Hey, I was only trying to help. No need to bite the hand that feeds.

But I still don't understand how you were reconnected straight away but you did not get your services transferred. What do you mean? Do you mean that you did NOT get reconnected straight away, but you were told you were, or that you WERE reconnected straightaway? You can't have been reconnected and not at the same time. The only thing I can think of here right now is that you were too far away from your old exchange and that's why they couldn't do things the way you wanted. It sounds like a get out clause on their part I know, but much as any of us may like to its something we can't really argue with at the end of the day.

I was only asking if you had broadband with them, or I had guessed since you mentioned an email - again, no need to get defensive. No one is forcing you to go with them for broadband! And I still don't know what you mean by your profile. If your broadband's with someone else and you choose to change your email address of course its going to take BT a little while to sort things out though I do agree six months is pushing it a bit. As for the paying monthly thing, I'm probably wrong as you'll most likely tell me I am, as I know only what you tell me of your case, but as far as I know certain payment methods with BT ARE by direct debit only, and it sounds like you might have had a standing order, not the same thing as you know. Yes going by what you've said they should have made it clear to you they were changing the rules, but sometimes no matter what info is given to people it isn't clear still, this is why everything like that is also included in the T&Cs. It's a very long and boring read I know, but absolutely necessary, and it WILL be in there, I can guarantee it. BT are making huge losses right now, so they're not going to be too keen on paying out thousands in court fees because of a *** up on THEIR part.

If you really want out of your contract with BT, you do always havre the option of buying yourself out. But if you can't afford that, you will have to sit it out patiently. Personally, if I was this against a company, I would have went without a landline for a few months and just used my mobile for everything, just so I could get with the company I wanted to be with. But do be aware Sky are most likely linked with BT in one way or another too, be 100% sure of that before you sign anything with them. And also be aware Sky are also a huge company, and not completely hassle free either, as you seem to believe. My friend has Sky, swears by them, but he has also had a hell of a lot of trouble with them too. The same will go for any major company.

I wish you well in anything you choose to do. But it may be worth your time thinking about the tone you set in your messages, even though you don't want to read this. It may well put other people off helping you out when you really need it.

I was reconnected straight away. Just that I did not get my services transferred and by the time I found out I was getting phone calls from salespeople, the new phone book had been printed and it was too late to be ex directory. I have never had BT broadband; why on earth would I want that? I had NTL, till I found out how expensive it was. Then I changed to Sky. With other companies you can change your username; but not BT. I changed the email address on my profile, but it took them six months and many emails and phone calls for them to realise it. It did get my money back, thank you. I also always paid monthly, then suddenly out of the blue get a bill for three months. When I enquired as to why I was not being charged monthly any more, I was told I had to have a direct debit to do that. I had always paid monthly and never had a direct debit. They had changed this policy, but didn't bother to tell me in advance.

I have had to take out a new one year contract in order to get a new telephone line at my new address, something they also could not transfer, and I cannot wait for it to end so that I can change the whole lot over to Sky.

Just why on earth I would want to go through all the hassle of writing things down and keeping everything, when I can get Sky with no hassle whatsoever, I cannot imagine. I have enough to do, without correcting BT's mistakes for them.

Margaret-Rose - in regards to using an email address for BT, which you have to, it's always easiest to use the one BT provide for you, even if you never use it for anything other than things to do with BT. This you can't change or just decide for whatever reasons you might have, to just go for a new one. And for this reason, it's easiest to use the email address that BT provide to you when you start a contract for broadband with them. Or even phone if you bill online. That email won't change for the whole time you have your contract with BT. Less fuss all round.

As for when you move house, in the time I've been using BT I've needed to move house twice, both times I've taken a little longer than it states on their website to get reconnected but there's usually been no trouble overall. I'm not saying though that BT never *** up just because they haven't with me. They do state that you need to notify them as soon as is physically possible that you are moving and what your new address is, the sooner you notify them, the sooner they can reconnect you and the more likely you are to be connected the day you move into your new property. I've no idea what it takes for them to move someone's services to a new place, I'd like to think it's just the matter of the flick of a switch, but with it being such a huge company, there's no way it can be as simple as that. The only reason it's taken me a while to get reconnected each time I have moved is because in both situations, I was not able to give the address of my new place for sure until very near the moving date, therefore resulting in a wait to be connected at my new place.

The only thing I can recommend here for you is to keep on at BT if you feel as if you have been conned in some way, and it's pretty clear that you do think that, and keep a record of EVERYTHING. Print out all of the bills, since they offer and recommed paper free billing they can't refuse this as evidence, keep every piece of written correspondence they've sent you, and a copy of every piece of corresponence you have sent them, including printouts of emails. And write down when you call them, every time you call them, the time you begin the call, how many advisors you speak to, their names, what the call is about, what they say to you, and how long the call took. If you gather as much as you can, if there really has been a gross injustice on BT's part here, all of this will be more than enough to see you get justice, and hopefully some of your lost money back, or compensation, or something. :)

BT talked me into paper free billing. Very fine until you change your email address, which their system and staff are incapable of understanding. Took them six months before I could get that through to them and in the meantime I keep getting cut off because they are still sending my bills to the old email address. Then I get late payment charges and reconnection charges for a bill I never received. You have to use your email address as username, but they are incapable of changing that, so I still have to use the old email address. I moved house and had to have a new phone number because it was a different exchange. I would not have thought it too much effort though to transfer my services as well, like ex directory (which I am not anymore) caller display, that sort of thing. And when I phone them I get someone who can barely speak English and who I can barely understand. I cannot wait for this contract to expire so that I can change to Sky Talk for the line rental as well as the calls. Load of rubbish!

BTs prices are due to regulation by OFCom. This being, if Bt had extremely low compettative prices almost everyone would join, giving the competators trouble. BT are in the process of being de-regulated by OFCom which will allow them to reduce their prices and bring further bundles.

Snarty. Belive it or not, the number of complaints / unhappy customers is lower then almost every other company, if you go on the ratio of customers BT has to others. and 90% of companys do have asian call centres, BT may be looking to axe theres

Agreeing here - BT's prices are a little out of kilter in comparison with the other provders out there, and the offshore callcentre really isn't necessary - I always breathe a sigh of relief if I have to call and I hear a Welsh voice instead of an Indian one!

BUT BT have given me excellent service overall, have always done all they can to help me out. When a company gets this big though there are bound to be problems, something we can't afford to forget. And a large proportion of the problems are caused by people just not understanding what it is they've agreed to pay for because all too many of us can't be bothered to read the T&Cs because it seems long and boring.

And it's true - all roads DO lead back to BT in the end, with literally one or two exceptions!

I think Landshark has a good point in principle,but their charges do seem out of proportion to the competitve market. I can only speak for myself ,and I am sorry you are having problems Snarty,but I have found BT's customer service to be extremely good so far,even with an offshore call centre.When I had some intermittent connection problems pre broadband they did everything they could including a major rewire foc to try to remedy the problem.

As I have said many times, I am keen to reduce my costs of internet access but I am totally afraid at this time to change for fear of experiencing a horror story like the many we have seen on this forum and in the papers.

I hope you resolve your problem.Keep us posted.

I hate to be the one to rain on your parade, but BT also has reams of unhappy and very dissatisfied customers (I suggest you Google more). I'm one of those customers. And to comment on your final point of a single supplier...

a) Since when should that person be in India, I'm fairly confident I reside in the UK
b) That's still the case
c) Nice, and when they are the ONLY choice they can charge as much as they like. I vote for competition personally, otherwise we'd all be using ISDN and dial up still.

Your statement is strangely bias and flawed, you didn't just get paid vast sums of money from BT for doing something simple by any chance?

OK, may be stretching it a bit far, but then again having over 25 years in the IT industry I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that this is more than a fair statement.

People forget that prior to BT the Post Office owned the telecommunciations network in the UK and it is to this massive investment that we owe the ability to pick up a receiver and speak to anyone in the world. The migration from simple voice to high-speed data has not been simple and with the massive competition opening up ever increasing pressures on the BT 'animal' we need a little perspective to realise just how good this company is.

There are many ISPs in the UK, some of which have their own cable infrastructre such as NTL, but many are heavily reliant on the cable supplied by BT in the form of your own plugs into the house. So for me it begs the question, "Why look at another ISP when the cable is already here from BT?" The answer is nearly always financially related when you take a knee-jerk reaction to the published costs.

Having serviced customers from Lands End to London and from Brighton to Edingurgh I can safely say that virtually all roads lead to BT when it comes to long-term customer happiness. AOL, Pipex and NTL to name but three of the biggest sinners in the IT world have reams of unhappy and very dissatisfied customers as well as some very frustrated IT consultants who try to help these people. You only have to read the forums to see the levels that these other ISPs will sink to before they actually DEAL with the customers in anything like a fair way.

There is an old acronym in the IT World which is KISS "Keep It Simple Stupid!" and this is probably the most important message I can give you today. If you keep your ISP and your voice and the infrastructure (that's the cables and wires etc) in the ownership of ONE supplier, then (a) you only ever have to ring one person, (b) their can only ever be one person to blame, and (c) you only ever get one bill. How much more simple do you want to make it?

Happy New Year!