Sir Michael Rake
Chairman, British Telecommunications Plc
81 Newgate Street, London, EC1A 7AJ
Dear Sir Rake:
I am fully aware that you’re a busy person, so I won’t waste your time:
Summary for Management
- BT Group is seemingly unable to install a phone line in the middle of London in at least two months, which raises the question of how BICOM ever expects to deliver Broadband Delivery UK.
- Considering this affects all residents in the new development, one wonders what BT Group’s priorities are? Maybe social housing is afforded lower status in the big scheme of profit making.
- Call centre staff have an amazing knack of avoiding having to follow your complaints code, using such techniques such as a) making stuff up and b) hanging up on the customer. The rest of industry could hope to learn from your best practice.
- Some customer providers don’t know how to use BT OpenReach Dialogue Services to place an order for new build developments. Is this a deliberate strategy of non-information on the part of BT Group to drive consumers into your arms against their will or your competitor’s incompetence? (God help us if they’re more incompetent than BT Retail)
- I will be going to Ombudsman Services on 19/02/2013 as my complaint will have been open longer than 8 weeks.
- I have wasted two days salary waiting around for BT to tell me that they’ve achieved nothing. Fortunately, this works out to only 0.0074% of your salary.
- Obviously, I do not wish to continue my order with you.
Chronology of Events
| 20/11/2012 | I place an order with BT Retail for a fixed-line telephone. |
| 18/12/2012 AM | Engineer due to arrive for AM appointment. No show. |
| 18/12/2012 PM | Call shortly after 1pm, and am told that the engineer is doing work to get the line active and will come for a PM appointment, contrary to information on website, all emails and SMS.
No engineer shows at 6pm. Call again and am told that there are no notes on the system. This is strange since I was told there was a note on the system at 1pm. Then I am told that a note has just appeared whilst I am talking to the operator, and am told that the engineer didn’t show due to lack of cabling. I ask why 1) this was not checked during an earlier site survey, which is standard for new builds, and poorly address matched orders (OpenReach Bronze ALK), and 2) why this information conflicts with what I was told earlier. No real explanation is given, but verbal promises are made of compensation and “priority” connection within the week. |
| 19/12/2012 | Chase up with @BTCare Twitter account due to lack of meaningful information. |
| 21/12/2012 | Receive automated email with new appointment date of 18/01/2013. Promise of priority connection within a week broken.
|
| 15~17/01/2013 | Receive multiple emails and texts saying my line is about to be ready – I didn’t receive these earlier, so assume everything is going ok. |
| 18/01/2013 AM | Engineer arrives. Spends two hours working on site, then reports that line plant hasn’t been done. He was never informed of this, so he had wasted his time. Says he should never have been sent out, and that this is somebody else’s problem. |
| 18/01/2013 PM | Phone BT, am told that the engineer is due to visit. I try to explain the situation and no information that may be of any use to me is forthcoming, such as a date of connection.
Phone the same number again to make a complaint, and am transferred two times incorrectly to BT Business. Finally, I am put through to the same call centre that made me the false promises. Operator puts me on hold to make inquiries, I receive another incoming call on my mobile from an unknown number whilst I’m on hold. Then the operator hangs up and I find a voicemail from the same person on my phone. (How did you come up with this amazing escalation avoidance tactic?)
|
| 19/01/2013 | Have to chase up via @BTCare on Twitter again. Receive email that there will be an update on my case by 31/01/2013 by 8pm. |
| 31/01/2013 | No update received by 8pm. Make my case public on Twitter once again, and your own competitor Saltire steps in to check the order using OpenReach Syneri. They are able to actually give me more information in a more timely fashion that @BTCare.
At this stage @BTCare grinds into operation and my account on BT website is updated to read “Update will be available shortly”. |
| 02/02/2013 | @BTCare inform me that I will be “updated” on 07/02. Presumably in the same way I was “updated” on 31/01 – i.e. not updated at all. |
Please note, that as far as I am concerned, I raised a complaint on December 18th, and my issues are not resolved. If this is still the case on February 19th, I will be raising this with the Ombudsman Service.
Sincerely,
Naadir Jeewa
For background, see the bottom of this post.
After talking to a few peeps, I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind, and reveal what I know. After all, I’m not in the national security field, and I’m UK based. Here goes…
The below is an updated and extended version of a post I did for Liberal Conspiracy:
Aaron John Peters has a new article up at Left Foot Forward that takes a look at networked forms of social movements, and their superiority to older social movement organisations. I want to take issue with this, and as I’m being lazy, I’ll quote paragraphs and offer my views: