Sadly, thanks to BT, this is exactly the situation I now find myself in. The story so far ... (I'm sorry if you read some of this in
my last post!)
Back story ...
- We
live in a house with a barn at the end of the garden. We have converted the barn and are
moving into it for the next year (or maybe for ever) whilst we gut and
renovate the house.
- My book "The Leftovers Handbook" has recently been published and I both urgently and constantly need
phone and internet access for marketing it. I have sent out press releases
and magazine pitches via email and need to respond immediately to replies.
I tweet and use Facebook, Linkedin and other social media, all of which
have a positive effect on sales and keeping my name and my book in
people's minds. My agent,
publishers and publicist communicate via a joint Dropbox in the cloud
which now, of course, is not available to me.
- Even
more importantly we have a family member with terminal cancer and need to
be in touch with him (so far he is still living alone in his own home in
The transfer of the line was arranged for Friday 26th
July between 8.00 am and 1.00 pm .
Friday 26th
July
•
No-one showed up all morning but in good faith we
completed moving our home into the barn. At 12.55 pm our phone line was disconnected and about 15
minutes later I received a text message on my mobile thus ...
"We are really apologize (sic) that the engineer could not visit
your new address to activate the telephone line. Reason for Delay: Job Delayed with TRAFFIC
MANAGEMENT. Next Update Friday 16 /08/13. We will keep you updated so that you needn't
call us back. Thank You Bt (sic)"
•
We borrowed our neighbours' phone to call the 0800
number (0800 800 150) and were held in a line for about 20 minutes. I then
spoke to a very helpful and sympathetic girl in India who gave me the number to
call. It was 0800 800 150!
•
I called again and got to talk to a guy in Birmingham who was also
very helpful and he got in touch with the engineers who told him that the work
could not be done because "it is a very busy road" and they need
clearance from the council. Seemingly
they assume a road is quiet till proved otherwise!
•
I asked, of course, for the line to be switched on
again but was told this is not possible and I would be updated (just updated
mark you, not transferred and connected) on 16th August.
•
I asked if there was anyone in charge I could talk to and
was told I could write to someone called Warren Buckley or something similar, I
think. I said it was more urgent than
that and was told a manager would call me back on my mobile within the hour. He/she didn't.
•
Just after 4.00 pm I called again and spoke to another
sympathetic and helpful girl who said she would do her best to arrange for the
service to be switched back on sometime Monday (although transferring the line
would still not happen till at least the 16th) and would call me
back to let me know how she got on. She
didn't.
Monday 29th
July
•
I spoke to a more useful sort of guy who set us up a
temporary phone number to our house and suggested I get a dongle for temporary
internet access.
•
As it happens I had a radio interview arranged for this
day to be conducted over the 'phone and as I had to use my mobile with less
than perfect reception the interview was cut from fifteen minutes to five.
Tuesday 30th
July
•
I spent the day at the home of a good friend willing to
let me take over her internet connection for several hours contacting people
saying that I would be out of action for day or two till I got a dongle. Sadly this information was wrong. My friend lives 16 miles away so this is not
something I can do frequently especially as I don't drive.
Wednesday 31st
July
•
I tried to get a dongle but without success as all
suppliers say there is not sufficient reception where I live - PL26 7YH.
•
Although the account is actually in my name, as I was
getting so very upset by this stage, my partner then rang 0800 800 150 and
spoke to a girl in Durham who said we could cancel the order and have our old
number back with 48 hours, We could then
rearrange the transfer for a later date. This seemed the best answer since I
need the internet as soon as possible so, to enable us to do this, she said
she'd transfer us to the correct department but unfortunately it was a wrong
number!
•
He re-dialled and got to talk to a guy in India who
didn't really understand what he was saying but eventually decided he couldn't
do what we were asking and indeed said no-one in India could deal with this
problem and he couldn't transfer us to anyone who could.
•
We tried again - same result.
•
Third time lucky-ish he got a Scots guy who refused to
say where he was but at least they understood each other. After about half an hour of explanations and
discussion he came up with the information that he couldn't deal with it - we
needed to speak to Open Reach. He said
he was transferring us to ....
•
... Open Reach, their Indian office, who after about 10
minutes pondering decided to transfer us to ...
•
... Open Reach in Warrington I think My partner went through the whole thing
again, phone number, order number, address, what the problem is, etc. etc and
they had a long chat and she was so helpful he asked to have her direct number
in case he needed to speak to her again but she said there was no direct
number. She did say, however, that in her opinion cancelling the order was not
the right thing to do as it would take until at least Monday 5th
August to reconnect and probably take our internet provider another 5 working
days to reconnect us. She also said
there was no guarantee that we would get our original number back.
•
He was then transferred to Order Management in India, the
guy's English was not very good and he kept saying he would "do something
to make" my partner speak to his supervisor which eventually he did.
•
The supervisor asked for my partner's name, Paul
Clementson, and thereafter referred to him as Mr. Poll! Asked if it would be possible to speed up
the procedure and transfer the line within the next few days he said
"no".
Thursday 1st
August
I posted the above in a letter to the BT Correspondence
Centre at an address given to me by one of the friendly folk above.
Saturday 3rd
August
I received the following text ...
"Hello - this is a message from BT. This is to confirm we will
contact you 20/08/13
by 20.00 to discuss the delay in activation of your services. There is no need to contact us as we will not
be able to provide you with any more information. Thank you. Sender 2123001"
As you see they will call me on 20th
August to "discuss the delay in
activation of your services"
but I may have self destructed with sheer rage and frustration by then!
So far we have spoken to about 12 different people being
held in line over and over again for about 20 minutes per time, repeatedly
giving all the details and telling our story.
In the end we heard so many different versions of what could or should
happen that we don't know what to believe.
The road we live on is fairly busy but nothing out of the
ordinary just a single carriageway main road through a village in Cornwall , the telegraph
pole is on our side of the road directly outside the house, the line needs to
be extended for a few yards down our garden.
We own both properties.
I am now going to contact everyone I can possibly think of
that may be able to help. If you have
any ideas please ... WHAT? I suppose comment and I'll ask a friend to keep an eye on this blog for me. Also perhaps tweeting or posting on FB might help at least spread the word about BT's appalling service.
HELP!
PS. Sorry for being so moany and thank you for your comments so far. xx
