BT - The enemy

So much for having a blog when you do not update it on a regular basis! So I am constantly reminded by one of my regular customers. In fairness, he is correct. I have been very remiss in providing you, my readers, with a sufficient level of output. I started this blog as a means to providing a cathartic journal for me to express my feelings about a major and significant change to my life. I took over a pub in a small Devon village and started to recount my exploits here on the web. Taking over the Providence Inn in December 2006 was a major gamble for my family and me too. So far, the gamble has paid off, but not without a few issues along the way. To date the single largest problem I have encountered is an organization that so many of us have the misfortune to deal with – British Telecom. Were anyone else to run their business in the same manner as this corporate abomination they would surely go to the wall through lack of custom and lack of efficiency. I am going to explain in detail what I have had to deal with. I am going to name names and I do not care if I upset anyone working for that organization.

We started here at the pub on the 1st December 2006. That same morning I contacted BT and was put through to the BT Local Business Department. I spoke to a very nice man called Roger Beech. I explained to Roger that I wanted to change the line at the pub to a BT account. The previous landlord had been using a different telecoms billing platform that I chose not to use. I explained this to Roger. The main reason, I said, was so that I could get a broadband enabled line. Oh, joy of joys! Roger was ecstatic. He explained that BT offer a service called BT FUSION. This service would provide me with my broadband requirement, it would also allow me to make internet based calls that would cost me no more than 0.05 pence per hour and best of all I would be able to use my mobile phone in the pub to receive and make calls, with the outgoing call cost being the same 0.05 pence per hour. Now, for all of you who live in or visit East Prawle, you will understand what a bonus that would be, as the only place in the village you can get a signal is outside the phone box on the village green. This sounded like a great scheme and I tentatively agreed to go ahead, but first I needed to make sure of certain things. In my previous employment, I had often run foul of BT, but this sounded quite straightforward. My biggest concern was that I had been using AOL Broadband at my previous address and had initially asked AOL to take over the account at the pub. I explained this process was going on as we spoke and Roger assured me that this detail, but good old Roger said that there would be no problem and that they, BT would sort out all of the finer points. With that, I said yes and he faxed through several forms for me to sign and return. The form filling duly completed I went about the business of becoming the new landlord of the Provi’.

I waited for a week and as no further contact had been made from BT, I thought I would contact my new friend Roger and check on the status of my order. My call went straight through to Roger’s voicemail, the message said he was in a meeting or away from his desk, but that was ok. I left a brief message and asked him if he would contact me and bring me up to date with the status of my order. Later that same day I realized that Roger had not called me, no problem really, after all he is a very busy man. I rang his number again and reached his voicemail, another message to call me and that was that. As you can probably appreciate, running a pub is a full on occupation and it was a day or two later that I remembered that he had not contacted me. I rang his number and got through to him on the first attempt. He apparently had not received my message? Somewhat surprised I asked him to let me know when I could expect to see the equipment necessary for my new shiny FUSION setup. He checked his system and was somewhat concerned to find a problem with line ownership existed. Apparently the line was still in the name of the previous landlord and therefore was not available for BT to upgrade. I explained that I had been present when the previous owner had contacted his supplier to cancel his contract and that furthermore I would not be using them. Roger was straight onto the case. He said I would have to contact the old landlord and check…. “No Roger!” “You will make the calls necessary, not me.” Anyway, after a while he rang me back and told me it was my fault! Apparently I had a broadband service from AOL. I quickly reminded dear Roger that during our very first conversation I had mentioned the AOL aspect and he had assured me that there would be no problem in changing the account and that he would sort the necessary details at his end and get back to me. A week passed and Roger had not contacted me. Had I upset my new friend? Was he ok? Perhaps he had been made Chief Exec of BT. I rang him and luckily only had to leave three messages before he called me back. He assured me that engineers were at that very minute en-route to switch the switches and make everything happen. Not wanting to rain on his parade I oohed and arrghed in the right places, but then had to remind him that I had not received any equipment to make things work at my end. Not to worry, we were all set for the Friday of that week and everything would be with me in time. I even received official BT paperwork confirming this. Friday morning arrived and the postman left me a few bills, but no router, software or mobile phone. Not to worry. I rang Roger and asked what courier service would be bringing my equipment. Now Roger sounded a little concerned, apparently he was due in a meeting and I was holding him up. I apologised profusely and reminded him that I was actually a customer and it was incumbent on him to help me in my hour of need. He suggested that he give me a number to ring, it was another BT department who are in charge of sending out the kit. Sorry Roger! That is a big no no. I am the customer; you work with your supply chain and find out the answer, then tell me what I need to know. In short nothing happened. As usual, he promised to get back to me and as usual he didn’t. The following week I tried on several occasions to speak to him as well as leaving messages, but by then he had given up on me. Now most companies have a contact number if you have a problem and I thought that it was perhaps time for me to utilise BT’s no doubt superior complaints system. I dialled a number and a very nice sounding recording gave me a choice of several numeric options – I pressed one, three, two, four, and three again and eventually was put in a queue. A young lady answered and I tried to explain my difficulties to her. She told me that I would have to go back on hold and that she would get back to me. Thirty four minutes later I gave up being on hold and had to open the pub for the evening session. I vowed to repeat the process on the Monday following. On the Monday I attempted a different tack. I contacted the number that was on the letter from BT Broadband and spoke to a chap in Mumbai. He was very helpful and explained that I couldn’t get the broadband connection because the line had not been enabled. Hang on! My old buddy Roger had assured me that the line would be changed over so surely Mumbai bloke must be wrong. I demanded to be put through to his supervisor without having to wait for an hour on hold. Amazingly I was put straight through to a Scottish sounding chap who promised to look into the situation and get straight back to me. I asked that he be true to his word as there was obviously a fault with the whole of the internal BT telephone network that normally stopped his colleagues from being able to return calls! He gave me his number and promised faithfully to get back to me. Within the hour he returned my call and explained that there was a tag on the line, “Well can’t you remove it?” I naively asked “I’m sorry Mr. Johnson, but we can’t do that. You have to ring 152 and ask them to do it.” Now I am all for helping where I can, but it seemed slightly unreasonable that I should have to make these calls, but in the interest of expediency I decided to do it. I made the call and asked for the line tag to be removed. I was informed that it would take a couple of hours and that everything would be sorted to my satisfaction. The week continued its steady course and no one had contacted me, no hardware had arrived and I was beginning to doubt my sanity. That Thursday in desperation I tried Roger again. He told me that he had done all he could and that it was in the hands of another BT department. Furthermore, he couldn’t contact them because government legislation prevented him from do so. That was it. I exploded into an apoplectic fit of rage and pointed out to this moron that he had prevaricated the whole time we had been in contact. He never returned calls and furthermore had provided me with no service whatsoever. As his customer I demanded that he sort this mess out or failing that get me put through to someone who could. After much bluster and buckets of bulls**t he finally gave me the number of another department who would sort out my issues. I contacted said department and spoke to a very helpful person who gave me an assurance that all would be sorted out by midday the following day. By the end of the following week I had a broadband connection and a router. I contacted the broadband department and explained that I thought there was a problem. Firstly I had not received my mobile, second, the router was fixed wire and surely for the mobile to work it needed to be a wireless router and finally, I had received a telephone bill that had local calls charged at 6.5 pence per minute and national at 7.5 pence per minute when in fact, good old Roger had told me I would be paying 5 pence per hour for all my calls. “I think you are mistaken Mr. Johnson.” My new BT friend told me. “We don’t provide that service.” Well, I explained in words of one syllable that he was somewhat mistaken as I was actually holding my copy of the contract that I had assiduously sent back to Roger on December 1st 2006. It stated that I was signing up for broadband and something called Fusion that would provide all the facets of this wonderful service. “Let me guess, that is provided by another part of BT and you want me to ring them?” Sometime around this point my eyes glazed over and I lost the will to live. I estimate that BT employs in excess of 5000 staff. I think during this process I have spoken to 4998 of them the remaining two being the Chief Exec and the one person who might have been able to sort out my difficulties. I cannot be bothered to bore you with more details, but in short it is March 17th I am on my third router, I have my third mobile and surprisingly I still do not have the service I am paying for. I wish a plague on BT and all its offshoots. I have no contact with Roger Beech although if you ever want to contact him I will gladly give you his number. Every moment I am not serving beer I am in dialogue with BT employees who seem at a loss as to what is happening. So you see the lack of blogging is not really down to me as the blame lies with British Telecom. As was pointed out to me the other day, BT stands for Bunch of Tossers.

My promise to you is that very shortly you will start to see regular posting about my pub adventure,