I'm a BT employee. No we do not all use the same systems in different departments and ringing the wrong one causes ques for the customers who actually NEED this department. Also if your problem is solved you shouldn't still be e-mailing about it. Many people do this and all it does is create a back log and delays for customers who need help. Customers come through blaming BT and shouting and swearing at advisors and claiming it's BT's fault the ques are so long. The majority of the time it's just massess of people who have called the wrong number and yet advisors still have to take the abuse for it. All i suggest is that if you do not have the correct number for the department you wish to call then dial 100 and they will get you through.

Just wanted to add that I've been having serious problems with BT, and I emailed Ben Verwaayen using the email address listed on the site in the above post - Bearing in mind it is sunday night, i still got a reply within an hour telling me my problems have been passed onto the high level complaints team. hopefully i will get somewhere now! thanks for the advice!

bt are useless full stop...they might be cheap but id rather pay a little more for a better service..

they were meant to take a bill by direct debit from my wife...didnt take the money that was there and cut us off...probably cos they couldnt get off their F$% A$%^&£ and set up a dd with the bank...

like ive said before you can only get through if you paying a bill,but even then dont count on it being processed properly

DONT GET ME STARTED ON OFCOM...they wouldnt know a complaint if it bit them on the backside.

surely if its costing the consumer and time and efford to keep trying to get through to bt then at somepoint ofcom should intervene and demand bt  and other companies provide a adewate standard of service.

ON THIS SUBJECT I HAVE I MOTTO..BLAME THE STAFF NOT THE COMPANY.

www.connectotel.com/marcus/ceoemail.html

The link above will give you BT's CEO's email address.  I emailed him on Wednesday evening after having waited on the line for BT to answer for over an hour for the umpteenth time.  I was polite but to the point.  He emailed me back within 5 minutes and said he was passing my email on to his high-level complaints team.  Someone rang me the next morning and expressed total disgust with the way I had been treated.  He is sorting the problems for me and crediting me all charges to date including the £125 installation fee.  He has given me his name, telephone number and email address in case I have any further problems.

I suggest you all do the same - the more complaints that Ben Verwaayen gets the more BT will have to do something about it.

Oh and by the way, OFCOM can't do anything about the fact that you can't get through to BT - they say that if you can't get through to your provider then you have to take it up with them!  I think that's called Catch 22.

Good luck. 

 

 

I have been having the same problem. I signed up to a BT landline earlier this month and I have received a bill that I need explaining. I have phoned the 0800800150 number so many times I have lost count. I have waited on average around 45 minutes, have tried calling after 8pm, at 8am and no luck whatsoever. On a few occasions I waited over an hour!

I am now convinced that there is no one at the other end of the line. I mean they can't possibly be there. There is no other explanation for the fact that so many of us have been unable to speak to customer services after repeated attempts lasting many hours in total.

What a disgrace. In this supposed democracy of ours, what voice do we paying customers have but sit and suffer this unfairness? They are taking our money and providing nothing in return.

i was in the same position as you. 30 hours plus on the phone. every department posible. cancelled apointments, no enginners. finaly after 8 weeks i got conected, 124.00 to return to bt from talktalk after 4 weeks, even the enginner has to wait  30 mins. now talktalk are demanding 60.00 for 4 weeks service. no chance.

Billy - I've removed your email address from the post above, in line with the Moneysupermarket.com User Community Terms of Service. Please place your email address in your profile, not on the open forum, to comply with the rules which you agreed to upon joining. Many thanks for your co-operation.

In response to your question, Oftel are now known as Ofcom and they can be contacted on 020 7981 3040.

But I'd have a look at the Moneysupermarket.com Broadband channel first. You'll find help about switching providers, current best deals and a consumer rights guide which you should find very useful...

i have had the same problem. at least 30 hours on the phone from friends houses call boxes. engineerers not turning up. orders cancelled, dont no who cancelled them. all this disruption because i left bt for talk talk. what a nightmare.  3 weeks with talk talk was enough. they now want 70.00 cancellation fee. which my trail period was extended as i had no phone or internet, whan all was sorted the net speeed was very poor. they said upto 8 meg. i was lucky to get 3. so now after hours and hours on the phone to bt, and a conection fee of !24.00 i have finally been conected today. so now i am looking for an isp. Help who do i go to.i need to get in touch with oftel.

Have read these forums with much interest!

I recently bought a new build flat in Park Royal. I tried to setup BT phone and B'band services via the website, but ended up chasing it with BT customer services. Hours of phone calls on my mobile later, £150 mobile bill, three false engineer visits and hours spent at home waiting for the engineer (instead of at work), I now have a working telephone line but no broadband.

I've opted to sign up for Orange, after vowing I'm not going to give BT any more money than I absolutely have to.

On the rare occasion that I DID get through to BT customer services, I've been told that despite being promised three times (once in writing) that an engineer would visit (apparently a must for new builds) but with three no-shows, I'm still going to be charged the standard installation. BT refuse to refund this charge because they will be "breaking the OFCOM code of practice" if they do!

On top of all this, according to BT, I have signed up for their Option 2 Free evening and weekend calls special offer, which ties me to an 18 month contract. The letter I received 5 days after my line went live, says I signed up for it 5 days BEFORE the line went live and I had 7 days to cancel.

The following day I received the bill - £162!!! With a little note saying I had two days to pay up.

I haven't.

I refuse to pay for something I haven't agreed to, and I have used the usual e-mail form on the BT site to complain.

Still waiting for a reply.

Granted the Option 2 special offer thing doesn't actually cost me any more money, but I didn't sign up for it, and I want option 1, no ties, no contract (since I'm going with Orange for calls too!)

Perhaps when they eventually realise that I haven't paid, I'll have their attention. I haven't given them any DD details, or card details, so they HAVE to contact me to get payment!

Given some of the comments on this forum, and other stuff I've seen elsewhere on t'interweb, I'm not holding my hopes too high.

The saga continues!

I think all of us will agree that something has got to change, The question is how?

the majority of people i have spoken to have had the same opinion, B.T just do not give a *?^X .

not only do they talk down their nose at you like you are stupid but they give you every excuse under the sun not to let you talk to their manager and 9 times out of 10 it is a foreigner who can speak english but understaning what they say is another thing.They never put you through to the correct department and you go around in circles you come out more confused and frustrated than when you called.

sorry about the above but they really hack me off.

and i think lots of people would agree don't you? 

Since ordering a new line from BT I have heard nothing as to when I can expect the line to be installed. I've already moved to my new address and have spent over £40 on mobile phone calls trying to speak to BT. Tonight, I was on hold for 55 mins. After 17 phone calls and 4 hours in total hanging on the line I am still no wiser. It is difficult to see why getting an answer is, well, impossible. Where I have spoken to an assistant they have been powerless to help. Feedback from other 'victims' suggests this situation may go on for weeks, all because BT have the monopoly on installing lines.

hi

been having the same problem with bt for a while now  i was on bt pay n call they got the money late so cut me off

i spent a least 9 hours on the pay phone to them they said they would change my number and take me off pay n call

neither happened they told me on three occasions that they would put my line back on a week later my line came on with a fault. I dont mean to sound racial but you very rarely speak to an english person. When you do get through they dont deal with it you get put through to the wrong department then all goes haywire you go from pilar to post and wonder why you bothered.
 

After almost three weeks after my first e-mail to BT i got an E-mail back, only to say that they have had a huge amount of traffic and my query qould be delt with "soon." I know my problem is sorted, but its still a complete joke!

I have been trying to reach BT for nearly four weeks to ask them to restore my previous phone number, as I lost it because we were unable to get through to them when our phone was disconnected.  I have waited anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, calling at various times through the day.  No one has ever picked up the phone.  Several times when I dialed their complaint number, the phone was answered immediately, by operators who could only unhelpfully, redirect me to BT's line and again no answer.  One operator handling my complaint call did reveal to me that because my number was changed by BT, they considered me a new subscriber and that new subscribers were being redirected to a new system.  Unfortunately, not enough operators had been trained to handle the new system, and so callers were waiting even longer than I was.  Four weeks later, and there are still not nearly enough operators to answer calls.  E-mail messages have been met only with apologies for the delay in answering them, but no answer. 

The one bright spot in this picture, is that during this time I have left BT for Talk Talk, which provides the same service plus free international calls to 36 countries for the same price as BT, and operators who always answer calls promptly.   When enough customers realize they don't have to rent their lines from BT, maybe BT will finally hire enough operators to answer their phone calls from customers.

I agree their call centres are worse than useless. I've heard a joke that terrorism won't be the downfall of civilisation, Indian call centres will.

However, I'd like to do something rare on this site. Praise BT's staff and professionalism. After going through hell with Virgin for several months I finally switched. When things go smoothly people tend not to notice, when there are problems a sign of a good company is how well they cope.

First off BT kept me in the loop with the entire change over process. The engineer showed up on time and all looked good to start with. The first problem was that NTL had chopped the BT cable back to the conduit, and this had been plastered over. It looked like a whole new line would have to be pulled into the house. That meant booking a different crew. The next day BT called to apologise for not being able to complete the install on the original date. The second 'crew' (one chap who was really excellent) managed to determine where the old line came into the house, and where the old jack had been. A bit of demolition and a lot of hard work and he managed to rescue the original line. The next problem was at the exchange where the wiring wasn't going to where it was supposed to. A lot of tracing and more hard work was involved in getting that sorted. In the end it took 3 engineers a total of 4 1/2 hours to get my phone line working.

BT again called back to ensure that all was well. The Home hub got misdirected thanks to a courier that couldn't read, but again BT called to reconfirm the address and it was despatched again the following day with another apology. Its now been up and running for 2 weeks. No outages, no hiccups, no problems.  

I just want to say a big WELL DONE to the engineers at BT. Their service and professionalism is a far cry from the crap I received from Virgin.