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80% => Computer & Technology => Topic started by: pauld on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:19:02



Title: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:19:02
So, we've been without broadband now for a week and a half, BT just keep lying to us about when it will be fixed, what the problem is, even when/whether they will call us to register a complaint about the poor service (we're now trying to work out if we can complain about their complaints service). But this is just the culmination of an utterly shite and deteriorating service over the past 7 or 8 months. We supposedly have their Infinity fibre connection but never get more than 15Mb downstream and a lot of the time can't watch BT sport on it (which is the main reason we got it). We never get through a half, never mind a full match without it stuttering/buffering etc and usually it just grinds to a halt every 10 mins. Oh, and even on normal internet use (bit of browsing, kids playing Xbox, no streaming or anything heavy), the line drops out all the time. It's bollocks, basically. And bloody expensive to boot.

Now the poor connection is largely down to where we live - too far from the exchange, basically, so switching to another provider probably won't fix that, although I suspect a more competent provider might actually be able to tune things a bit better, but they won't be able to deal with the "last mile" problem as the last bit of connection is always over BT copper, unless you get Fibre to the Door. AFAIK, only Virgin offer FTTD in Swindon and they don't seem to do it in our area.

So any suggestions for any decent alternatives? I'm looking for a 20Mb connection that is stable and reliable. Anyone know anything about the SuperfastSwindon thing that's launched recently? Bit wary of it as
a) The council are involved
b) The providers all look a bit "local comms for local people"

but given my experience of BT, they can't be any worse than that, either from the point of view of actually providing the service I'm paying for or from the customer service/fault handling angle.



Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Sippo on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:25:16
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

This is a good site to check, but cannot guarantee speed or reliability.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Samdy Gray on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:26:37
What exchange are you connected to?

And do you know how close you are to the cabinet?


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Reg Smeeton on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:30:43
Anyone know anything about the SuperfastSwindon thing that's launched recently? Bit wary of it as
a) The council are involved
b) The providers all look a bit "local comms for local people"

but given my experience of BT, they can't be any worse than that, either from the point of view of actually providing the service I'm paying for or from the customer service/fault handling angle.

I had a flyer through the door about this recently....a cursory look made me think SBC/Rikki Hunt wi-fi scam.

 Tory run SBC can't even keep the grass cut in Swindon....because apparently it inconveniently grows a lot in an English summer what with there being a lot of light, slightly warm and damp.   So wouldn't be convinced by anything to do with tech.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: ronnie21 on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:33:35
Had the same problems Paul, swopped onto Virgin - in two years only had one problem and they gave us a time they would be there the next day and they arrived on time, fixed in ten mins. Is your area cabled?


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Batch on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:36:09
That's unfortunate, but I wouldn't assume that switching to another provider would be any better - the issue is Openreach deal with local loop copper with everyone - so getting a better service is down to how much your new provider leans on Openreach.

Assuming it is a last mile issue of course - if its a modem/exchange issue you might be OK

FWIW: We were with Sky, switched to BT and had faults (actually the same line fault) with both - we must have got lucky as they were fixed within a day or two in both cases. The actual speed stability was identical in both cases.

We are lucky in that we live close enough to the cabinet to get up to about 75 Mbps  (though I don't pay for that) - so I have no way of telling whether the Sky modem deals with a "long line" any better than the BT Homehub.

So no, no real opinion on who to switch to I'm afraid.

Oh and cost - always haggle or switch at the end of contract.

Shame you don't have an old Sky box/dish for BT sport - saves farting around with the internet for sport

----
"Now the poor connection is largely down to where we live - too far from the exchange"

Its distance to the cabinet not exchange that affects speed for FTTC, though it amounts to the same thing. It should be stable though, if not fast. Assuming you mean synch speed - if its synching a lot higher the exchange may be congested in which case switching may help

If you can only get 15 mbps, how much can you get on standard ADSL - is it even worth paying the extra? my mate got slower fibre speeds than standard ADSL!
---
I guess all this is pretty useless in helping you - other than in saying don't assume switching will help, it only MIGHT.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Arriba on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:40:46
You either opt for one of the companies that will use the same line and all seem equally shite when problems occur or you switch to virgin who also get many complaints. From your issues, Paul I think the latter option maybe for you.

I had problems with my line until I upgraded to fibre. This meant the outreach engineer came out and tested everything, found an issue with the line which was repaired and its been flawless since.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:46:02
What exchange are you connected to?
The one in town, apparently

Quote
And do you know how close you are to the cabinet?
Not close enough to be able to get decent speeds, according to the last engineer who came out to look at why the connection was so slow. Basically, he said 12-15Mb was the best we could expect and that they shouldn't have sold us Infinity as they couldn't provide the services it's supposed to enable (e.g. BT Sport HD) relibably over the connection


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:49:21
Had the same problems Paul, swopped onto Virgin - in two years only had one problem and they gave us a time they would be there the next day and they arrived on time, fixed in ten mins. Is your area cabled?
Nope. If I could switch to Virgin FTTD I'd be off like a shot, believe me.
That's unfortunate, but I wouldn't assume that switching to another provider would be any better - the issue is Openreach deal with local loop copper with everyone - so getting a better service is down to how much your new provider leans on Openreach.
Yeah, that's the dilemma, hence the searching for alternatives such as the SuperfastSwindon and/or alternate FTTD that would circumvent the last mile/Openreach issue


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: horlock07 on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 12:01:22

 Tory run SBC can't even keep the grass cut in Swindon....because apparently it inconveniently grows a lot in an English summer what with there being a lot of light, slightly warm and damp.   So wouldn't be convinced by anything to do with tech.

 :pint:


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: horlock07 on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 12:03:13
So, we've been without broadband now for a week and a half, BT just keep lying to us about when it will be fixed, what the problem is, even when/whether they will call us to register a complaint about the poor service (we're now trying to work out if we can complain about their complaints service).


Since we have moved our BT broadband is somewhat temperamental, the fact that you have actually managed to speak to a human being at BT is going better than we have managed.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Power to people on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 12:15:01
So, we've been without broadband now for a week and a half, BT just keep lying to us about when it will be fixed, what the problem is, even when/whether they will call us to register a complaint about the poor service (we're now trying to work out if we can complain about their complaints service). But this is just the culmination of an utterly shite and deteriorating service over the past 7 or 8 months. We supposedly have their Infinity fibre connection but never get more than 15Mb downstream and a lot of the time can't watch BT sport on it (which is the main reason we got it). We never get through a half, never mind a full match without it stuttering/buffering etc and usually it just grinds to a halt every 10 mins. Oh, and even on normal internet use (bit of browsing, kids playing Xbox, no streaming or anything heavy), the line drops out all the time. It's bollocks, basically. And bloody expensive to boot.

Now the poor connection is largely down to where we live - too far from the exchange, basically, so switching to another provider probably won't fix that, although I suspect a more competent provider might actually be able to tune things a bit better, but they won't be able to deal with the "last mile" problem as the last bit of connection is always over BT copper, unless you get Fibre to the Door. AFAIK, only Virgin offer FTTD in Swindon and they don't seem to do it in our area.

So any suggestions for any decent alternatives? I'm looking for a 20Mb connection that is stable and reliable. Anyone know anything about the SuperfastSwindon thing that's launched recently? Bit wary of it as
a) The council are involved
b) The providers all look a bit "local comms for local people"

but given my experience of BT, they can't be any worse than that, either from the point of view of actually providing the service I'm paying for or from the customer service/fault handling angle.



The Superfast Swindon thing there was a lot of opposition to this over in N Swindon as BT are rolling out FTTD in parts and residents didn't want this hindered (it is starting to happen in a few streets now) and the wireless antennas they wanted to put all over the place were in ridiculous places especially next to schools and ended up having the planning permission refused due to all the complaints etc. I believe it is in a stage of appeal.

I believe that it was suggested it was a better bet for rural areas though, I know your not exactly rural but you never know it may be ok for you if it goes ahead, it has to be done as apparently the council have some sort of deal with them where if I remember right the council will have to pay them regardless (typical SBC) and they didn't expect the complaints.

Could you not pop over the road and lay some cable to your place from one of those shiny new houses  :)


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Barry Scott on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 12:18:00
Don't fall into the trap of thinking all providers are the same.

They generally install their own hardware at the exchange (they just use the same lines) and some providers (Sky and TalkTalk are most known for this) flood the pipes and hardware to breaking point with massive contention ratios, thereby destroying your through-put.

Some providers also use "traffic shaping" as well, which is where they restrict your line if, darwin forbid, you try to use it fully.

BT never seemed that bad to me, unless you have a problem, then their service is diabolical. If you want a good line, you'll often have to pay for it. Either through someone who provides a low contention ratio, or perhaps even a business line, which will often guarantee low contention.

Idnet have been exemplorary with my Dad's line and when I've dealt with them they've been a pleasure.
http://www.idnet.net/

I've been with Plusnet a while now and I think they've now started playing silly cunts with the contention ratio, or a load of porn downloaders have moved into the area, as I've gone from a fairly consistent 58-65mb to as low as sub 1mb lately.

stfcnbmth had a friend who was an ISP and he gave me a blinding line, albeit at about twice the price of the major shite.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 12:32:31
I believe that it was suggested it was a better bet for rural areas though, I know your not exactly rural but you never know it may be ok for you if it goes ahead
Yeah, that's why I thought of them as it seems we're exactly the kind of case it's made for - shit infrastructure and with no plans for BT or anyone to upgrade it
Could you not pop over the road and lay some cable to your place from one of those shiny new houses  :)
They haven't got it either and you've misspelled shitty :)


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: ronnie21 on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 14:00:58
Since we have moved our BT broadband is somewhat temperamental, the fact that you have actually managed to speak to a human being at BT is going better than we have managed.
One of my main problems with BT was that person you managed to speak to was usually from a totally different continent and could not understand him - he probably couldn't understand me in all fairness!


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: adje on Thursday, June 16, 2016, 17:53:03
Conversley i am regretting leaving BT.i changed to utility warehouse,or utility shithouse as i now call them,and its rubbish


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Tails on Friday, June 17, 2016, 12:32:24
Conversley i am regretting leaving BT.i changed to utility warehouse,or utility shithouse as i now call them,and its rubbish

I used them a few years ago, fucking dreadful. Cheap but for good reason!

Sky get a lot of stick but I've never had any issue with them at all, probably the best broadband provider I've ever had actually!


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 12:11:32
So, over 2 weeks after we first reported a fault, BT have finally admitted that they've just not bothered looking at this for the last week and a half and that all the customer services reps who'd been assuring me that they were working on this, it had been prioritised etc etc were just lying. Not a big surprise as they were provably lying about pretty much everything else. Finally spoken to someone who has actually bothered to check what was happening and we now have an engineer booked to come out at the end of next week. So, only the best part of four weeks without broadband (even assuming they manage to fix it then). Really terrible service, only matched by the appalling customer service who have been the worst I have ever dealt with. Will be getting rid ASAP.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Batch on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 12:17:08
That is shit. Very shit.

Still not (old school) NTL shit mind, at least you got some service reps to lie to you :)


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Samdy Gray on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 12:23:11
I'm no longer with BT but when I had problems with them in the past, by far and away the quickest way to get things resolved was to contact them via their Twitter: https://twitter.com/BTCare



Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 12:29:53
I'm no longer with BT but when I had problems with them in the past, by far and away the quickest way to get things resolved was to contact them via their Twitter: https://twitter.com/BTCare


Tried that a week ago. They started off helpful, then reverted to same old stonewalling/lying as the customer services lot. What finally got this moving was posting a message on their forum, the mods are UK-based BT employees who seemingly:
a) can get an answer out of openreach
b) recognise that lying to customers isn't a great way to keep them as customers

They have been great tbf, but too little too late to keep me. I'm more off than an off thing


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Arriba on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 12:30:09
They're all shit and lie when things go wrong. If they sort it out I'd be inclined to kick up a fuss to get some sort of compensation but would stay with them. It's generally how I do things and it gets some decent money off as well as an eventual resolution to problems.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 12:32:29
They're all shit and lie when things go wrong. If they sort it out I'd be inclined to kick up a fuss to get some sort of compensation but would stay with them. It's generally how I do things and it gets some decent money off as well as an eventual resolution to problems.
See your point and if this had gone on for a week, would be inclined to agree. But it will be nearly four weeks before it gets fixed at best (and that's if the engineer actually turns up and manages to fix it same day), the broadband is pretty shit and very unreliable even when it does work and it costs double what I could pay for an alternative that (allegedly) is twice as fast. So they can do one.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Honkytonk on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 20:56:35
One of my customers (who's a GP, so far from 'common denominator' stupid) complained about her BT line being slow, so I went and took a variety of speedtest readings over a variety of dates. Her average speed was 0.18mbps. Nope, I haven't misplaced that decimal point. I immediately thought it was a bit suspicious, hence why I came back to check again and again. Obviously encouraged her to complain immediately when I took the first reading, but BT did squat all about (blaming it on 'High Traffic locally' which was arseguff as it was the average over different times and days). When I asked her how much she was paying she said over £100 a month. I asked to look at her bill and, yes, the cunts were charging her over £120 a month for a phone line and standard ADSL broadband with a quoted "minimum speed" of 4mbps (verified from 2 sources, 1 within BT and 1 from Openreach). She's currently going through the process of claiming back 8 months worth of bills from them as we finally got hold of a direct telephone number to someone within BT who can actually do something about it. Turns out the all out arsefuckery uselessness of the company surrounds the decent employees (most of which work in Swansea apparently) like a wall and if you can break through you're ok.

TLDR - BT are cunts who (generally) don't give a fuck about their customers and will charge you whenever possible for anything they can and above market price too because who's going to stop them? Avoid.

PlusNet are generally great, but TalkTalk keep fucking up something dreadful so whilst their prices are typically the cheapest I would avoid.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Sippo on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 21:08:04
Plusnet are good. BUT charge you £30 to leave even if your contract has expired.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: suttonred on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 21:46:07
Ironic thing is that everyone, whatever provider uses BT infrastructure somewhere, hence they are all shit.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Ells on Thursday, June 23, 2016, 21:49:31
Sky get a lot of stick but I've never had any issue with them at all, probably the best broadband provider I've ever had actually!

This. I've had no problems. I previously spent so many confusing, frustrating, in fact downright depressing afternoons on the phone with Talk Talk.
And that's not even mentioning the broadband company.

 :french:


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Simon Pieman on Friday, June 24, 2016, 12:59:05
I know it's not possible for PaulD, but if anyone does consider Virgin Media then go with them, as it's the best broadband by a mile. Here's the speed test I did moments ago; the ping isn't great because this was via a second wifi router used as a wireless bridge.

(http://www.speedtest.net/result/5428204989.png)

My VM package is for a 200Mbps connection. I don't need it to be that fast but it worked out as a better deal.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Peter Venkman on Friday, June 24, 2016, 13:11:52
I have to admit I love BT broadband, we have never had any problems with it and no probs with customer support either, even though we are semi rural location we never get less than 70mb download speed.

We were with AOL, Talk Talk and Sky and they were all very poor in comparison.

(http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g171/jjedmunds/Untitled_zpsaj6v5rqx.jpg) (http://s56.photobucket.com/user/jjedmunds/media/Untitled_zpsaj6v5rqx.jpg.html)


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Friday, July 1, 2016, 11:27:59
So quick update (TLDR: no it's still not fixed, more staggering incompetence - nearing a month now).

This morning we had a visit from the Lesser Spotted Openreach Engineer. He confirmed it was a problem in the cabinet (contrary to the many and varied lies we've been told by Customer Services over the last few weeks) and was flabbergasted it still hadn't been fixed as he worked on the same problem 3 weeks ago. He was utterly mortified that we'd just been abandoned. Ah well, all good because at least now he was here and it was all about to be sorted. Nope. There's a part needed apparently to fix the issue in the cabinet, and although it was supposed to have been ordered to coincide with his visit (or even before), it's not arrived.

Hopefully, maybe, possibly, it might arrive next week. We're going to be looking at a month without broadband at this rate.

Worst customer service I've ever experienced. By a distance. And I've flown with RyanAir and my local authority is Swindon Borough Council.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Sippo on Friday, July 1, 2016, 11:36:56
It's a shame that there is no ombudsman for Broadband. With so many people relying on it, there should be some sort of management or complaints procedure.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Friday, July 1, 2016, 11:45:55
It's a shame that there is no ombudsman for Broadband. With so many people relying on it, there should be some sort of management or complaints procedure.
Ha ha, the only people more incompetent than BT's customer services are their complaints department. I ended up in a meta-state a couple of weeks ago, trying to find out how to make a complaint about their complaints department.

Wouldn't Ofcom be the relevant regulator?


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Sippo on Friday, July 1, 2016, 11:51:47
Bingo.

https://www.ombudsman-services.org/communications.html


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Friday, July 1, 2016, 12:00:07
Bingo.

https://www.ombudsman-services.org/communications.html
Cheers but I'm no longer interested in complaining as such, that presumes there's something BT can do to put this right. And there isn't, the only thing I want them to do is fuck off.

I have a call scheduled next week with the one person who's actually helped me throughout this whole fiasco to discuss how they're going to compensate me and I need to make sure I get sufficient rebate that I don't pay this month's or last month's bill (which is a given) and to cover the cost of any cancellation charges and once that's been credited to my account, then I'll be canning the whole shitfest, broadband, TV and phone. Don't ever want to deal with BT again, dreadful company.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: @MacPhlea on Saturday, July 2, 2016, 09:00:18
I had similar problems with BT but under slightly different circumstances.  We are in the sticks and despite this had been 'enjoying' around 3mbs per second with no drop outs

Around 12 months ago this went to complete rat shit - stuff taking ages to download, constant drop outs 1.2mb download and 0.01 Mbps uploads.

We called plusnet and had numerous visits from BT who would run the rest and deny that it was their fault show me a clean report and 5 minutes after they left the problem would still be the same.

Now, I'm pretty tech savvie and do my best to ensure that the home computers and networks are set up correctly but never expected to discover the cause was actually nothing to do with BT

2 weeks ago we had our 5th visit from an engineer who bought with him a load of diagnostic gear and spent 4 hours with me checking everything - the guy was brilliant. Turned out, after ruling out the router, the wifi and the alarm system which the other engineers had blamed for the connection issues, the root cause was iTunes... We had the Apple iCloud setting turned on and this little fucker effectively keeps and open connection which consumes a minimum of 2mb download and 0.3mb upload speed - now that may not sound a lot but when you only get 0.3 anyway it basically fucks up your broadband connection -why? Because the connection relies on a two way poll and as much as you can download stuff the server has to be told you want to download and for your upload is screwed it either takes ages or never gets the message.

So, in short, if you have a slow connection and use iTunes, turn off your iCloud synch option.



Title: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for ne
Post by: Batch on Saturday, July 2, 2016, 09:19:11
he he , well it's not funny but ..


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Saturday, July 2, 2016, 15:31:01
With respect MacPhlea that's not even vaguely similar. It's possible our shit connection when it works might have a similar root cause (but we don't use iTunes and we've been told by successive engineers that "you just live too far away, shouldn't have been sold fibre"), but this current issue is that it's just been flat out fucked, not working, no connection, zero, zilch, nada for nearly a month now. And it's because BT simply haven't got their shit together to repair it, they've known about the fault for nearly a month, they know what it is (card in the cabinet needs replacing) and they simply sat on their arses for 3 weeks while customer services dicked us about then didn't order the right part, then ordered the right part but on the wrong day. This isn't a case of fine tuning or network configuration or anything, it's just staggering incompetence, appalling customer service and massive arrogance. And a substantial amount of lying.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: stfcinbmth on Sunday, July 3, 2016, 13:14:10


stfcnbmth had a friend who was an ISP and he gave me a blinding line, albeit at about twice the price of the major shite.

Surprised you left. People are constantly whinging about poor connections but won't shell out the extra for something decent. I'm still with him, very rarely get any problems


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Barry Scott on Sunday, July 3, 2016, 17:11:57
It was a great service, but sadly I needed to save money and decided I could no longer justify those prices.

When finances permit, I'll be back with him in a heart beat. Especially as most providers are stacking them high and selling them cheap and seem hugely inconsistent. His service was unmatched.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 08:44:16
I have a call scheduled next week with the one person who's actually helped me throughout this whole fiasco to discuss how they're going to compensate me
So that call was on the premise that the problem would be resolved first so we could begin to discuss compensation/discounts off bills etc. Apparently it came as a complete shock to the lady that the problem hadn't been fixed, she "simply couldn't understand it, will investigate to find out what's happened" etc. So 5 mins later she calls back, to say that the part that should have been in place on Friday so the engineer could fix the cabinet, but wasn't, and which the engineer was told on Friday had been ordered the day before so would be arriving "some time on Friday" (but too late for him to fix the problem), actually wasn't ordered till Friday, but was definitely arriving yesterday and there were engineers there who would definitely fix it yesterday.

Did they fuck.

Looking forward to this morning's follow-up call. Not. BT aren't even competent liars.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: suttonred on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 08:51:44
Ha ha, the only people more incompetent than BT's customer services are their complaints department. I ended up in a meta-state a couple of weeks ago, trying to find out how to make a complaint about their complaints department.

Wouldn't Ofcom be the relevant regulator?

After 6 months of awful virgin internet I wrote to complain, took me ages to find an address, when I did it was a PO box in Devon or Somerset or the like. I never heard back..


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 09:06:38
After 6 months of awful virgin internet I wrote to complain, took me ages to find an address, when I did it was a PO box in Devon or Somerset or the like. I never heard back..
That would seem to fit precisely the kind of scenario that that lot Sippo found are set up for, might be worth pursuing through them


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 10:41:59
Now been told that when I was told yesterday that the part had been ordered on Friday (contradicting the previous claims that it had been delivered Thursday, then ordered Thursday for delivery Friday) that also wasn't true. And they won't now get it until Thursday. When they'll doubtless spin some other bullshit about why it's not turned up this time.

Told the bloke that this would mark a month since the fault was first reported and that this is beyond pathetic.
"That's your opinion".
"Really? You don't think it's pathetic?".
"That's your opinion"
"You think it's OK for BT to fail to fix what is apparently a pretty simple fault for a month? That's the level of service you aspire to deliver to your customers is it?"
"Don't take an attitude with me, sir"
Wow. Fucking gobsmacked.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Batch on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 10:51:16
That is staggeringly incompetent. Well more than that...

Unfortunately, as per Sippo's link 8 weeks seems to be the minimum before anyone actually cares. See also

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/internet/problems-and-complaints/broadband-landline-faults/


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Samdy Gray on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 11:07:20
It's very rare to find someone in an organisation like BT that wants to actually help you. Most of them just have a "It's not my problem mate, I just work here" attitude.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: suttonred on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 11:15:44
It's very rare to find someone in an organisation like BT that wants to actually help you. Most of them just have a "It's not my problem mate, I just work here" attitude.

BT run with lots of temps on the helpdesks. I worked there for a couple of weeks years ago, it was godawful, you had to put your hand up for the toilet, and they'd time you. The managements main form of entertainment was to fire the person who took the least calls in a day, they would do that every day.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Friday, July 8, 2016, 08:43:08
So, yesterday morning had a call from a very helpful guy in BT's complaints escalation dept (or something similar to that) who was able to tell me that the part had been delivered, fitted and as a result our broadband would now be working. It will come as no surprise to anyone who's followed this (and certainly didn't to me) that when I got home, broadband was still deader than the proverbial dodo. Although it did apparently come as a surprise to the helpful guy who rang me as arranged after I'd got home to (he thought) resolve any remaining issues and look to start wrapping it up. Ha ha, no chance mate, we're in our second month of this now and no sign of it being fixed any time soon. He sounded a bit shocked, promised to find out what has happened and call me back today.

Given the track record on this, with repeated lies about parts having been delivered when it later transpired they hadn't even been ordered etc, wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to find that the part hasn't been fitted at all and Openreach just closed the service ticket without doing the work. Who knows? Who cares? Not BT, they're still happily raking in my £60 p/m for a service they're abjectly failing to provide as we now roll into our second month without broadband.

BT Infinity - because that's how long they take to fix things.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Simon Pieman on Friday, July 8, 2016, 09:52:34

BT Infinity - because that's how long they take to fix things.

Post that on their twitter  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Batch on Friday, July 8, 2016, 12:49:49
wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to find that the part hasn't been fitted at all and Openreach just closed the service ticket without doing the work.

Muy money is on the job being done but the fault being something else..


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Arriba on Friday, July 8, 2016, 13:29:39
I would bet everything I own that this issue would have been dealt with just as badly with any of the other providers using that line. They're all useless when things go wrong.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Friday, July 8, 2016, 13:44:24
I would bet everything I own that this issue would have been dealt with just as badly with any of the other providers using that line. They're all useless when things go wrong.
You'd lose everything you own then. Much of the problem over the past couple of weeks has been caused by Openreach, but even BT have admitted that they made a complete fuck up of the first 3 weeks. I'm now dealing with one of their complaints handlers and he's mortified by how badly they've fucked this up. Yes, most of the big providers aren't great at handling problems, but "they're all as bad as each other" might cut it for a fault lasting a couple of weeks, this is now entering the second month and still no sign of resolution. In that time I've been fobbed off, lied to and insulted. And up until the last two weeks they weren't even trying to get it fixed. Even the BT guy thinks they've been appalling.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Arriba on Friday, July 8, 2016, 13:54:14
I wouldn't. I had a very similar issue to you with talk talk. The customer service(or lack of) you're getting is almost identical in fact.
I was more fortunate in that openreach resolved my issues once I upgraded to fibre(they found the problems in the line I'd continually been fobbed off about) having had issues until then for years.
I don't think sky, talk talk etc would have been any better than bt in your case.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Friday, July 8, 2016, 14:05:11
By reputation, talktalk are the only other provider I'd expect to be as bad. Everyone I know who's had an issue with sky seems to have been quite pleased with the customer service. I used to be with Plusnet and they were OK at resolving problems, even when openreach were being shit. So I'm not trying to gainsay your own poor experience with TalkTalk, as I say by reputation I find that more than credible, but I'd still take issue that any other provider would have been just as bad.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Wednesday, July 13, 2016, 08:44:59
Finally, after over a month, after countless hours wasted, many lies told (and yes, some of them were outright lies, not just "things that turned out not to be true", although there was plenty of that too), misdirection, requests being lost, parts not being ordered etc etc we finally have a working broadband connection. For now.
 
Started working again last night, I'm still quite prepared to get home to find it's broken again but at least for last night, we were able to connect to the Internet, my lad fired up his Xbox to play with his mates and the missus was able to watch all of her series on catchup.
 
Still rates as worst customer service I've ever experienced anywhere and now need to think whether I want to continue to hand over best part of 60 quid a month of my hard-earned to an organisation that (in the main) treated me with contempt. Probably a decision best left till next week when I might have calmed down a bit and will have some idea if the connection has actually stayed up.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey on Wednesday, July 13, 2016, 08:54:54
Got a feeling I'm about to go the same way with Scottish Gas/Energy.

Just switching to them from SSE. Did all the gubbins online and have since received 4 emails from them welcoming me to Scottish and then another 4 saying sorry to hear you've cancelled.

I haven't a clue whether I'm with them now or not.

I blame the Scottish fishwife.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Batch on Wednesday, July 13, 2016, 12:38:09
Power companies in general..first utility in this case I think

Power company in winter: You aren't paying enough on your direct debit, we're upping it by £40
Us: OK, but it always goes into credit in summer. Do you average it over a year?
Power Company: We'll monitor it and up it in the meantime

July: Obvious by September we are going to be in massive credit more than making up the winter shortfall
Power Company: :tumbleweed:

Now we could just demand a refund. But I suspect come December the whole cycle will just start again...


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 21:03:36
Thought it was too good to be true: stayed up for 2 weeks, been down again for past 24 hours. Dead as a dodo, no-one answering customer services number after on hold for over an hour, no response from @BTDontGiveAFlyingFuck twitter, no reply from the customer escalation team email I was given last time. Just cancelled my direct debit they can fucking whistle if they think they're getting another penny out of me.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Red Frog on Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 21:16:27
Have you thought of referring to the regulator?


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 21:28:31
Have you thought of referring to the regulator?
No, what's the point? They've had years to improve the service and it's only got worse. The connection's shit, the customer service is worse and they charge an arm and a leg. Whereas we've had the nice new 4G lot on trial for the past couple of weeks and the connection's 3 times as fast, it costs less than half what we pay BT (not least because we don't have to pay for a landline we don't use) and when we encountered some initial teething problems, the customer service was excellent. It's a genuine no-brainer.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: Red Frog on Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 21:30:55
Fine. The free market is your friend then.


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: sonicyouth on Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 21:40:31
What are you using now? Relish?


Title: Re: BT Broadband are utter shite, looking for new provider
Post by: pauld on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, 08:09:31
What are you using now? Relish?
Yep, I'm sure they'll let me down at some point in the future :)