I hate BT

So I was going to blog about all the trouble I've had from these guys, but I spent this afternoon's free time writing a letter to them, as I simply couldn't get through to their complaints department on the phone. As such, I need to get back to work now, so here's the letter verbatim instead :(

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[My address, reference numbers etc]

Dear Sir/Madam,

May I first apologise if the tone of this letter seems unfriendly to the reader. The writing of it recalls many annoyances I have experienced, and I do understand that the person reading it is likely not to have had any part in the many troubles I have experienced. That being said...

I wish to complain about the standard of customer service I have recently received from BT, in my first weeks of service from yourselves. I hold an account (number above) with you merely for the purposes of line rental, yet this has taken more trouble and time than any other part of moving into my new home.

I received a bill from you on July 24th stating that an amount of £12.50 was overdue. This was the first I’d heard of any such amount, as I had been awaiting a direct debit mandate I had been told was being posted out – which I have yet to see. Furthermore, I had also been told that line rental was £11.00 per month, and not £12.50, so am still unsure as to where this figure came from.

Regardless, the figure seemed about right, and I was busy at the time, so decided to write the £1.50 off and pay my bill – using the handy online service. I kept on receiving unspecified errors whilst trying to sign up, so concluded that the website must be under service and tried phoning instead a day or two later, when I had some free time to do so. (I later managed to sign up to the website, but was unable to tie my bill account into my online account, receiving the following error “There was a problem processing your request. Please try again later”)

The automated phone service proceeded, albeit a bit lengthily, nicely enough, until I had finished entering in my debit card details. Once I had done this, I was repeatedly asked to type in my card’s issue number, and repeatedly told this was not recognized. Assuming I had made a mistake, and as there was no way to navigate backwards, I spent another 5 minutes going through the process, and encountered exactly the same error. I then assumed that there must be a problem with my card, and spent another 5 minutes until I could enter the details for another card...and received the same error.

At this point I rang up the enquiries line, which unfortunately seemed to direct me to the automated service regardless of which series of options I selected, until I clued into the fact that if I simply pretended I didn’t have a touchtone phone, I would eventually (the time, for the record, is three minutes of automation before the system works out I can’t press any buttons) be transferred to an operator - or, more precisely, to a long queue for an operator.

The first three operators (separate calls each time) all seemed shocked when I read out my account number to them, telling me that I’d have to be transferred as my account number started with ‘GB’, apparently I was through to the call centre for another country. They then told me they were transferring me and promptly hung up the phone, leaving my line dead. The fourth time I rang through and asked to be transferred to the complaints department, and was instead put through to ‘reconnections’, where a helpful young man apologised (the first time from any BT employee) and said he’d put me straight through to the complaints department. Unfortunately, he didn’t realise that he was actually transferring me to a queue, which I had to leave after 47 minutes as I was running late for a meeting at work.

As such I have simply (and grudgingly, given how much time I have lost for such a small bill that has mysteriously appeared) sent the money online through my internet banking facility, where I believe it will take a short delay to reach you.

I would appreciate the following outcomes from this letter:
• That your online service be investigated and fixed
• That your online service implements industry ‘best practise’ and only provides users with helpful, informative error messages
• That your automated phone service for payments be fixed
• That your call centre staff receive sufficient training to transfer people without hanging up
• That I am sent a direct debit mandate for future payments
• That I receive an explanation for the increased cost of my bill
• And finally, preferably, that I receive some compensation as a goodwill gesture and ‘corporate apology’ (because, no matter how heartfelt, the apology of one individual who has to date had no interaction with me, would obviously not be appropriate).

Thanks very much in advance.
Yours,




Ian MacGillivray.