalf of a client, they insist on speaking to that client, and I find it hard to believe that any material change could be applied to a third party's account without their consent UNLESS she has previously given consent for you to act on her behalf. In this case, she is deemed to have been party to your contract.

By all means take this to OFCOM once you have gone through due process (by this you need to place your complaint in writing and send it to the customer complaints department). OFCOM won't touch your case until you prove that you have exhausted all other options, and even then, they are about as useless as other government quangos.

For what it's worth, I believe that YOU are in the wrong and you need to take stock of how you got into this mess before apportioning blame.

(I now await the usual slagging off for being honest and open with someone).

SHARK!

Unfortunately, I have BT broadband. Their technical support is terrible they don’t even know what a maiden name is and they don’t understand you at all. I got so fed up of trying to make myself understood to their Indian call centre I tried to cancel it approx two weeks ago. But I was talked into keeping it with an offer of 6 months free broadband, BT vision and a new Home Hub. At no point during the conversation did they say that there was no cool down period on this contract and I would be tied in for a further 18 months! I did ask if I would be tied in at all and they said 12 but made no mention that I couldn’t cancel the contract before it went into effect.

I did change my mind a week later and called them to say that I wanted to cancel my contract and everyone I spoke to (including someone who told me to co-operate!) said that my contract was ending in March this year and that it would cost me £50.00 to end it before the contracts end date. I must of spoken to at least 4 different departments that day and it was really odd because when I came across the department to take the payment to get me out of my contract they said the computers were not working (clever).I did go through to a department and cancel the direct debit I had set up (no mention of being tied in for 18 months), customer services (no mention of being tied in for 18 months) customer services stated March 2008 to me. I had enough by this point so I thought I would call again on my next day off. The new BT home hub arrived last Monday 14th Jan so I refused this at the door. At this point in time I have not had to refuse the Bt Vision as it didn’t arrive on the 14th as stated by a sales bod (is this because I cancelled the contract??????). I also paid for a Setanta card which I have never received (going to be sent back anyway).

I did phone BT up today and was quoted by the first person I spoke to that it would cost me £48.00 to come out of my contract , so I thought OK and was transferred to another department to take the payment. This is the odd thing; they then told me that their computers were down and they would call me back in 30 minutes (no call back - what a shock). I phoned BT again after 30 minutes and was then told that I was locked in for 18 months! and I would have to speak to the contracts department or something and was transferred to INDIA. I explained to the person in India that I cancelled the contract over a week ago and I shouldn’t be locked in as I hope you have a cool down period??? He said I didn’t (nobody had ever mentioned that to me and that I would be tied in for 18 months). He said he would have to look into the phone calls (some of them are recorded) to see what was said (I know what was said). I thought that this was so clever of BT as they are hardly going to let me listen in to them are they! And they can basically say what they like. He said if nobody said I was tied in for 18 months then I could be let out of the contract (what’s the chances of that then?). What I think is odd was when I first rang up about cancelling my contract nobody mentioned that I was tied in for another 18 months and were quite happy for me to cancel it, even the first call I made today they said that my contract ended in March this year. Then it suddenly changed and they said I was locked in for 18 months.

However, I don’t think they have got a leg to stand on though as I ordered the broadband and the BT account is in my mother’s name who is 74 years old and does not know what the internet is and wouldn’t know where to start. At no point did she speak to them on the phone to say she was agreeing to this. The incompetent idiots even sent me a direct debit mandate in my mothers name but with my bank details on it. This was cancelled (they couldn’t take the money anyway) and I explained that I didn’t want the new contract. I would of thought that the contract was void anyway as my mother didn’t authorise any of it. I am going to make a complaint to OFCOM to see what they have to say.