Warning BT Broadband users!

[sWiZzLe]

If there some of you out there stupid enough to still be using BT (like me), I just thought id make you aware of a recent contract scam they tried to pull on us ... well its still in progress actually, i ordered o2 yesterday and if they try to bill us we'll go straight to Ofcom!

Last month we received an email from them, thanking us for 'our new order'. It said you line will be activated on April 4th etc etc. So we replied to them asking what this was all about and they replied to us explaining that is was our new contract that was applied for on the 3rd of April at 9.30am. We were like... what the hell ... as we hadn't ordered anything, so stupidly we ignored it thinking it was a mistake.

Last couple of weeks we've had the slowest connection ever, so this weekend i decided to inquire about canceling BT Broadband and the woman i spoke told me: It will cost £45 for the disconnection fee and £23 a month for the next 12 months of your contract But our current "12 month" contract started on the 21st May 2007, so how earth do you figure that our new contract starts on April 4th 2008

Basically they tried to claim that we had made a new order at 9.30am on the 3rd April and that we had received a call from them confirming our order - which we hadn't!
So off they went to look for this phone conversation to prove to us that this agreement had taken place ... but to our relief, couldn't!

Why on earth would we want to have 2 contracts running at the same time and end up paying twice

Cheeky buggers!

 

[sWiZzLe]

I spoke to about 8 different people on Sunday, being passed from person to person till finally i was told that there had been no such telephone conversation to confirm our new contract and he had no idea how it had happened ... hmm sure you didnt! He said he would have to send this problem to the 'offline' department and that they would call us back today - they didn't

I called them back earlier to get my Mac code again because on Sunday they gave me an invalid one , and the woman i spoke to on Sunday (a rather nasty aggressive cow!) said ... 'You do realise you are on a contract till next year don't you?'

So i had a good shout at her, 'Yes, we appear to have contract until next year, although our current contract does not end for 8 days! A contract that we have no knowledge about, which you conned us into! Now can i please have my ******* Mac code!!

sWiZzLe, that sounds similar to the time I received my 'final bill' from BT, having switched to VM the previous month. Everything was as it should be, except for a charge under the heading 'miscellaneous' which was for £360 It didn't seem as suspect as your scenario though...we didn't receive any email or anything suggesting a new contract has been started. One simple phonecall and the matter was resolved.

Hmmm, it wouldn't surprise me if they try that on us

 

[sWiZzLe]

Looking at the Ofcom site it seems i have to make a formal complaint to BT (havent found how to do that yet), and then contact the Alternative Dispute Resolution ....

Watchdog were actually the first people that popped into my head regarding this, so i may try to contact them later.

I've been with BT broadband since the ADSL pre-order days, but recently I've got the impression... well since BT Vision came out that, in the evenings and weekends the bandwidth priority has been directed their way meaning that the rest of us not on bt vision suffer - i may be totally wrong there, but it would explain my painfully slow speeds

 

[sWiZzLe]

BT Vision VOD traffic is given priority on the network.

You sure about that? ... Bar Stewards!

Well, looks like o2 will be activated on the 20th - excellent timing! Looking forward to some decent speeds and maybe even the ability to play some TF2 or CSS for the first time in months

 

[sWiZzLe]

Yeah ive been quite lucky-ish with BT, been with them since the days of Wireplay ... mmm the good old days of Half-Life DM and wireplay

But i get the feeling nowadays like so many other companies, BT is so interested in getting new customers and keeping 'them' happy with new services like BT Vision that they just sweep they're oldest customers to one side ... they offer all these 'special offers' to new customers, whilst old faithful customers get nothing
Just before i went to Rwanda in 2005 i heard that BT were upgrading lines to 8mb .... 2 years later i returned to discover that we were still on 4mb with Total Broadband option 4, and option 4 had not existed for about a year and a half It had now become option 3 and cost less
But we're 'old' customers, we don't mind being ripped off for a year and a half do we

Anyway, BT have removed this recent error saying that it wasn't a new contract, just an update regarding a drop in cost ... yeah of course it was, why did i have an argument with that COW about a new contract then!?

Gaaagh BT!! ..... and don't get me started with their Tech Support.... i hear o2's support are Scots, what a relief