I’ve had some pretty crappy service from BT of late, here’s a love letter I sent them on 7th April, I’ll let you know if/when they reply:

Dear BT,

I’m pretty appalled at the service I have recieved. 3 months ago I moved house, and informed you beforehand in order to transfer the line. The line is still not working, despite the many attempts I have made to report the fault.

Your operatives have hung up on me unintentionally mid-call (usually while transferring to another of your million departments) no less than 12 times. Once I actually managed to get through to somebody to report the fault, and received a text message the next day indicating that it had been fixed.

It hadn’t. Not only has your phone service been questionable, but I haven’t received one single email or letter telling me my new phone number or account number. Therefore every time I actually manage to get through on a phonecall – we have to jump through hoops in order to find my account. That adds an extra £2 to each phonecall. I should be billing you, not vice versa.

I’ve never received such poor service in my life, and this is an absolute shame, because I have been a customer of yours for many years and until 3 months ago had no complaints to speak of.

I’m at the point now where I would like to request a full refund for the 3 months of service I have not received, and a termination of my contract. If only I could actually get hold of an English-speaking operative to explain this. The last customer services representative I spoke to refused to put me through to his supervisor (despite requesting it no less than 4 times) adamant that he could resolve my issues. Of course, he only inflamed them.

I’d like to hear back from somebody as soon as possible.

Regards,
Spencer Lavery

They’ve definitely made my Top 10 list of Companies To Avoid Like The Plague™. Not even for the fault, but for the dreadful customer service via the phone, and their useless website.

An update: 7th May 2008

This matter was finally sorted today. After 4 or 5 missed calls from their customer services department (always when I was right in the middle of a meeting typically) I spoke to a very nice Irish chap who got it all fixed for me. The faceplate was apparently replaced on March 11th (though nobody told me) and so, my line has been working since then. I didn’t know this because one of my phone cables had stopped working, but that isn’t their fault. I’ve now been refunded the line rental I paid during the start date and the date of the repair and I also have a working line. I’m happy as pie.

Bottom line with BT is: if you have a problem, kick up as big a fuss as you can. They almost certainly read this blog entry and handled the matter in a better fashion accordingly. But do, I repeat; do double-check your phone and cables, else you’ll be in the same embarrassing situation as I was this evening after complaining about the service for ages, then meekly admitting “oh actually, it works, sorry”.