This time I'm really furious with BT
last entry all about what was happening, and bt broadband grief post from Nov 30th detailing the crap that's gone on since June 05
Ok, the line is working now, finally. As stated before I had no broadband connection from 29th December, by the evening of 30th December there was no dialup connection either. I had no working phone, no broadband and no dialup - again. At this stage the phone line was live, you could have dialled out although no-one could hear you above the shrieks on the line. I fully expect this LJ post to be well tense muddled because I've used my notes to make it.
The last time I got on here (3oth Dec), despite being on the Priority Scheme it took them until January 3rd to come out. I had to push for call diverts to my mobile and then three hours later they still hadn't done them. I got an apology when I rang back three hours later and the calls diverted within 20 minutes.
3rd Jan - The BT engineer Alex was here for 3 hours in total. He found that the line outside was faulty, he replaced around 100 yards of cable outside the house finding that someone decades ago had used internal wire for outside and he added a junction box in the house. I still had a phoneline that was unusable. After two and half hours he left blaming it on broadband, (DG, his boss was pissed off with the time the engineer was spending here) then he rang me with an idea his boss had had, wanting to come back and try it. They changed the linebox from the ASDL one to a 'normal' phone one (although BT supply and fit both). He claimed this solved the problem and that now all the problems were due to broadband, and that his boss had told him point blank that it was now a broadband problem, not a phone one, and that I was to ring AOL to report it. I argued and argued that BT have called in broadband each time but he said his boss wouldn't allow him to do it. Furious I was left with no choice. He left, when I went to ring AOL I found that the line was screaming again although not as bad, when I rang BT Faults they told me the engineer said it was broadband and they would do nothing. (However the guy said I should list all out of pocket expenses for the last 8 months and send them in with as much proof as possible). I then spent 40 minutes on the phone to AOL about it, although they accepted that BT had said it would need them to call out broadband I was kept on hold for most of this time. At 7.5p a minute as well I might add. BT will be getting that bill too. Oh and AOL very kindly gave me free dialup connection because my broadband was down - after all how on earth should AOL understand that BT want AOL my broadband provider to report a faulty TELEPHONE line.
Shattered out, I went to bed. I'd spent 5 hours that so day trying to get things fixed.
I woke up three hours later, my telephone line was dead. I also found to my horror that my mobile was down as well. For the first time ever living right down here I was stuck and I absolutely panicked. The nearest phone box is 2 miles away, I can't drive anymore, even if I could the car battery was flat, I have no neighbours nearby at all, and no working phone at all. BT knowing full well I was a Priority Repairs Member had left me right in it, in what could have been a highly dangerous situtation. Although I had no dialtone I rang and rang my parents, after around 15 minutes it rang and they answered. They then had to drive a 14 mile round trip to bring me a working mobile. I finally got through to BT as well after nearly half an hour of dialing and dialing a no dialtone line only to be told the problem was fixed and there was nothing wrong with my line because the engineer had fixed it earlier. I told her all he'd done etc, but she adamant that there was no fault and refused to reinstate my diverted calls. Running a line check she informed that there was no problem whatsoever with my line and that it was clearly my equipment therefore I was most certainly not entitled to diverted calls since the problem was my own fault. She said that broadband had receieved a fault report on the line so when they dealt with it they would reinstate diverted calls. She seemed unaware that the public have NO way of contacting broadband whatsoever nor that broadband take between 7-10 days to come out and kept telling me that she understood that 'oh dear, that is an inconvience' when i pointed out that I was miles from the nearest telephone. After a long fight she agreed to reinstall the call divert but only because she had to list the existing fault as a 'new' fault. I am totally pissed off that BT left me claiming the line was fixed when it was not and that they left the line even more bad than it was. ie. no dialtone something which given my illnesses is highly dangerous. This womans actions border on negligent since she was completely happy to leave me without a working phone line whatsoever for many days (could be inexcess of a week) was determined to leave me without diverted calls and at this stage my parents had still not arrived with a working mobile phone. That was the last time I got a call out on the dialtone free line.
January 5th - rang BT using mobile to see what was going on with my line fault. NOTHING. The lady told me my fault was an ASDL one and that there was nothing reported wrong with my phone line(?!) She told me her computer screen informed her that BT had repaired my telephone line and that it was working perfectly, the engineer having reported that the line was only bad when using an ASDL filter (bollocks) and now it was fixed. There was no record WHATSOEVER of my reporting my line as having no dial tone. I told her of how BT had left me, etc and that I was Priority Repairs Customer etc. She checked my line and found there was a fault on the local Network. The fault being somewhere between the pole and the exchange. The fault that I was told didn't exist. She had to class the 'supposed' ASDL fault as completed as it was the only way she could check the line which was how she found this 'new' fault found. If I had not rung up to see what was going on then BT Broadband would have eventually come out here, and been unable to do or check anything until BT Phones had returned. It is the 10th January now and there is no sign of broadband yet. I was passed about and my fault report was IGNORED and my situation left potentially dangerous, if something had happened to me BT would have been sued. I was told an engineer would be out first thing the next morning but won't need access to house.
Three hours later I had to ring BT back as once more they'd taken the diverted calls off. I had to fight to explain my situation and the operator claimed he couldn't do it but would pass it on to the relevant lot. He must have because within 15 minutes call divert was back
January 6th - The BT Engineer who won't need access to my house wakes me at 9am knocking on the door! He finds a fault on the line approx 208metres from my house (being 70m from the pole) he leaves saying BT Underground Engineers will be out (should be today) amazingly they are. I also gave him a polite message for his boss (also DG)
Heading back to bed at 3pm BT Underground call at the door to ask if the line is working now as he's found the fault and fixed it. The line is still down without dialtone and unable to recieve a signal. The shame was he looked so pleased to have found the fault (!) so off he goes off to trace where this second fault is but returns later as it's too dark to continue informing me that there's two places showing problems underground and will back around 9am tomorrow to continue the work.
Jan 7th - Around midday same underground engineer returns to get me to check my phone. Both phone & Bband are working, infact line is clearest it's been for many months (no white noise in background that's plagued line), line checks show broadband at full signal and working as opposed to full signal but line busy and/or no dialtone. He explains that cable is utterly waterlogged and will be replaced this afternoon. This also explains why when it rains heavily or snows etc the line goes bad then finally repairs itself - ie, eventually the water drains away. This time it hasn't. The phone engineers boss DG (I got his full name BTW) told me the fault was nothing to do with the phoneline, blamed broadband filters and made me ring up for AOL to bring out broadband who most likely won't be needed. His decision also left me unable to make or recieve any phonecalls and BT Faults ignored this blaming it on broadband. The Underground engineer found TWO faults on the line, one of which was utterly waterlogged - hence my mentioning rain etc causing problems to the first phone engineer. He finished his work out there (digging up one of the paddocks!) at 3.10pm.
As Broadband were called out, but have yet to arrive, I realise that BT have probably cancelled them. It was not and never was a broadband fault, and I would like the linebox (the ASDL one) refitted that BT took out since those cables were supplied by BT and fitted up some months ago. Now because they've taken the linebox out those cables are dead and I have loose wires running over the floor. I am not happy. But I'm also not able to call out Broadband personally either.
It is my opinion that two members of BT's staff acted negliently. DG the boss who made the stupid decision to leave me without a properly working phoneline (which went completely down within 3 hours of the engineers leaving here) and that fucking ignorant bitch of a BT operator who left me without a working phone, refused to put diverts on for ages, blamed me, kept saying 'oh dear, how inconvient' when I pointed out that I lived in the middle of nowhere had no working phone, no car, and no phone box and was disabled and then FAILED to even fucking well report the fault. If I could get her head on a stick then I would. My only pity is that I didn't get her name because I want her to get the bollocking of her life along with DG for taking the stupid decision because he was fedup of his engineer spending so much time here on what was 'obviously' a broadband fault to pull him off it and report my line as having an ASDL filter fault when there was no filter on it.
The problem with BT? Just one of many, they don't even answer Customer Complaints either, my letter of Nov 30th was only logged into their system on Dec 14th (one of the operators told me - the guy who told me to list ALL out of pocket expenses) I haven't even recieved an acknowledgement that they recieved it. This time I will send it signed for delivery, copy the ombudsman in on it, (they say don't contact them 'til you've heard back from BT but if they're not replying?!) and am thinking of copying the BT Managing Director in too. I will also be writing to AOL with a detailed log of broadband downtimes since they've not know a fraction of it with it being telephone line errors and getting them too hopefully to get BT for failure to provide the service agreed. I am absolutely shattered by all this, I was just getting over the relapse of Yule when this thundered in. I'm so tired I don't know whether I'm coming or going.
And so, this is what's been going on and why I've not been online between 30th Dec and Jan 7th - I couldn't. Now if anyone (who's still reading this!) had any thoughts on how to get action and apologies from this from BT, (which includes dangerous decisions, failure to log a reported fault, failure to stand by their own policies etc) then please say so. I am so shattered I can't think straight.
Edited to add: Those STUPID, FUCKING, TWATING CUNTS AT BT HAVE CHARGED ME FOR THE CALL DIVERTS!!!!! £30 FUCKING WORTH!!
Ok, the line is working now, finally. As stated before I had no broadband connection from 29th December, by the evening of 30th December there was no dialup connection either. I had no working phone, no broadband and no dialup - again. At this stage the phone line was live, you could have dialled out although no-one could hear you above the shrieks on the line. I fully expect this LJ post to be well tense muddled because I've used my notes to make it.
The last time I got on here (3oth Dec), despite being on the Priority Scheme it took them until January 3rd to come out. I had to push for call diverts to my mobile and then three hours later they still hadn't done them. I got an apology when I rang back three hours later and the calls diverted within 20 minutes.
3rd Jan - The BT engineer Alex was here for 3 hours in total. He found that the line outside was faulty, he replaced around 100 yards of cable outside the house finding that someone decades ago had used internal wire for outside and he added a junction box in the house. I still had a phoneline that was unusable. After two and half hours he left blaming it on broadband, (DG, his boss was pissed off with the time the engineer was spending here) then he rang me with an idea his boss had had, wanting to come back and try it. They changed the linebox from the ASDL one to a 'normal' phone one (although BT supply and fit both). He claimed this solved the problem and that now all the problems were due to broadband, and that his boss had told him point blank that it was now a broadband problem, not a phone one, and that I was to ring AOL to report it. I argued and argued that BT have called in broadband each time but he said his boss wouldn't allow him to do it. Furious I was left with no choice. He left, when I went to ring AOL I found that the line was screaming again although not as bad, when I rang BT Faults they told me the engineer said it was broadband and they would do nothing. (However the guy said I should list all out of pocket expenses for the last 8 months and send them in with as much proof as possible). I then spent 40 minutes on the phone to AOL about it, although they accepted that BT had said it would need them to call out broadband I was kept on hold for most of this time. At 7.5p a minute as well I might add. BT will be getting that bill too. Oh and AOL very kindly gave me free dialup connection because my broadband was down - after all how on earth should AOL understand that BT want AOL my broadband provider to report a faulty TELEPHONE line.
Shattered out, I went to bed. I'd spent 5 hours that so day trying to get things fixed.
I woke up three hours later, my telephone line was dead. I also found to my horror that my mobile was down as well. For the first time ever living right down here I was stuck and I absolutely panicked. The nearest phone box is 2 miles away, I can't drive anymore, even if I could the car battery was flat, I have no neighbours nearby at all, and no working phone at all. BT knowing full well I was a Priority Repairs Member had left me right in it, in what could have been a highly dangerous situtation. Although I had no dialtone I rang and rang my parents, after around 15 minutes it rang and they answered. They then had to drive a 14 mile round trip to bring me a working mobile. I finally got through to BT as well after nearly half an hour of dialing and dialing a no dialtone line only to be told the problem was fixed and there was nothing wrong with my line because the engineer had fixed it earlier. I told her all he'd done etc, but she adamant that there was no fault and refused to reinstate my diverted calls. Running a line check she informed that there was no problem whatsoever with my line and that it was clearly my equipment therefore I was most certainly not entitled to diverted calls since the problem was my own fault. She said that broadband had receieved a fault report on the line so when they dealt with it they would reinstate diverted calls. She seemed unaware that the public have NO way of contacting broadband whatsoever nor that broadband take between 7-10 days to come out and kept telling me that she understood that 'oh dear, that is an inconvience' when i pointed out that I was miles from the nearest telephone. After a long fight she agreed to reinstall the call divert but only because she had to list the existing fault as a 'new' fault. I am totally pissed off that BT left me claiming the line was fixed when it was not and that they left the line even more bad than it was. ie. no dialtone something which given my illnesses is highly dangerous. This womans actions border on negligent since she was completely happy to leave me without a working phone line whatsoever for many days (could be inexcess of a week) was determined to leave me without diverted calls and at this stage my parents had still not arrived with a working mobile phone. That was the last time I got a call out on the dialtone free line.
January 5th - rang BT using mobile to see what was going on with my line fault. NOTHING. The lady told me my fault was an ASDL one and that there was nothing reported wrong with my phone line(?!) She told me her computer screen informed her that BT had repaired my telephone line and that it was working perfectly, the engineer having reported that the line was only bad when using an ASDL filter (bollocks) and now it was fixed. There was no record WHATSOEVER of my reporting my line as having no dial tone. I told her of how BT had left me, etc and that I was Priority Repairs Customer etc. She checked my line and found there was a fault on the local Network. The fault being somewhere between the pole and the exchange. The fault that I was told didn't exist. She had to class the 'supposed' ASDL fault as completed as it was the only way she could check the line which was how she found this 'new' fault found. If I had not rung up to see what was going on then BT Broadband would have eventually come out here, and been unable to do or check anything until BT Phones had returned. It is the 10th January now and there is no sign of broadband yet. I was passed about and my fault report was IGNORED and my situation left potentially dangerous, if something had happened to me BT would have been sued. I was told an engineer would be out first thing the next morning but won't need access to house.
Three hours later I had to ring BT back as once more they'd taken the diverted calls off. I had to fight to explain my situation and the operator claimed he couldn't do it but would pass it on to the relevant lot. He must have because within 15 minutes call divert was back
January 6th - The BT Engineer who won't need access to my house wakes me at 9am knocking on the door! He finds a fault on the line approx 208metres from my house (being 70m from the pole) he leaves saying BT Underground Engineers will be out (should be today) amazingly they are. I also gave him a polite message for his boss (also DG)
Heading back to bed at 3pm BT Underground call at the door to ask if the line is working now as he's found the fault and fixed it. The line is still down without dialtone and unable to recieve a signal. The shame was he looked so pleased to have found the fault (!) so off he goes off to trace where this second fault is but returns later as it's too dark to continue informing me that there's two places showing problems underground and will back around 9am tomorrow to continue the work.
Jan 7th - Around midday same underground engineer returns to get me to check my phone. Both phone & Bband are working, infact line is clearest it's been for many months (no white noise in background that's plagued line), line checks show broadband at full signal and working as opposed to full signal but line busy and/or no dialtone. He explains that cable is utterly waterlogged and will be replaced this afternoon. This also explains why when it rains heavily or snows etc the line goes bad then finally repairs itself - ie, eventually the water drains away. This time it hasn't. The phone engineers boss DG (I got his full name BTW) told me the fault was nothing to do with the phoneline, blamed broadband filters and made me ring up for AOL to bring out broadband who most likely won't be needed. His decision also left me unable to make or recieve any phonecalls and BT Faults ignored this blaming it on broadband. The Underground engineer found TWO faults on the line, one of which was utterly waterlogged - hence my mentioning rain etc causing problems to the first phone engineer. He finished his work out there (digging up one of the paddocks!) at 3.10pm.
As Broadband were called out, but have yet to arrive, I realise that BT have probably cancelled them. It was not and never was a broadband fault, and I would like the linebox (the ASDL one) refitted that BT took out since those cables were supplied by BT and fitted up some months ago. Now because they've taken the linebox out those cables are dead and I have loose wires running over the floor. I am not happy. But I'm also not able to call out Broadband personally either.
It is my opinion that two members of BT's staff acted negliently. DG the boss who made the stupid decision to leave me without a properly working phoneline (which went completely down within 3 hours of the engineers leaving here) and that fucking ignorant bitch of a BT operator who left me without a working phone, refused to put diverts on for ages, blamed me, kept saying 'oh dear, how inconvient' when I pointed out that I lived in the middle of nowhere had no working phone, no car, and no phone box and was disabled and then FAILED to even fucking well report the fault. If I could get her head on a stick then I would. My only pity is that I didn't get her name because I want her to get the bollocking of her life along with DG for taking the stupid decision because he was fedup of his engineer spending so much time here on what was 'obviously' a broadband fault to pull him off it and report my line as having an ASDL filter fault when there was no filter on it.
The problem with BT? Just one of many, they don't even answer Customer Complaints either, my letter of Nov 30th was only logged into their system on Dec 14th (one of the operators told me - the guy who told me to list ALL out of pocket expenses) I haven't even recieved an acknowledgement that they recieved it. This time I will send it signed for delivery, copy the ombudsman in on it, (they say don't contact them 'til you've heard back from BT but if they're not replying?!) and am thinking of copying the BT Managing Director in too. I will also be writing to AOL with a detailed log of broadband downtimes since they've not know a fraction of it with it being telephone line errors and getting them too hopefully to get BT for failure to provide the service agreed. I am absolutely shattered by all this, I was just getting over the relapse of Yule when this thundered in. I'm so tired I don't know whether I'm coming or going.
And so, this is what's been going on and why I've not been online between 30th Dec and Jan 7th - I couldn't. Now if anyone (who's still reading this!) had any thoughts on how to get action and apologies from this from BT, (which includes dangerous decisions, failure to log a reported fault, failure to stand by their own policies etc) then please say so. I am so shattered I can't think straight.
Edited to add: Those STUPID, FUCKING, TWATING CUNTS AT BT HAVE CHARGED ME FOR THE CALL DIVERTS!!!!! £30 FUCKING WORTH!!