Yes, well, that was remarkable prescient of me. Broadband was supposed to go on today. Instead, I get a message on my phone telling me it will be going on in another week's time.
ME: Hello, my broadband was supposed to be going on today, but I've just got a message telling me it will be next week instead. I was specifically promised it would take only five working days. This is ten working days altogether. Patroclus and I are both self-employed types, who work from home, and thus it was quite important that the broadband went on reasonably close to the time I was told it would go on. Consequently I am cross.
BT MAN: Well, the thing is, we only got your order today.
ME: No, you got it three weeks ago. Here is the reference number, and a photo of me making the order, holding up that day's newspaper.
BT MAN: Oh.
ME: Yes, fucking 'Oh'.
BT MAN: Well, the other way of looking at it is, we only put your order through today.
ME: I am now more cross.
BT MAN: The good news is, I can definitely promise the broadband will be going on in another week's time.
ME: One day I will build a mighty castle from the bones of BT support staff. The hallway will be carpeted in the skins of the fallen, and I will make a throne from all your skulls, in which I will sit, cursing your blackened souls until the end of time itself.
BT MAN: Heard it.
ME: I hate you. I hate you so much.
BT MAN: Yeah yeah, whatevs.
Click. Brrrrrrrrr.
UPDATE: yes well, it's working now. I can only assume British Telecom realised it stood no chance against THE AWESOME POWER OF THE BLOG!
Ahem.
*looks at next on list*
Right. South West Water....
19 comments:
See also Tiscali with their "Switch your line rental to us, we will only interrupt your service for one hour whilst we switch over" promise which, I realised three broadband-less days later was a STINKING LIE, compounded by many non-returned phone calls and broken promises. So don't even think of going with them instead. Perhaps you could build me an annex for their skulls?
One week is good news, my friend. With AOL, I put my BROADBAND order in a week before I moved and was told it would take three weeks... Do you know how long it actuially took?? Do you?? Hmmmmmm?
Three MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One day I will unearth and publish the three-page letter I sent to the CEO of Telewest in 1997 about what a bunch of sheepfelching mutant flidoids his staff were. With small winkies. And they smell.
(The word verification is "flqrt" which presumably means to pout suggestively at Desmond Llewellyn.)
They have no souls and they'll put your broadband on hold for another week for that!
I love BT. I only had to wait 3 hours when I moved. They must like me and not like you. Yeah, that must be what it is.
What Tim said. Plus they all dribble.
We are going through the same fucking nightmare with Wanadoo after a lightning strike took out all our telephonic services.
They are all as bad as each other, but that doesn't make it right. Surely Ofcom must have so many complaints now about the lot of them they could fine their arses off.
Ironically one of the topics I am frequently asked to write about is the underlying reasons why no telecommunications providers can ever get it together to make good on their promises.
Except when they're dealing with Albert, of course.
BT are quite possibly the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. 2 hours I spent getting past through to different depts./call centres/countries only to be told it couldn't be processed for another week. Gaaaahhhhh.
I shall be moving in August. A library (where I assume I can use the computer for free) is within walking distance of my new house. I'm tempted to do without teh internets completely, in a blow against BT.
All these companies are a nightmare - I used to have broadband with Freeserve (which changed to Orange and then Wanadoo) but I am now with Tiscali. Tiscali are fine, but Wanadoo still continued charging me for a year after I had left them. Every single month I had to ring them up to get a refund, and then they would send out a letter saying I owed them money and they were going to take me to court etc etc. After ten months, which involved ten incidents of charging, arguing, investigating it for fraud, arguing, and then eventually refunding me they realised that there was £1.89 outstanding in my account from a year ago and that was what was causing the problem!!! Could they not have told me that at the beginning?
That's all for this week on Watchdog. Join us next week for tales of builders from hell, extended warranties and what one man found inside an apple pie. Don't have nightmares...
Patroclus - Something to do with the fact that everyone just chooses on price, so any company that invests more in such niceties as customer service won't actually get any customers to service? Or is it actually a conspiracy to make my life difficult?
I once sent an angry letter to BT at Uni about them cold calling me three times in two weeks that was two pages long and had the PS "I hope you know how much free publicity you're giving Steven Spielberg by using E.T?"
It didn't help things, but it did make me feel better at the time.
There is something very specific about the kind of rage engendered by communications companies, isn't there. Probably because it just can't be that difficult to unplug one thing and plug it in somewhere else.
Salvadore: It is all to do with their IT systems and how they don't talk to each other - hence each department doesn't know what the others are doing.
This explains your tale of woe with Tiscali - apparently marketing departments quite often put out offers like 'we can switch you over in an hour' without actually checking with the operations department that such a thing is actually technically possible, or informing them that this is what they're telling customers. Unbelievable.
Come to Hull. Kingston Communications have the monopoly on everything here and they're the best telecoms company I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. Possibly this is because they only have one fairly sparse town to deal with and not a whole country.
Almost as bad as Patroclus' adventures in France... what is it about broadband? Could it be a deliberate attempt to slow the inexorable press of intelligence into the Internet? Or is it just incompetence?
Well, yeah, I bet on incompetence too...
Though I'm reading The Peter Principle right now, so I'm prejudiced.
I spent three months waiting for Tesco to connect my broadband, and was told that it was down to BT not upgrading the lines, which could take another six months. I gave up and went to BT, and they installed in three weeks. I gave up trying to decide who was the most blameworthy.
I personally wouldn't use BT if they were giving away free beer and sex with every phone line. And beware O2, (formerly BT mobile),the only mobile company to give you reception in the bathroom of your house but NOWHERE else.
Valerie: The Peter Principle; The idea that all employees are eventually promoted to their level of incompetence. An idea that is embraced wholeheartedly everywhere, from the government downwards. You only have to look at poor Gordon Brown. The Peter Principle personified!
ps Today's word verification is "gquttky". The sound made by customers of BT just after they've been told they will have no broadband until after the dawn of the age of the Daleks. Or next month, whichever is sooner
South West Water?
Good Luck! Has their hold music driven you nuts yet?
I've just moved house and I am still waiting for the broadband to get switched back on. Grr.
I shall try the castle built of bones thing...it might make the difference? ;)
Further to my recent slagging off of Tiscali, they sent me an email yesterday wishing me a Happy Birthday. (Oh if only my birthday had been in March, how funny that would have been, but no, it was actually yesterday.)
But maybe whoever was responsible for that bit of technology that goes through their customer database every day matching dates of birth against the current date and firing off emails accordingly might be better employed, y'know, fixing the fricking broadband?
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