BT customer furious after eight appointments to fix her broadband were missed – Consumer

Furious Cosham reader Wendy Little blasted BT for poor customer service after her lifeline broadband connection unexpectedly went down and eight broken appointments later it still hadn’t been fixed.
Wendy Little had ongoing problems trying to get her BT broadband sortedWendy Little had ongoing problems trying to get her BT broadband sorted
Wendy Little had ongoing problems trying to get her BT broadband sorted

Fifty-five-year-old Wendy is unable to work due to a heart condition and fibromyalgia, a chronic rheumatic condition which causes soft tissue pain.

She relies heavily on broadband technology to keep up with her hospital appointments, regular repeat prescription requests and an email connection.

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To her, broadband is not just a nice to have extra, but a necessity she uses every day.

Her problems with the BT broadband service all started last November when her router box started flashing a purple signal and the entire broadband connection refused to work.

After spending 42 minutes on the phone to BT she obtained a promise that an engineer would be out to fix it after the weekend on November 12.

But the engineer didn’t show up, so she got back on the phone to their call centre staff for an explanation.

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After spending another extended period explaining the situation and sharing a few heated words with a manager, Wendy finally extracted a promise an engineer had been booked to turn up the following day to get the outage sorted.

The entire day came and went and still there was a no show.

Without a broadband service for almost a week she decided it was high time to ratchet up her complaint to a Liverpool-based case manager.

She told him in no uncertain terms how angry and frustrated she had become after four promised engineer appointments had fallen down, and without a word of warning or explanation from anyone at BT customer services.

This resulted in yet another promise that an engineer would definitely arrive the following day to fix the problem once and for all.

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Wendy began to speculate she’d been talking all this time to a brick wall, when once again there was no joy and no apology despite her strenuous efforts to get senior staff at BT to acknowledge her annoyance and distress at their appalling service standards.

Undeterred, she trotted out her farcical story to a customer services operative in Exeter, who put her onto a senior case manager in Edinburgh.

He gave her an unequivocal assurance a specialist engineer would be in attendance the following Monday and it wouldn’t be cancelled. This time she took the initiative and phoned him back the following morning to obtain confirmation, only to be told the engineer had been rescheduled to call the following day.

Wendy wasn’t at all surprised when she phoned the Edinburgh case manager back. After she remonstrated with him about the seven previous broken appointments, he gave her a 100 per cent cast iron guarantee an engineer would turn up on her doorstep in two days’ time.

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As a precaution she phoned BT customer services on the day to confirm the appointment was still on, and was re-assured an engineer would be calling sometime before 1pm.

When he didn’t show up Wendy blew her top and decided it was high time to call in Streetwise to sort out the ongoing mess.

She told us that she was fed up to the back teeth and left fuming after eight appointments had gone down the pan and no explanation from BT complaints managers as to why their engineers hadn’t arrived as arranged.

What had particularly annoyed her was a totally unfounded accusation that her service had been restricted and no one had been out because she hadn’t paid her bills.

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Consumer watchdog Which? regularly surveys consumers about broadband providers, and rates all the major suppliers.

Three companies are consistently at the bottom of their customer satisfaction league tables, BT, TalkTalk, and Sky.

BT regularly pops up on our radar with reader complaints about being inconvenienced when engineers are unable to promptly fix faults or failed to materialise despite numerous rescheduled appointments.

What made Wendy’s case stand out was the sheer number of no shows.

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We got onto BT and invited them to explain why no one had shown the slightest concern for her situation, simply indulging in a facile buck passing exercise posing as customer service.

After a short delay BT got back to us with a frank admission that they’d fallen down badly on the job.

A spokesperson said: ‘We’re very sorry for the problems Miss Little faced with her services following a line fault and subsequent service issues.

‘Miss Little’s services are working again after an engineer visit took place. We have refunded for the missed engineer’s appointments and a further £20 goodwill gesture for the issues she has faced during this time.  This is in addition to an earlier £50 credit applied.’

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A grateful and relieved Wendy got in touch to say her broadband was back on and confirmed that BT had offered her a compensation package which she’d accepted.

‘I can’t thank you enough,’ she said. ‘Without your help I’d still be going around in endless circles with BT trying to get my broadband service up and running.’