woohoo! I’m back online after almost 2 months of battles with telcos. Since several people have now asked for the intricate details of our latest battles I’ll share…
Had a nice letter from TalkTalk a while ago reminding me that the phone bill needed paying, so called and agreed to pay the following week. That was all OK, they were quite happy with that… or so they said…. yet took it upon themselves to cut our line off completely that afternoon and refused to do anything about it. Apparently only BT could sort it (not technically true but cost-saving cop-out on their part it transpires). So called BT who agreed to reconnect our line with themselves the following day with the same phone number. At 8am they said. 8am came and went, so called to chase up and get advised it may take until 4pm. Called again at 6pm and they agreed to look into it. Several calls and several days later they decided it hadn’t been connected since I’d not paid a deposit. Pointed out that they’d not asked for one, and at one point had even told me that they didn’t require one, but apparently it was all my fault still. Was given another number to ring in order to pay the deposit and told the line would then be connected next day.
Called, paid, and told to wait 3 days. Argued. Waited.
Called, chased, told computers not working but they would call me back once they were. Waited.
Waited.
Called to see how much longer computers take to fix. Had been working again for a while. Hmmm…..
And so it went on. Then transpired TalkTalk had not closed the account properly so BT could not connect, then the order had not been completed properly so BT could not connect. A new order was made. Then they couldn’t connect cos I’d not paid the deposit. But I did pay the deposit and they changed the order and,… no, silly me, all my fault still. BT done nothing wrong. Incidentally, did you realise how expensive it is to call a company that only gives you freefone contact numbers when you can only use a mobile phone? Or that BT has a new ordering system that only a handful of its staff can use, resulting in queue times of not less than an hour. Ever. Eventually offered a £20 credit to cover the inconvenience of having to call them at my expense daily to find out what excuse they have next.
Oh, and another thing, it is not possible to have your call placed straight to the top of the call queue, no matter what other lies customer service reps may tell you.
Five weeks later the line was connected, but with a different number. Another hour and a half on hold to get to the right team and another £20 credit offered to cover cost of telling people BT are incompetent and changed our number after equaly-incompent TalkTalk disconnected us.
Just the broadband to get fixed now then, cos OrangeHome won’t recognise the phone number and so still can’t get online. A quick call and it’s all sorted and will be working again in 7 days. Great!
7 days later and still no broadband. Strangely the phone number that was provided with the broadband package has also stopped working. Call OrangeHome….
OrangeHome had called our non-working phone line and emailed our inaccesible mailbox to let us know the direct debit had failed (therein lies another tale about how Sky applied for a Direct Debit in error, which bounced, got a charge put on the account which Nationwide agreed to waive but then didn’t, causing other DDs to bounce and more charges, all of which are claimed illegally from my account under the Social Security Administration Act, in which the ‘inalienability’ clauses make it illegal to deduct any form of charge from benefits. Nationwide claim they do not have to obey this law cos it says in their member rules that they can take money. Suggested I setup a society that will sell alcohol to children and steal cars, since it would be legal provided our rules said so… they run off a tad confused and worried and not replied as yet). Since they had not been paid they had cancelled the account and wanted £50 for the remainder of the year and would then setup a new account and still take more money every month.
Needless to say I declined their kind offer and am waiting for them to now collect their equipment, storage of which is now being charged at £10 a week until such time as they arrange a mutually convenient time to collect said item.
I still can’t believe I did what I did next. I phoned Sky. Yes Sky. Despite having ballsed up my DDs and caused so much trouble already, and despite charging a £4 “invoice admin charge” on my account every time they send me a “statement” – thus another unenforcable charge and purely as a result of their own incompetence – I called and ordered Sky broadband.
For the first time ever Sky have done a great job and I’m now online once more – though they told me we could get 16MB broadband when the line can only support 6.3MB max, so waiting for them to fix that bit and refund us the difference between the two packages… and the £4 invoice charge for the invoices they don’t send, and the DD failure charges that the bank applied when they tried to take money they shouldn’t have….
Wow, you still here? Thought you’d have got bored and gone elsewhere by now lol I feel better for getting that off my chest though.
It does mean that phone numbers have changed – email me for the new ones.
I need a lie down after all that, and then will try to let you know about life generally. And Billy. Can’t forget Billy. That’s more than my life’s worth right now….
Loading ...
| 
Print This Post
| | 0 Comments
