BT Broadband Fail

Last year I moved into a new flat, it didn’t have a phone line installed and as a web developer it’s an essential requirement to have an internet connection.  As I saw then the only option was to phone BT and get them to install a new phone line, and as they’d be installing the line I thought it was best to consolidate my communications under one company so I signed up for their broadband service too. Oh what a mistake!

For an entire year I had a completely inconsistant broadband connection, at it’s peak it reached a speed of 3Mbps – but I only ever saw this peak for about a total 3 weeks of the entire year!  Most of the time because of the inconsistant connection I had my service restricted to around 14kbps! Sometimes it was even as low as 4kbps! I could walk the data to the exchange quicker than my broadband line could deliver data!  My broadband internet connection was actually worse than my old dial up modem in the 90’s!

Trying to solve this issue over the whole year I frequently ran into the brick wall of incompetence which is BT’s customer service.  First of all they spelled my name wrong so they were unable to take money from my bank account because the surnames were different.  I phoned them multiple times asking them to correct it, but after a month or so it always reverted back to the original incorrect spelling. To this day I still receive letters to both surname spellings!

I spent countless hours on the phone to their Indian call center – where you’re lucky if you can understand a word they say, or even luckier if the ‘help’ they always seem to offer of turning your router on and off and replacing your filter works – which it never did.  The end result of these infuriating communications would be that they would log a fault and another department would call me.

A week or so later I would get a call from an Scottish call center who I would beg to arrange a time for an engineer to be sent out.  Now they seem to not want to send engineers out on weekends so they expect you to take a day off work during the week to wait for them to turn up.  This was ridiculous as I had a reoccurring fault that the engineers failed to understand or fix so I would have to spend more time off work waiting for BT engineers than off work on holiday! Still the problem persisted and the Scottish call center guys would get shirty and offer me no further assistance because I didn’t want to take any time off work – BT don’t realise some people need to work to pay rent, bills and to live.

After a year of complete ineptitude I finally gave up on BT and signed up to 3 mobile broadband which has worked brilliantly since day one and has never had a fault.

Leaving BT was another joke and brought to light even further customer service disgrace. The first time I phoned their customer services the agent said I couldn’t cancel my contract without paying them a cancellation fee because I didn’t have a technical fault note against my account (which I did).  I hung up and phoned the same number straight back and got a different person.  I said exactly the same thing that I wanted to cancel my account with BT because their service was terrible and a faulty joke. 2 minutes later my account was canceled and a letter sent through the post confirming this!  Why did my two calls have two completely different outcomes?!?

I opened my mail this month, I received two letters from BT – one saying they owe my £35 from canceling my contract, and another dated two days later saying I owe them £75!?!  Needless to say I’ve canceled all my direct debits with BT and will never EVER deal with them again.

Throughout my time with BT they’ve tried to provide a customer service through social media networks like Facebook and Twitter – these are completely useless and are only a front for BT to try show customers that they actually care.  I never once had a single problem with my broadband service solved by any of these services.  They are just a hollow front of a company trying to jump on social media but provide no real support or service.

All in all I now hate BT from the bottom of my heart.  I would recommend to anyone thinking of signing up to service with them to immediately rethink and go with someone else – 02 won awards for their service and I wish I’d gone with them from the very beginning.

BT is a slow paced company with cripplingly bad systems coupled with disgustingly bad customer service and an inept Indian call centre.  They have caused me endless problems and have actually lost me business because of their terrible service.  BT Fail!!!

Update – Just received a tweet from @BTCare, the ‘Care’ part is laughable.

“@mikerecommend email your a/c# to btcare@bt.com enter your twitter id in the subject field, tweet when sent & I’ll get back to you”

I’ve received these tweets in various forms over the year from BT’Care’ – no matter what you respond with nothing ever happens so I don’t bother anymore as it’s a complete waste of time.

Found this link earlier when did a Twitter search for ‘BT Broadband’ and in the results (which were mostly if not all negative) I found this link to an audio clip of comedian Marcus Brigstocke and his issues with BT Broadband – very funny (and true)! click here.