BT and excuses...

[mark]

out here in never never land, where people are just coming to terms with 20th century (the 21st is due in about 50 years) communications are a little, letts say, erratic.

so my run-ins with BT continue. Having had no phone or a very erratic service since the begin of august, I thought I\'d share some of BT\'s excuses. I have 4 phone lines in the house (2 analog, 2 isdn), which have yet to all be functional at the same time.

ok excuses include, (and I kif you not here):

\"its because of the rhodesian copper crisis of 1996\" - apparently copper was too expenses in the 60\'s so they put aluminium cabling in which is falling to bits.

\"the cables to the pole aren\'t high enough\"

\"the pole is not vertical enough and may be straining the wires\"

\"the new equipment boxes we fit where your connection comes in aren\'t compatible with your phone lines\" the why did you fit them?

\"we have to fit the new boxes, we aren\'t allowed to supply the old (compatible!) ones anymore\"


any one got 2 tin cans and a piece of string they can lend me

[Clare]

just incase you have not.....Report them to OFTEL. Think that they will have to pay out a sum of compensation due to the guarenteed standards that have been set.... Might be wrong but it is worth a try

[mark]

hmmnn, yes OFTEL. bit of a laugh there really. According to OFTEL BT\'s charter/Licence now means they only guarantee telephony over analogue lines. If anywhere along the line there are computers/modems/data etc involved, in the small print there is no guarantee that there services will work.

To get that particular gurantee I have to go broadband. And there is as much chance of that arriving here as there is of Sunderland getting promoted!

[willywetegg]

Howay Mark that\"s a bit strong. Surely you will get broadband over there one day mate lol.

Jim.

[Clare]

If you are being charged for a service that you cannot use then BT have to provide some sort package will outlines what they will do and the timescale there of...

It has been a while since I worked for them but I somehow don\'t think that Oftel would have let them drop the Guaranteed Standards that they made them put in place.

If the ISDN lines are for business needs you can claim for loss of earnings (i think) because the work you is based at home and is dependent on the telephony connection that you have installed and because it does not function correctly you are not able to work consistently and therefore blah de blah...Think you get the drift...

Oftel will take your query and will help to escalate it to the Management level and I would also contact ofcom

Phone:
0845 456 3000
or
020 7981 3040

Fax:
0845 456 3333
Post:
Ofcom Contact Centre
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London
SE1 9HA

[mark]

cheers claire, haven\'t tried those numbers, I\'ll give em a call. well I would if me phone worked.

one of the more recent conversations I had with them was quite amusing though. I\'d rang them to report that my lines were not taking incoming calls. They obviously did something at there end cos they started doing so shortly after. They then rang me back, I answered the phone (obviously) where they asked me if my phones were still not taking incoming calls. I said \'what do you think...you rang me?\'

the nice lady inIndia replied \'I\'m afraid I don\'t know if you phones is taking calls or not, that is why I rang you to ask\'

priceless

[alan]

the nice lady inIndia replied \'I\'m afraid I don\'t know if you phones is taking calls or not, that is why I rang you to ask\'

priceless

We get a phone call once a week from a nice lady from India \"I would like to speak to the boss of the house please sir\" I said she\'s oot hinny ring back next week sometime\" \"no problem sir have a nice night\" its 09.30 by the way.
I thought it was a p#iss take at first.
Whats the country coming to and how did the Government allow this to happen to all these jobs,the companies involved say its a cost saving measure,bet the customer gets sweet f.a out of it.

[mark]

Was invited to a seminar a few months back, chaired by One North East (supposed goverment office for the region)

among the many topics up for discussion was that of call centres. BA gave figures quoting a saving of 30k per bum on seat per annum by shifting to india. they then underlined this by saying that teleworking, with call centre operatives working at home conencted via a VPN would save them 25k a year and the jobs would stay in the north east and obviously be huge bonus to those with kids, single parents etc. They would far prefer this route as job retention is near permanent in the telework scenario, rather than the 6 months average in a call centre, giving them more saving by not needing to recruit and re-train all the time. So why don\'t you do this ten sez I. We\'d love to but we can\'t get the VPN\'s from BT. They aren\'t investing in the regional infrastructure as they don\'t make as much money out of it as they do by wholesaling voice over data connections to India

Boiling **** doesn\'t come close to my feelings on this one. Cheers Tony for letting em get away with it...Oh I forgot, all your mates are on the board of BT

Apperntly his heart operation took 2 and half hours because it took that long to find it

[Marc]

Nowt to do with BT Mark but whats ****ing me of is that Lisa has been waiting for the same heart operation for 4 months now and that **** gets in after 2 days.

My dad was told of SCS that his leather suite he ordered would be 8 weeks late of delivery (after already waiting for 6 weeks ) because of the control over animal movement during the outbreak of foot and mouth. When they eventually turned up with it, he thought They can take the **** out of me I can take it out of them, he refused delivery of it because it didn\'t have a vets certificate with it telling them if it was so contaminated he wouldn\'t let his grandkids sit on it.
I had to go to Sunderland to pick the bloody thing up for him the next day. I got some funny looks from the lads in the warehouse.



[Edited on 6/10/2004 by Marc]

[bribones]

id jump in and defend tony at this point but i cant think of anything to say in his defence
as for bt i had to phone them today as my modem refused to work,uninstall it they said so i did,reinstalled ran the diagnostic still failed the line test so back on the phone i went ,ran all the tests with the tech guy on the other end both light working ? yes i said ,little arrows in the tool bar green ,yes again ,hmm he said go to www.btetcetc and select broadband help ok said i and how do i do that when my modem dont work ? i ask ya ,gimmi good old dial up any time