BT > Reviews (233)

Yes probably yet another review, whining about BT's poor service, but your all going to have to endure it :o)

Actually this is from two points of view, the first being personal.

I used to be a BT user a long, long time ago, and stopped the service back then because I thought they where poor in some areas and cable companies offered a better service at that time so I switched.

In September due to a move and a few other things I had the decision yet again of which telephone provider to use, and BT offers a wide range of new packages and services which seemed relatively competetive compared to their rival cable companies, so I went for BT.

Now the first thing which did come to my attention is ALL THE PACKAGES! There are so many options and tarrifs, it reminds me of choosing a talk plan on my mobile phone. And the information is not always the clearest, and there is always something in the fineprint when you use BT!

After a long time discussing with customer service we came to a package which was suitable for my requirements including using them as an ISP (although that is another story).

Two days after the phone was connected we hit a problem. The line needed converting from a DACS line to a standard analogue line in order for me to connect to the Internet at standard speeds. (For the uninformed if you have a DACS line with BT then it means your line is shared with someone else on your street which is fine if you only use your line for voice but if you want to send and receive data then you have problems.)

So after talking to customer services who where fairly helpful an Engineer was scheduled to come out. And promptly one arrived on time and checked my line. And hour and an half later he said he could not do anything about the problem because there was a fault on the lines underground and they needed to work on it. Estimated time for someone to come out was three days.

Phone still worked and I could connect to the Internet at some speed so I was okay with that.

Following Monday I was ill and could not goto work. By lunchtime I needed to call the doctor to arrange an appointment, picked the phone up and it was dead! The dear BT engineer parked down the street never thought to tell myself and my wife the line would be unavailable. And after questioning him he apologised and said the work would take no longer than an hour.

5! hours later our line was back on and working. Yes problem was fixed, but as you will have noticed it was not as easy as it should of been.

2 weeks later! Saturday morning pick the phone up and it was DEAD! no BT vans down the street pulling up lines so what's going on. Wait an hour and checked line and still dead.

Walked to the end of the street to use a payphone! to call BT and was told that there was a problem at an Exchange at a nearby street and around 7 houses on our street where without service. Estimated time of repair...."we don't know, we are very busy right now so we are having to get contractors in, but he should be there within the next hour"

Not very clear in my opinion but I left it.

Our phone line remained dead for the next 8 whole days! and everytime we spoke to BT we where given the same..."our engineers are working on it as fast as possible".

On the ninth day my wife who is American and has no patience whatsoever decided enough was enough and wanted to find out what was going on. She went out in the pouring rain to a phone box and spoke to someone in Customer Services who in turn put her through to Faults. And the man who she spoke to looked at our fault on computer, and said..."they are working as fast as they can and will have the problem fixed as soon as possible".....to which my wife replied..."well you have said that the last eight days and we are still without a telephone line"...to which he replied...."well if your not happy with the service goto someone else"...and HUNG UP!. (This guy should work in Marketing and PR!)

Then I got angry and ended up calling BT and threatening to cancel our service for obvious reasons at which point was apologised to immensely. We where told we would receive 1 months line rental for every 24 hour period we where without our service. Seems fair enough.

In total we where without our service for 10 days, with no apology, no nothing. They did not even let us know when the line was back up.

This was almost enough to consider terminating our contract with BT but we decided to stick with it until we received out telephone bill. BT did not bother to give us our compensation, in any shape or form.

My wife spoke to customer services who said could not help as she needed to speak with Faults (yes those wonderful people!). After speaking to the guy on the phone he told my wife that the dates he had for faults where no more than 2 days!!!!! My wife more than annoyed said it was incorrect and the guy on the phone was persistent and said only two days of faults reported! My wife then told him she had every date and time written down in front of her at which point the guy on the phone suddenley lost his memory lapse and he had more dates in front of him! Then when she asked to speak to a supervisor he hung up on her!!!!

Twice my wife had been pushed aside by some arrogant person on the end of BT phone. So I got just as angry as last time and jumped on that phone.

Needless to say my complaints where lodged and we received 7 months free line rental.

I am now looking at other telephone providers.

The above goes on a bit, but you get the idea of the service we are getting, and we have only been with them for 5 months. The service is poor and the people on the phone at BT have no manners whatsoever, and BT should seriously look at sending these people on customer relations courses.

The other thing you should all take note of. If you do have a serious problem with your line which involves receiving compensation, then make sure you write down the exact dates you call them and the dates the line is down. They rely only on when someone logs the fault or your call into the computer and will not take your word for it. If noone puts the problem into the computer they say it never existed.

Don't let up and don't take any cr*p!

My second point and this is more for ISP's rather than anyone else. We have seen so many 'free' or 'unmetered' ISP's come and go over the last year and when I see a company fall to the wayside they all seem to be saying the same things...."Because BT done this, because BT have done that, because BT charge this"....and this seems to be true.

Who owns more exchanges than anyone else in the country. Now put yourself in that position, and all these companies want to start Internet services based on your telephone packages. You control the exchanges. And you also have an ISP of your own. Would you put roadblocks in the way???

BT is a disgrace. They have had a stranglehold on the telephone industry for far too long. Cable telecommunications as not been available to all people for that long, so just how much of a killing have they been making???

And for all of the people sat there thinking well we have been with them for 25 years and had no real problems, well your right you may not of, but for every one of those 25 years BT have been getting more than an unfair amount of money for a service which in my opinion and of so many across the country is inadequate. Oh and you all like ET on the adverts...your line rental being put to good use then huh?

We currently go on about Rail companies poor records, and how they whine about not having the funds to fix the problems efficiently and speedily.

Well BT is exactly the same! The only difference is their mistakes don't cost lives, so noone bothers with that.

And OFTEL is a joke too. What are you lot paid to do???? Finance BT!?

This is a sole opinion of my own, and I am sick and tired of having a poor expensive service where they are happy to sit and take your money when things are going well, but when they hit problems treat you like cr*p and don't want to know.

If your considering using BT then think about it properly. You may take up the service and it if fine and you have no problems. But you may also be in the same position as I was and left hanging with a dead line.

BT, quit with the expensive science fiction adverts, put some of that money into finding employees who actually give a damn about the customer on the other end of the phone, and about giving more than 50% of the population a decent telephone service!

BT....It's Good To Talk.....(If your line works)