Fuck BT

I've dealt with bad customer service departments before, but it's normally simply a case of being unlucky enough to find one of the few bad apples, employed on minimum wage with no real knowledge of procedures that proves frustrating. In previous experience, once you move up the chain of command to those who are in a position of some authority over others, you can begin to get a decent level of service and your problems rectified.

Then I met BT.

April 26th 1986
Nuclear explosion at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected, hundreds die. Those left most twisted, torn and mutilated are hired into the upper echelons of the BT customer service department. With radioactive matter seeping into their brains, they draw up the guidelines which all future BT service will be based on.

July 13th 2007
Move into new house. Plug a phone into the line and find that it's dead. Call BT from a mobile phone to get line activated. Go online and order Sky Talk as our call provider - BT are only to be utilised for the line rental as they have a massive monopoly on the hardware infrastructure. This costs an extortionate £11/month, but there appears to be little choice, unless we want Virgin.

July 20th 2007
After 7 days, I ring BT again asking for the line to be activated. It appears a request was sent the very minute I rang after moving in, but that someone had forgotten to press the 'confirm' button. Seconds after this is done so, the line is activate. Hurrah! All the bad press was for nothing - BT seem mostly competent.

January 17th 2005
Two thousand, three hundred and twenty seven cases of acute, spontaneous brain death are traced back to BT's automated phone system. Directors of the company fail to turn up to court for so long that the charges are eventually dropped in frustration.

July 24th 2007
Letter arrives from BT telling us that the sum of £12.50 is overdue on our account. I'm not entirely sure when we were meant to previously have paid it (this is the first communication that's arrived), or where the extra £1.50 on the bill has come from. Regardless, I'm busy, so I pop onto their website to pay my bill.

The website is broken, and gives me back an error that's roughly as useful as the old classic:

Error: There is an error

or

Error: There was a failure. Use the following error code to resolve the problem#ERROR: ERROR CODE NOT FOUND

That's ok, I'll try the phone service. Ah, much better - I enter in my account number, and then tell it how much I want to pay. I enter in my debit card details, one at a time, until I get through to the end.

"Sorry, that's not a valid issue number. Please enter a valid issue number, or press # if you do not have a valid issue number"

Whoops! Made a typo there didn't I. I re-enter my issue number...and get the same message. Clearly the typing error was elsewhere - but I don't seem to be able to re-enter anything else, whatever I press (including #) merely gets her to repeat that message. Upon furiously mashing the keys and swearing at the phone for a minute, I get a slightly different, but identical in content message. This loop appears infinite. I hang up.

I try again, being very sure to enter my details, the same happens - I give up.

October 5th 1994
48 British people commit mass suicide in Switzerland following encounters with BT customer service. BT bribe the media to make the event look related to a cult founded by their board of directors, the Order Of The Solar Temple.

July 25th 2007
I try the website again, still broken. I try the online 'contact us' form to report that the webpage is broken - the online 'contact us' form is broken and just returns 'null' after I press submit.

I try the automated phone system to pay my bill again, entering two new cards into the system, every time I'm still asked to re-enter my issue number again and again, this is getting silly.

I ring the BT Helpline to attempt to be put through to a person. Everyone who answers asks me to give them my account number. I do so, and they're shocked when they find it starts with 'GB', each panicking and passing me along. I have no idea what's going on. Eventually I'm told I'll be forwarded to someone in 'Services' who can help me. They sure can, they hang up after 'hello', saving me valuable time spent listening to them talk crap.

I ring again, and again, and again. Every time I keep getting passed around until someone simply decides to hang up on me. I am not happy.

July 27th 2007
I send a letter to BT, as chronicled in my first Blog post, I Hate BT, asking that they please send out the Direct Debit form I was promised when I first signed up for a line, and fix the various errors.

August 1st 2007
No reply, I try the email and phone automated systems, still broken.

August 8th 2007
Another letter from BT demanding payment. I use it to start a small fire at an orphanage.

May 24th 1979
BT's customer complaints department is shut down for a week as George Romero hires the entire staff to play as extras in his latest film

August 27th 2007
I send a second letter to BT, after there has been no response to my first, as transcribed in my blog post I really, really hate BT.

August 30th 2007
The blogosphere again comes to my rescue, with a fellow student by the name of Anthony giving me the email address of BT's CEO with a recommendation I email them.

August 31st 2007
I email the CEO of BT to inform him of my situation, and ask that something be done. He passes the message on to a secretary, personally assuring me that she will take care of it.

September 3rd 2007
The ceo's secretary emails me to ask for my account details, and a contact number. I supply these the same day.

December 2nd 1992
Robert Black brought in as a consultant to fix BT's falling customer service standards. He is eventually hired as head of customer relations, with a golden handshake of $14 million.

September 5th 2007
Our phone line is cut off, for non-payment, despite the fact that in every correspondance I have asked for urgency in order to avoid exactly this. Every call is now redirected to a BT system. After toying with the automated payment system (still broken) I wait on hold for 2 1/2 hours until the battery in the cordless phone I am using dies.

September 10th 2007
Still no response to my two letters, still no sign of the direct debit form promised two months ago, and still no call from the 'high level customer complaints team' I gave my contact details to.

September 14th 2007 (Today)
Still nothing. I kill 18 small children, leaving the bodies in a ditch on the border of Suffolk. Probably best if you don't mention this to the police. I'm off to email my good friend Ben, the CEO of BT again, to see if that helps at all.

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Just now, I found a man named Jim, aka TheRantMan has yet another...'interesting', story about BT, in case you think I'm just exaggerating or being unlucky. I am a bit miffed he feels the need to compare BT to Microsoft in terms of customer service though, I always found MS's to be great.