ESAT BT Dossier - Documents, complaints, wanted

ardmacha

"the data shall be accurate and complete and, where necessary, kept up-to-date"
- section 2(1)(b) of the Act

Has anyone tried the data protection commissioner with these people. Basically you are obliged to keep proper records, they are clearly in breach of this requirement.

2forfun

Ive had all the same problems with bt as eveyone else

* late orders for bb (way past advised time)
* incorrect bb charges
* very poor customer service
* bills issued to me with no name on for phone rental i never had
* never answering phone calls
* in 2 years i dont think i had 1 correct bill
* receiving bills from after closing the account
* constant poor bb service

my service with ireland online was first class, my service rapidly went downhill when bt changed the name, i would never go back to bt EVER. i only wished i kept my correspondance and complains i had to shred them recently as i couldnt open my filling cabinet.

god save nlt

Sapele

2forfun wrote:

my service with ireland online was first class

So was mine. Everything was going fine until BT appeared on the scene. I wonder how much IOL got for that ... hmmm thanks very much IOL ....

surveys

A response from BT 'at last' ! Had a call today from Priscilla O'Regan. We talked about the dossier and the BT problems. Apparantly the dossier had been lost. ! That there are 5 Andrew Greens in BT London. ! Anyway apparantly it has surfaced in Dublin and is now with Danny McLaughlin the CEO. Priscilla has promised to arrange for Danny to call me and discuss the issues. If this proves to be fruitfull there is the possibility of a meeting. I will keep you all informed as things develop. Apparantly BT and Priscilla in particular are watching Boards.ie and taking note of what is happening. She appeared fairly clued up with the posts on here. ! More later. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions please post or send to me..

hellboy99

here's some of the problems I’ve had with BT

* my BB order was late by 3 months
* took well over a year to receive my first bill ( ended up having to pay hundreds thanks to customer service who I either couldn't get or was never called back by them)
* incorrect BB charges ( billed twice, overcharged )
* very bad customer service
* BB service always dropping connection till recently

I’ve been with BT BB from the start and only now the above I’ve mentioned are only starting to be resolved now :eek: , some way to run a business :mad: .
all the problems people have been having with BT BB should of been sorted from the start and not taken years to figure out ( how they are still in business is beyond me ).


to surveys & Esat BT

what I’d like to see happen now is;

* a written explanation to all customers as to why they've had to suffer for months if not years in the majority of cases at the hands of an incompetent business.

* customers that have experienced prolonged problems like speed & dropping connection issues for example with the BB service, why have they been charged at full rate for a service that they have not received as advertised.

* why have all the ongoing problems within Esat BT been allowed to go on for years and why is it taking years to rectify

* why some customers have had to wait months to get BB from the day they ordered the service

* why does Esat BT customer care not function in the way it should

I’d like to see an explanation for all of the above mentioned, will it happen though is another question :rolleyes:

demosuzki

i finially got a cheque from the other day

payback from an overcharge issue i had.
it took me over a year to get it and ...guess what... it was short.

figure was 220 and they gave me 80.

i'm too sick of them (and others like them) to bother go at them again.

i'm known as a bit of computer nerd in my circle.
alwys been asked for 'computer advice'
i can't count the amount of people i've warned off Esat/BT because of the crap customer support.

it cost them a lot more then the 140 they robbed from me.

surveys

I received another call tonight from Priscilla. At 6.45 pm. From the office. ! When I asked why was she working so late she said there was an emormous amount of work to be done Anyway the latest situation is that Danny McLaughlan is to call me on Thursday to have a chat about it all. It had been my intention to ask why it has taken so long to sort out their problems, which are apparantly still not resolved, so your comments here have confirmed my own feelings that they need to treat this important question as a priority. I will also bring up your points as well "hellboy" and also "demosuski's" loss of money. There are of course several others who contributed to the Dossier who's cases will be mentioned in addition to the information already included in the dossier.
However there is one thing we have to be careful about and that is accuracy. We cannot afford to be seen to be 'backbiting' without evidence. If BT say they owed you €80 but you say they owed you €220, can you prove this. ? Don't get me wrong, I am not doubting you, but if BT investigated your case and found your claim was incorrect it puts us in a bad light.
One other important thing Priscilla mentioned was the inability for them to tackle the problems written about here on 'Boards' because of 'nicknames' and lack of identity. She does have a point, although it goes without saying that identities cannot be revealed on a site like this. It is also further condemnation of BT that they have to look on a Forum to find out who is complaining. ! Anyway, we will see what happens on Thursday.

hellboy99

good stuff, thanks surveys

dub45

surveys wrote:

I received another call tonight from Priscilla. At 6.45 pm. From the office. ! When I asked why was she working so late she said there was an emormous amount of work to be done Anyway the latest..........................
One other important thing Priscilla mentioned was the inability for them to tackle the problems written about here on 'Boards' because of 'nicknames' and lack of identity. She does have a point, although it goes without saying that identities cannot be revealed on a site like this. It is also further condemnation of BT that they have to look on a Forum to find out who is complaining. ! Anyway, we will see what happens on Thursday.

Balderdash of the highest order!!!!! You should have told her that it was EsatBT's inability or unwillingness to deal directly with peoples problems when they have all the information available to them in the first place that leads to people finding it necessary to post on boards under a nic!!

dub45

surveys wrote:

A response from BT 'at last' ! Had a call today from Priscilla O'Regan. We talked about the dossier and the BT problems. Apparantly the dossier had been lost. ! That there are 5 Andrew Greens in BT London. ! Anyway apparantly it has surfaced in Dublin and is now with Danny McLaughlin the CEO. Priscilla has promised to arrange for Danny to call me and discuss the issues. If this proves to be fruitfull there is the possibility of a meeting. I will keep you all informed as things develop. Apparantly BT and Priscilla in particular are watching Boards.ie and taking note of what is happening. She appeared fairly clued up with the posts on here. ! More later. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions please post or send to me..

Forgive me for being cynical but this beggars belief! I have a strong suspicion of this dossier being intercepted. You say there are five Andrew Greens in BT London - presumably you addressed it to the one who is the Chief Executive. Yet even if it did circulate to everyone of the five how did it end up back in Dublin???? EsatBT Ireland are now in the happy position that a potentially embarassing document ends up back in Dublin? Is it any wonder I am cynical? Who is Priscialla and where has she been until now?

It sounds to me as if it is all looking a bit too palsy walsy - the dossier back in Dublin, a 'chat' with Danny, excuses already being made (we cannot sort out peoples problems without identity information etc etc)

First questions for Danny in the chat while the coffee is being poured:

When are you going to fix your lousy billing system and how can you stand over it being so lousy for so long?

See how chatty he will be in response to that very basic beginning.

And its not chats that BTcustomers want its long overdue action and proper behaviour on EsatBT's part not deposits that are to be given without receipts and clear conditions or lost applications.

demosuzki

surveys wrote:

However there is one thing we have to be careful about and that is accuracy. We cannot afford to be seen to be 'backbiting' without evidence. If BT say they owed you €80 but you say they owed you €220, can you prove this. ? Don't get me wrong, I am not doubting you, but if BT investigated your case and found your claim was incorrect it puts us in a bad light.

I understand your point and its fair enough.

my problem is actually because of the lack of documentation.

I canceled my account using the BT web portal using their system for account managment. Course it doesn't work and they said they have no records of it being used to they kept billing me.

So the solution was 'split the difference' from what I said and what they said.
then it took a year for them to actually pay this.

I had the horrible expirence of dealing with customer complaints.
mail after mail and call after call.
no acknowledglments, no return calls.
stressful stuff and i'm sure its planned as I nearly gave up a few times.


As I said before
i'm too tired of them to deal with this again
i'd prefer to just take it as lesson learned and never have anyone body I know deal with them again.

life is too short.

Richard Dower

After numerous complaints and emails/calls i got my credits back. Only took eight months, byt least it's sorted now.

I'd advised quering every bill you get from BT and examining all the figures.

Kazu

Lovely.

The summer was half a year away fella, you're obviously not having much success. To them, you're a cute grey thing with a bell that occasionally goes under the sofa -- great fun, if a little frustrating at times. Don't get mad - particularly with me, I'm just telling you like it is - get even.

well i finally got my money back E215.92
no iam a pitbull that ripped the sofa to bits

surveys

I will start this off by saying this. I appreciate that a lot of guys have had serious problems, and that BT should have resolved these problems long ago, and that there is a great deal of anger (rightly so) being shown on boards about BT and its terrible failings, BUT, when talking to them its important to keep one’s cool, and remain ‘on track’ and keep the emotions bottled up ! Dealing with them is an angry way and ‘barking’ at them would have achieved nothing, except to have them cut off the connection. ! The “proof of the pudding, is in the eating” so the taste will either improve greatly in the near future or the taste will go sour if nothing or only half measures are actually carried out. ! Its my experience from a lifetime of management that throwing Bricks only hurts oneself, and one’s cause. The bricks were thrown in the dossier in no uncertain terms, so it is even more of a useless excercise to keep throwing them now. ! Certainly there are big question marks as to how the Dossier ended up in Dublin, from its original route to the CEO in London, and this is a question that I also have misgivings about, but pursuing that avenue to the detriment of trying to achieve results now that it has ended up in Dublin would be self defeatist.

Anyway, had a good discussion with Danny McLaughlan and Priscilla O’Regan and Eimear Kennedy. To condense it all it appears that BT have already implemented a plan which I proposed, to set up a dedicated ‘complaints’ department with an executive head so as to handle all complaints properly, speedily and separately from all other business. I asked that details of this be published on Boards.ie and on their web site which they agreed, so hopefully this will be done.?
I though that the CEO had been briefed very well and he appears to be a genuine guy with a real interest in resolving the problems and establishing satisfied customers and getting rid of the current fiasco of inter-department confusion. He is apparently aware of the ‘billing’ fiasco and DD shambles and said they are all working hard to eliminate them. He confirmed that he has only been in the job for 9 months and has therefore had insufficient time to resolve everything, but was emphatic that most things will be resolved in the near future.
They have agreed to look into the possibility of installing a dedicated telephone and fax line to deal specifically with complaints and promised to publish such numbers as soon as they are available.
He informed me that he has recently ‘beefed’ up the ‘team’ so as to improve efficiency and improve response times and get a quicker turnover of problems.
He also said that they have been in contact with the ‘consumers association’ ‘comreg’ and other relevant bodies and explained their plans for improvements and eradication of all serious problems.
There was also an explanation given about the billing fiasco’s and this relates to the accounting system that they inherited from ESAT which they say was totally inadequate. That it has been a massive task to try and improve this outdated system !
I pointed out that BT bought out ESAT years ago and would appear to have had ample time to eradicate faults and also stressed that BT’s vast recourses might have been used to overcome this problem earlier with the appointment of a dedicated and knowledgeable systems accounting organisation but the CEO said that this had not been possible due to the complex nature of automated billing systems and also that requests had been made to actually implement their own BT worldwide billing system into Ireland, but they had been advised against this by the parent company in UK. !
I expressed the view that some of the information on Boards suggested that the DD implementation and its use for some customers could almost be construed as fraud, and it was agreed that too many errors had been allowed to creep into the system and that this was being given priority treatment.
The CEO also expressed his desire to have customers actually visit the BT premises and provide some constructive criticism as well as giving important customer feedback. He said he would actually like me to visit but this has yet to be finalised as I personally feel that I might not prove to be sufficiently knowledgeable in IT systems at the higher level. The CEO admitted that there have been and still are serious problems but they are working hard to eradicate them and he accepts that BT will be judged upon what they deliver.
My own feeling is precisely the same. The talk was extremely informative and worthwhile and conducted on a very friendly but efficient basis, so the ball is now in their court to see what they actually deliver, and if their stated objectives are achieved and in what timeframe they achieve them. ?
They singled out some people on Boards, who they consider to have serious problems, and with whom they would like immediate contact, so I will write personally to those members. If anyone else would like to contact BT about their specific problem which has not yet been resolved and is long outstanding, I hope to be able to post an address here shortly.

surveys

Maybe we are wasting our time on here. ?

BT Ireland revenues up 26% to €470m
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/...yid=single6462

How significant are we when compared to such revenues ?