BT cunning.

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  • For some time now we've had trouble with our BT internet connection. In April we reported a sporadic fault when the service kept going down. We reported the fault and was told it was an external fault. To cut a long story short, an engineer rang and said he needed to visit. He duly did and replaced the phone socket. BT then charged me £130 for the home visit. But everything seemed OK so I paid the bill and ordered a new router because I couldn't connect my Amazon Echo to my one. ( BT Hub 4's are notorious for it.)

    So, new router arrives. Fitted and everything is fine for a few weeks. Then the faults start again. So I rang BT and having been told the usual guff, make sure all the connections are in etc. and was told that the router was faulty. So they send me another router. I fitted that on Saturday and everything is fine.

    Yesterday the phone and broadband died completely. So I rang BT. Usual drivel, ' Take front off the socket, blah blah, blah.' '"Yeah yeah yeah."

    We get an e-mail saying the fault will be fixed by tomorrow night. This morning there's a knock on the door and it's a BT engineer. "I've come about your fault ............." - " If you are going to charge me for this call I'm going to ...................." - "No no no sir, I just need to check. The fault appears to be outside in the box on the corner.

    And so it was. So basically, I've paid BT £130 to repair a fault on their line. It seems that whatever the fault, BT has a policy of calling on the householder first and replacing the phone socket as a matter of course. Good racket innit? They probably pay about 25p for them. If the engineer gets £15 an hour they've made over £100 quid profit even after you take off other costs.

  • I've restrained myself on these kind of issues here, but as you've opened the door...:)

    Firstly, Morgan, I would phone up BT immediately (if you can) and demand a refund. You pay line rental and that includes fault resolution. If they refuse, ask them to put in writing to you specifically what the £130 was for. While you're on the phone to them, make a "little" mention of you might call the BBC's watchdog and Ofcom. Say the phrase, "I think you are treating me unfairly."

    If that don't work, come back. You will get your £130 back. Be polite and be assertive.

  • BT are terrible. I can recommend Virgin Media - they have a bad reputation I think mainly to poor customer service but their broadband/TV/phone service is top quality and luckily I've never needed to call them... I tried a cheaper BT based supplier but the BT bit of it was so bad I quit within a week or so (they just cut me off and couldn't get BT out to fix it). I meekly asked Virgin for my internet back and ended up with a big discount anyway. BT Business are a whole lot better in a few experiences with them, but domestic - no chance I'd go with them...

  • We find the VM service on the tech side is very good. It's the muppets in India that they use in customer support that are the issue. If you can get through to the UK call centre, usually if you call first thing, the service is much better.

    We're on the lowest tier on the BB service and get a solid 75mbs down and 5.5 mbs up. More than adequate for streaming HD TV.

  • With the VM Indian call centre that VM or anyone else uses, I just politely ask them to be put through to a British call centre. If they don't do it, I put the phone down.

    After a unpleasant call with a HSBC Indian call centre several years ago on important issues, I will never speak to Indian call centres again. I want to understand the call centre person clearly and more to the point, they need to understand me clearly too.

  • For some reason the posts I put on yesterday seem to have disappeared. It doesn't seem to be my week.:(

    Anyway, after my stroppy e- mail demanding my money back, BT rang this morning. They didn't mention my £130 quid but have arranged to send another engineer without charge after my holiday next week. The speed has gone up to 0.88 Mbps. Yesterday it was 0.25. So we'll muddle through until Saturday.

  • For some reason the posts I put on yesterday seem to have disappeared. It doesn't seem to be my week.

    I never saw any posts Morgan, did you click submit to post them, or was this the quoting issue again?

    Anyway, after my stroppy e- mail demanding my money back, BT rang this morning. They didn't mention my £130 quid but have arranged to send another engineer without charge after my holiday next week. The speed has gone up to 0.88 Mbps. Yesterday it was 0.25. So we'll muddle through until Saturday.

    If you specifically requested a refund and they have ignored that, contact them and say, "my account is in dispute." This is a legal mechanism which they cannot ignore. Ask them to specify in writing to you why you've have to pay them to fix a fault with their equipment, especially as you already pay for a service from them aka line rental. Don't let them ignore it. If they can get away with it, they will.

  • I'd forgotten about this thread. Basically I eventually got my £130 back and things more or less settled down eventually after 2 different engineers found 2 different external faults. Yesterday there was a further development.

    Phone Conversation with BT Broadband.

    Me - Our internet has gone down again.


    BT. - OK. Can I have all your details?


    Me - Gives details.


    BT - I'll do some checks.

    Minutes tick by.


    BT - Have you tried ( Various opions given.)


    Me - Yes. We've been here many times before. We've tried everything.


    BT - I'll do some more checks.

    6 minutes of 'music' pass. Line goes dead.


    I wait 10 mninutes to see if BT call back. They don't.

    I ring BT.

    Explain saga so far to somewhat aggressive female.


    BT - Hold on I'll do some checks.


    Another 4-5 minutes pass.


    BT - No. There's no fault on the line. It must be your end.What kind of socket do you have?

    I explain socket was recently replaced by BT after previous saga which tooks weeks to resolve during which they charged me £130 for repairing a fault which didn't exist but I finally got back after they dicovered the fault was external.

    BT - Well you need to take off the front of the socket and -

    Me - No. I've already explained about that.

    BT - What kind of Hub do you have?

    Me - Hub 6

    BT - You shouldn't have that. It's too advanced for your area.

    Me - But they sent us that because they said the Hub 6 was the latest and best one.

    BT - I'll send you a Hub 4.

    Me - But my Amazon Echo won't work with that. That's another reason we got a Hub 6.

    BT - I can't help that. I'll send you a Hub 4. If you don't want it you'll have to return it unused or we'll charge you for it.

    Briefly

    Me - How much will it cost to terminate my contract early so I can get another ISP?

    BT - £288.71

    Me - I'll pay it. Send me the bill.

    Once it's all settled and I've got another ISP I'll get some advice about claiming my money back because they haven't provided a proper service.

  • @Morgan

    Don't pay the termination fees!

    If you're service hasn't been working properly, they are in breach of contract. Supplying you with equipment which is not suitable for you leading to loss of service is a clear breach of contract. If you doubt this, you can get advice from a citizens advice bureau who should tell you exactly the same thing.

  • I'm going nuts. We got a line guy round from the fibre suppliers and he tested the line and said it was fine, but did say that it was possibly caused by Windows 10.

    Ha! The confounded Windows 10 syndrome! I looked back at happenings in my laptop's life and discovered that from the moment the "anniversary update" of Windows 10 was installed, my internet went for a burton.

    I don't know what to do and have tried everything I can think of. I hate Windows 10. There is a huge window (excuse pun) of opportunity for some bright spark to invent a new operating system that is lean, clean, non-invasive and is designed for people who just want a nice little OS for their work and simple tasks. Not a bleeding great corporation of features with enough bells and whistles to start a band.

  • I said before in another thread, I installed win10 when it first came out and hated it. Caused problems and seemed to me to work like a smartphone, by having everything called Aps which are charged for separately. The whole thing seemed to be sell, sell, sell stuff to you. After causing more problems and losing files, I deleted it and reinstalled win7.

  • I deleted it and reinstalled Windows 8 which was on my laptop when it was new. However, once Microsoft knows you had Windows 10 you get the update opportunities to 10 all the time. Eventually I had all my Word docs wiped, a section where I was running Linux wiped and I had to start again. I capitulated to Win 10 as I need to keep my programs happy while I write my books as all the apps for them are Windows compliant. Things went well for a while and then came the inevitable Upgrade.

    Here I am at the bottom of the ladder again, this time with unbearably useless internet connectivity. I went to look on the net to see if others had similar problems and got bowled over by the number of complaints. Monopolies are terrible things. Like dictatorships.

  • I put the GWX control panel on my laptop to stop W10 from splatting my W7 pro installation. It controls what MS would like to do and stops the download and install in its tracks.

    My main system that I use is still on XP SP2 and will remain so as it has to support a lot of legacy 16 bit apps that have no 32bit counterparts.

  • I'm sticking with win7. I won't go back to win10, especially with a ageing computer.

    I tried Windows 10 on an old PC, big improvement. Windows 8 was the shite one for me, it was a total disaster even on a PC that came with it, but never had any issues with 10. Now on my 3rd PC/laptop with it.

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