Above: Calming picture, much needed.
I have been having terrible problems with BT again. How a company can have such a user-hostile means of communication and level of unhelpfulness which just falls short of reaching the moon is beyond me. It's a wonder its employees aren't queueing up to leave as job satisfaction levels must be so low they are underground.
We had problems with our internet last week. I had been painting the staircase on Monday - Wednesday. On Tuesday it was a little iffy and took ages to load some programmes, but on Wednesday it wouldn't load BBC iPlayer at all in the afternoon, so I couldn't listen to the smorgasbord of Radio 4 programmes I had previously enjoyed. I thought perhaps some rain had got into the wires overnight, and wondered if it was anything to do with the hissing hum on our phone line which we had been suffering for some months.
On Thursday morning there was no internet at all - the orange light was on the Home Hub, meaning it wasn't connected at all. I - wrongly it transpires - assumed that it was our line, and phoned BT to get an engineer to call out. One was booked for the following morning. I had spoken to a chap who sounded like he was in Belfast first of all (or from Belfast, I know not), then I got India. India agreed with me I had no internet, hence the booking for we're-nothing-to-do-with-BT Openreach to come out.
Broadband was back the next morning and I discovered, through a neighbouring blogger's blog, that there had been a huge broadband outage all over our area the previous day. But BT hadn't mentioned that to me. Openreach found no fault on my line but said the router needed replacing - that was what was causing the hiss. Having had everything unplugged and then plugged back to test the phone line - and you don't get the hissy crackle until you are speaking to someone - we thought we still had a valid problem before his arrival.
Since then I have been tearing my hair out trying to speak to the right person within BT to amalgamate phone line and broadband (long story), open another contract so we got a free router, and make sure I wasn't going to be charged £129.99 for wasting Openreach time. On Friday, I phoned the broadband dept. and a recorded message said that there had been a broadband outage in my area . . . why couldn't it have said that the previous day as I wouldn't have done anything then?
Someone was supposed to phone me back yesterday - and didn't. I then made 6 calls, repeating the problems each time, and getting nowhere. I tried on line first thing this morning and they assured me they would phone at 8 a.m. and pass me on to someone who would help. Nice Indian lady phoned as agreed, and passed me to a person who heard my tale of woe, and said they would get in touch with the accounts department (again, as they were on Friday) and then after hanging on for quite a while, they hung up! I was LIVID by then. I finally got through to someone helpful, but we seem to be at the same state of affairs I have been three times so far, and now I have to phone in the morning again and sort out my new contract. Well, I'm not holding my breath. Ofcom next . . . or perhaps a little witchcraft may be in order ..................
Add to this kind of problem with the fact that I am deaf and find using the telephone very difficult and you will see that I have had similar experiences in the past. I don't think BT deserve our custom quite frankly. At present,, touch wood, after having a new home hub, I seem to be trouble free apart from the fact that sometimes I lose internet connection, but if I switch off at the main switch and wait five minutes then switch on again it seems to be restored. Life was never meant to be easy!
ReplyDeleteAll the so called "service" companies seem to be on the same wavelength, and it is completely different to their customers. I would go straight to the witchcraft if I were you.
ReplyDeleteUtility companies just don't care, customer service is poor, once you have signed with them all they are intrested in is your money, and not much help any other time.
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely go for the witchcraft if I were you! :) We left BT years ago and have a different provider now who are pretty decent.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain.
ReplyDeleteEvery time something goes wrong here, with comcast, it is the router. Or pay a service call and wait all day for someone to come out. An appointments are always 2 week later.
Awful !
Please go with witchcraft and if it works seen it on to comcast !
cheers, parsnip
You're all right - utility companies don't care. Why I don't know. They are there to provide a service yet it's the last thing they want to do. They just want your money. Anyway, hopefully witchcraft won't be necessary as I spoke to a helpful lady yesterday and am to phone Sales today to renew my contract and get a new home hub. . . we will see.
ReplyDeleteMy friend in Efailwen has had trouble with her internet for years. She told we when I visited last week, that she opens my email and comes back a couple of days later, by then it would have loaded!
ReplyDelete