Can You Be Fined For Emptying A Swimming...
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Hanging On And On
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1 hour and 4 minutes on hold so far, dying for the loo. What's the longest you've been on hold?
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My aggregate total time, spread over three days, for trying to contact the Department of Work and Pensions (in the days when I was unemployed) was 26 hours.
A couple of years ago I phoned my GP's surgery, to be told that I was number 51 in the queue. I hung onto to the line for ages, eventually reaching number 1 in the queue. An hour and 40 minutes after that it finally dawned on me that the staff must have all gone home, leaving just one caller (me!) still waiting!
BT have now found a new way of frustrating their customers though, without the need for putting them into long queues. Throughout all of last Wednesday and Thursday Openreach were working alongside my house, digging up the pavement and then relaying it. When I went to catch my train to Ipswich at teatime on Thursday (for my 70th birthday meal) there were just two guys left there, with each of them having his head stuck down an inspection pit, shouting information to his colleague. As I walked past, I though "I won't be at all surprised, when I come back home, to find that they've managed to cut my phone line off". Sure enough, they had!
So then the fun started. Calling the BT fault line service from a mobile phone now generates a text to that phone, asking for a reply to say whether the fault is with a phone line or broadband service.
Sending that reply then generates another text message, saying that the mobile number isn't associated with any account, so they need to be told the number of the landline phone that the fault is on. (Why they couldn't ask that in the first text is beyond me. It's obviously something that they need to know!).
Replying to that text generates a reply which says that they'll run some tests. A bit later there's then another text, saying that they've not yet found a fault and asking permission (why?) to run yet more tests.
Eventually a text arrives with a fault reference number, together with a web link to where progress on the fault can be tracked.
However, just a short while later, another text arrives, saying that it's necessary to book an engineer and providing a phone number to do so.
This is where the problems REALLY started! The phone number for booking an engineer turned out to be the same one that I called for reporting the fault in the first place. So calling it generated yet another text, asking for information about the fault all over again! More importantly though, there's absolutely NO option available for booking an engineer.
Hoping (without any real optimism) that there might be a way to book an engineer via the fault-tracking web page, I visit it. Instead of a box where I can fill in the reference number though (as there would be when tracking a parcel delivery), there's simply an instruction to log into my BT account in order to track the fault. Logging into my account then brought up a web page stating that no fault had been reported on my line and still with nowhere to enter the reference number!
I eventually managed to book an engineer's visit (for tomorrow) but only by going to a different web page and using the 'chat' facility to communicate with a guy in India. Even that wasn't easy though, as he wanted to know my BT account number, the amount on my last bill and the date upon which the bill was paid. As everything goes through automatically by direct debit, I didn't have those details readily to hand!
A couple of years ago I phoned my GP's surgery, to be told that I was number 51 in the queue. I hung onto to the line for ages, eventually reaching number 1 in the queue. An hour and 40 minutes after that it finally dawned on me that the staff must have all gone home, leaving just one caller (me!) still waiting!
BT have now found a new way of frustrating their customers though, without the need for putting them into long queues. Throughout all of last Wednesday and Thursday Openreach were working alongside my house, digging up the pavement and then relaying it. When I went to catch my train to Ipswich at teatime on Thursday (for my 70th birthday meal) there were just two guys left there, with each of them having his head stuck down an inspection pit, shouting information to his colleague. As I walked past, I though "I won't be at all surprised, when I come back home, to find that they've managed to cut my phone line off". Sure enough, they had!
So then the fun started. Calling the BT fault line service from a mobile phone now generates a text to that phone, asking for a reply to say whether the fault is with a phone line or broadband service.
Sending that reply then generates another text message, saying that the mobile number isn't associated with any account, so they need to be told the number of the landline phone that the fault is on. (Why they couldn't ask that in the first text is beyond me. It's obviously something that they need to know!).
Replying to that text generates a reply which says that they'll run some tests. A bit later there's then another text, saying that they've not yet found a fault and asking permission (why?) to run yet more tests.
Eventually a text arrives with a fault reference number, together with a web link to where progress on the fault can be tracked.
However, just a short while later, another text arrives, saying that it's necessary to book an engineer and providing a phone number to do so.
This is where the problems REALLY started! The phone number for booking an engineer turned out to be the same one that I called for reporting the fault in the first place. So calling it generated yet another text, asking for information about the fault all over again! More importantly though, there's absolutely NO option available for booking an engineer.
Hoping (without any real optimism) that there might be a way to book an engineer via the fault-tracking web page, I visit it. Instead of a box where I can fill in the reference number though (as there would be when tracking a parcel delivery), there's simply an instruction to log into my BT account in order to track the fault. Logging into my account then brought up a web page stating that no fault had been reported on my line and still with nowhere to enter the reference number!
I eventually managed to book an engineer's visit (for tomorrow) but only by going to a different web page and using the 'chat' facility to communicate with a guy in India. Even that wasn't easy though, as he wanted to know my BT account number, the amount on my last bill and the date upon which the bill was paid. As everything goes through automatically by direct debit, I didn't have those details readily to hand!
I was on hold for 2 hours this morning and each time after 20 minutes just got cut off and had to start again. When finally got through to supposedly specialist helpline lady told me she wasn't expert but would do her best or else go off n find out answer from someone else. When I asked politely if I could speak to someone perhaps more knowledgeable she said she would try ....then put me on hold for another 5 min...and came back ....no! So asked her my questions and could tell she had no confidence in answers at all. None the wiser!
BT are the bane of my life, I totally agree with burn chico . I could write about the hopelessness of their customer services . Everything that wrong is either , oh you need outreach , when you finally reach out reach they say oh no you need Bt broadband ,
and so on
and so on
and so on
I anyone reading this works for BT or outreach just get another job , please
and so on
and so on
and so on
I anyone reading this works for BT or outreach just get another job , please
Probably so , but they can’t improve on the early 20th century infrastructure of several miles of drunk looking wooden poles, and copper wires that feeds my home, and which stops working when it rains. No amount of pleading with outreach has persuaded them to improve it. As for the question “ when will I get full fibre” “well you must be a in a laff sir.”
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