Price rises which were clearly designed to encourage users to move
across to Broadband. Which would have been impossible for me since I
was unable to get broadband at that time - thus I am penalised.
After the prices rises came a drop in service whereby ANYTIME meant
- 150 hours per month - a further restriction.
Once, my credit card expired and I did not realise I had to change the
date in the BT online billing screen. BT, being the clever souls they
are CUT ME OFF straight away and THEN sent me an email warning me about
the problem. An email I could not read - well done BT.
But these were all warm up acts, getting me ready for trying to
order Broadband from them.
You are probably wondering what on earth made me chose to stick
with BT after they dicked me about so much - well, they had quite a
good offer on Broadband at the time where the activation fee was scrapped
and the ADSL modem only cost £50. I felt the benefits of not having
to change email address and webspace were worth it.
So, imagine my delight when I got an email telling me that my local
exchange was due to be enabled for Broadband on the 14th Feb 2003.
Great, I though! I shall preorder that right away I thought.
So I got on the phone and spoke to an extremely helpful member of staff
and we got all my details thrashed out. My activation date would be
28th Feb. Job done.
As the weeks rolled by, I couldnt help wondering when BT intended to
send out my equipment so I sent them a quick email........"At least
the day before your date of Activation". Fair enough.
The day before my activation I still had nothing from BT - no confirmation
emails, no modems - nothing.
I patiently waited till the actual day of activation only to find the
modem had still not arrived. I gave them a phone to find out what was
going on. I spoke to a Pakistan/ Indian gentleman called Ranji/ Randy
who after a lot of humming and hawing told me everything was fine and
that they had merely received a great deal of demand for the product
and there would be a delay in delivering the product - a day or two,
nothing to worry about. Fair enough.
A day or two later - and still nothing - I phone again for an update.
I get a very helpful person called Anne. After taking some details from
me to find my order it turns out that my order has been trapped in the
preordering system - she has reissued it on my behalf - therefore it
will take another 7 working days before I get broadband. I thank her
for doing so and point out that the gentleman I spoke to before had
clearly LIED TO ME. I asked her to mention this to her supervisor.
I waited a few more days, expecting at the least a confirmation email.
I got NOTHING (Again).
Obviously becoming paranoid by this stage - I gave BT a quick phone
call just to make sure everything was running smoothly.
I got another helpful person, who after a few moments of trying to find
my order - told me it was STUCK IN THEIR PRE-ORDERING SYSTEM! My blood
boiled, naturally. She told me that she'd put me through to the sales
desk so I could reorder the product from scratch.
I said "No, you won't. I have absolutely NO confidence in your
company whatsoever and I will take my business elsewhere. Goodbye."
Which was extremely polite of me. It wasnt her fault though, so no point
shouting at her.
Let me just close this by saying that BT are, in my opinion a shower
of clowns and some of them are also liars. BT used to be a brand name
which implied quality and service. How far from the case that now is.