Service Still Interrupted

So, I’m still not back online, my landline is still broken. My only web access is via the very expensive data from my mobile provider, (I’m burning through that at quite a rate, so this being typed off line and uploaded later to conserve data). Yesterday, which, incidentally, was my birthday, I spent the entire morning attempting to navigate what passes for customer service at British Telecom. The first thing to note is that you can’t actually speak to anyone on the phone any more – it is all bots and online chat – which is problematic if the fault you are trying to get resolved has robbed you of internet access, a point we’ll come back to later. First up, I tried their ‘diagnostic bot’ again. This is done via text and, once again, it failed to find the fault and made the same vague promises of referring it to the engineers. I was supposed to get a report from it, but when I checked my online BT account (eating up some more of my precious mobile data), it claimed that no fault had been reported. So, I felt I had no choice but to try using their chat function again, which is where things started to really go downhill. After getting past the chat bot I was put in touch with one of their ‘agents’, who went through all the usual tests and nonsense, turning up the same blank as the ‘diagnostic’ bot. He then found that I had already used such bot – something he started to get shirty about, implying that I was wasting his time. I tried pointing out that it had provided mr with no actual reports or fault numbers and that BT’s insistence on doing this exclusively online was problematic as the line fault had also taken out my broadband. 

This was the point where the ‘agent’ started to go off the rails, angrily retorting that my lack of internet access was entirely the responsibility of my ISP and that BT couldn’t be held responsible as the phone line being out shouldn’t affect the broadband! I tried pointing out that my broadband is provide via ADSL< meaning that there has to be a working landline for me to be able to receive the service, so the fault on BT’s landline meant that they were directly responsible for my loss of internet access. Apparently not liking my use of logic, he now went off on another line of attack: that it was my fault for using such an antiquated form of broadband and that if I wanted to avoid such problems I should get my ISP to update me to fibre! I responded that this was irrelevant as changing broadband package wouldn’t resolve the issue I was trying to get resolved: the failure of the BT landline I pay them for. He tried to defend his position, before getting back to his notion that I couldn’t hold BT responsible for my loss of internet access and if I didn’t like it I should complain. I went back over the fact that they were as a fault on their equipment was preventing my access to my broadband, making them directly responsible – a position that has hardly unreasonable. But it was too late, he’d gone. Astounded by his rudeness and lack of professionalism, I posted another message admonishing him for his lack of courtesy and telling him that I would now be raising a complaint.

Making a complaint isn’t as easy as BT like to imply that it is on their site. They’d really prefer you to do it via that bloody chat app – for reasons we’ll come to shortly. Along with the ‘write us a letter’ option, they also claim that you can complain via their phone line – except that if you try to do so, you just get the same options as before, none of which involves speaking to human being or, indeed, actually raising a complaint. After twenty minutes or so of going round and round their phone options, I realised that the chat app was still active on my mobile and that another ‘agent’ had come on and was offering to raise a complaint for me. Great, I thought, maybe I can start getting somewhere – like finding out why there is no fault listed on my account, what the unmentioned fault actually was and – most importantly – what they were going to do to fix it. But it didn’t go that way. The second ‘agent’ picked up on the switching to fibre nonsense and insisted upon giving me the sales pitch for one of BT’s fibre packages – despite the fact that I made it clear that I didn’t want to change ISP (they weren’t the ones causing the current problem). Now, I’ve been in similar situations before, where it is obvious that if you want to get to the information you actually want, you have to let the other party go through their sales spiel and, if necessary, sign up to whatever it is they are trying to sell you, after all, you have the legal right to cancel it immediately afterward without penalty. 

So that’s what I did. After that, I managed to get to the crux of the matter: the fault. Apparently, there was a break in the line, (well, obviously, as it was dead at my end). But what were they doing about it? Well, in reality, very little, Engineers are working on it supposedly (although I’ve seen no physical evidence of this), with the aim of resolving it by Monday. Which, frankly, is unacceptable. If the line has failed, that is entirely BT’s fault and they should fix it immediately. Moreover, past experience of BT suggests that the Monday deadline will come and go with my phone and internet still not having been restored. On the plus side, if it isn’t fixed by tomorrow morning then, as 48 hours will have passed since the fault was reported, BT, under its own rules, will have to start paying me compensation. Which might, at least, allow me to recoup some of the additional costs I’ve incurred as a result of having to buy additional mobile data just to get the most basic of internet access. Let’s just step back to that fibre broadband package I had to sign up to in order to simply get an update on the fault, (my account has also now been updated to show the fault). After spending all morning dealing with this nonsense, (it was past midday when I finally got the information I needed – I’d started just after eight), I was too exhausted to cancel it there and then. Later that day, my ISP sent me an e-mail saying they were sorry to hear that I was leaving them – I rang them back, (you can speak to real people with them – and explained the situation. Consequently, they cancelled the cancellation of my service raised by BT, halting the process.

I’m fascinated by the way in which BT see the their own failure to provide the main service you are paying them to deliver as a sales opportunity. Because the ‘agent’ who pushed the sales agenda was surely not a ‘rogue’ actor here – in my experience such behaviour is the result of official policy. It is acknowledgement that they can’t (or won’t) actually fix the problem at hand without putting themselves out, but instead prefer to try and scalp the customer for more money, despite not delivering what is already being paid for. This also involves a certain degree of misinformation: a switch to fibre broadband actually wouldn’t mean that line faults could no longer affect internet access. Most fibre broad band is actually Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC).meaning that from the cabinet to your home, the existing copper wire is still used to carry both phone and broadband. So if, as in my case, there is a break in it, you will still lose both. The fact is that I live so close to my exchange that, even with ADSL, I get reasonably high internet speeds. Moreover, ADSL isn’t as unusual as the first ‘agent’ tried to make out – a significant number of people still use it (it is simple and convenient).

Back to that BT fibre broadband package – while BT have acknowledged that it is effectively cancelled and can’t proceed, I’ve yet to formally cancel it with them. They texted me early this morning to call them about it – amazing how they want to actually talk to you when they are trying to screw more money out of you, but not when you want them to fix a fault – but, after yesterday, I didn’t have the strength to talk to them. They ruined yesterday for me, they weren’t going to ruin today, as well. I’ll get back to them when it suits me. In the meantime, my complaint is still outstanding (perhaps I should make another one for miss-selling) and I still don’t have a phone line or internet access (including streaming TV via my Roku box), with no prospect of getting them back in the near future. But I’m still being billed for both. Welcome to corporate Britain in 2024!