My BT broadband nightmare... turns out it should never have happened

RuggieBear

i've been waiting sice the end of july. same story...basically. lost two bb transfer forms, a voice version, never asked for the 125 deposit and seemingly eircom have refused to release my line over 8 times now and my case has been escalated

feeling very bitter that i gave up utv to switch

i'll want some form of compensation

mikeruurds

Hey Fitzdragon... no, I haven't tried calling her. I got through to Ciara at BT yesterday and supposedly I'm back on track after paying a deposit of €125. Unfortunately their online order tracking is down AGAIN so I'm not in a position to check if there has been any change in status.

I'll be trying to call again in a few minutes. You could try Pat... maybe you'll be lucky :P

damien

BT monitor this forum from time to time, they know how bad their system is. Trouble is when you have a Minister that doesn't give a toss coupled with a Regulator that doesn't take things seriously and an Office of Consumer Affairs who really are weak and would rather do press stunts like fine pubs on the day of an All-Ireland, you are going to have the likes of BT not being motivated to give a damn about consumers.

Seriously though, one would have thought they'd be grateful of the custom instead of treating so many people like absolute scum. The default Govt answer is shop around but shopping around makes no bloody difference when they're all clones of each other.

mikeruurds

Hi Ruggiebear... I'm also starting to miss my UTV 1mb/128kb highly contended DSL. I avoided UTV for mainly pricing reasons... I was totally sold on the cheap line+2MB DSL product that BT is promoting.

If I'd known I was going to be treated in this way I would have probably ignored the pricing issue and just gone for UTV's Clicksilver plus package. It only took 2 weeks for me to get Clicksilver at my old residence.

Ok... UTV's telephonic support was even more abysmal than BT's, but I only needed support for telephony. My broadband was always faultless.

RuggieBear

mikeruurds wrote:

Hi Ruggiebear... I'm also starting to miss my UTV 1mb/128kb highly contended DSL. I avoided UTV for mainly pricing reasons... I was totally sold on the cheap line+2MB DSL product that BT is promoting.

If I'd known I was going to be treated in this way I would have probably ignored the pricing issue and just gone for UTV's Clicksilver plus package. It only took 2 weeks for me to get Clicksilver at my old residence.

Ok... UTV's telephonic support was even more abysmal than BT's, but I only needed support for telephony. My broadband was always faultless.

ditto.....only changed for the price and the larger cap....what a fucking joke. can't wait to see my dial up bill. :rolleyes:

mikeruurds

damien.m wrote:

...but shopping around makes no bloody difference when they're all clones of each other.

That's it exactly... they're all equally bad with price being the only difference between them. I can't speak for Eircom, but UTV and BT don't appear to care about the plight of the consumer after they've signed along the dotted line.

Lafortezza

When I was ordering my BT bb I tried to do the order over their website first. It seemed to go through fine. I rang a few days later to check and the guy said there was no record of my order. He asked if I did an online application, I said yes, and he replied "Yeah, the online thing doesn't really work, you're better off ringing up". Wtf is it there for then??

mikeruurds

lafortezza wrote:

When I was ordering my BT bb I tried to do the order over their website first. It seemed to go through fine. I rang a few days later to check and the guy said there was no record of my order. He asked if I did an online application, I said yes, and he replied "Yeah, the online thing doesn't really work, you're better off ringing up". Wtf is it there for then??

That's exactly what happened to me... luckily the first time you called they told you that the initial order was incomplete. I had to speak to 3 people before someone with a bit of cop-on realised that my order was screwed up. That little mess accounted for 3.5 weeks out of the 7 that I have waited so far :eek:

The first two characters I spoke to blamed it on Eircom

mikeruurds

Nice blog Lafortezza... obviously u were bitten by the poker bug :P

mikeruurds

Just had a call back from BT... they have promised to give me a go-live date before the end of the day.

We shall see...

As in Ruggiebear's case, my case is now also being escalated.

HALLELUJAH.... my status has changed from "None" to "In Progress"... not bad for 7 weeks waiting! One small step for mankind.. one giant leap for BT... or so it seems

.... Just received my second call of the day from BT. I have been assured that the order has gone through to Eircom and BT have given me the all clear.

Tony H

just got a call myself and am waiting for him to ring me back as well , was it a supervisor called kieran by any chance that u are dealing with?

mikeruurds

It was indeed Kieran :rolleyes: ...looks like BT are doing a little catching up on important tasks

I hope we both have a SPEEDY solution to our problem. Good luck Fitz.

Now all we need is for BT to call Ruggiebear

It's amazing how you have to kick up stink to get anything done nowadays.

curiosity

It's threads like this that scare the crap out of me. Bad enough waiting for bb in the first place, but those of us reasonably happy with what we have (UTV here) will be even less tempted to switch. Who wants to do without for weeks/months?

AdMMM

I've said it time and time again, people come onto boards.ie to complain about a service. So what you're seeing on boards.ie isn't an accurate representation of the sucessful orders placed everyday.

Judging by the OP's behaviour (similiar to that of mine when I ordered broadband last year), it was partially his fault. afaik, BT's system doesn't show up orders until they are processed. After all of the OP's phone calls I reckon about 10,000 orders were placed through for him all but one (the first) were rejected by Eircom who send Esat back an open-status error for that line which no-one was ever able to accurately explain to me during my hours of phone calls to them, but from what I gather, it basically means that there is already an order on that line! Therefore you are in the situation where Eircom aren't doing work on your line because they have sent back an open status message and BT see that open status message but don't have any record of the other orders they placed.

A quick email to the (then) CEO of EsatBT sorted it out in less than 24 hours, likewise a quick email to the CEO of Eircom there last week sorted out the terrible contention that my connection was experiencing for the last few weeks!

dub45

|.Murderer.| wrote:

I've said it time and time again, people come onto boards.ie to complain about a service. So what you're seeing on boards.ie isn't an accurate representation of the sucessful orders placed everyday.

Judging by the OP's behaviour (similiar to that of mine when I ordered broadband last year), it was partially his fault. afaik, BT's system doesn't show up orders until they are processed. After all of the OP's phone calls I reckon about 10,000 orders were placed through for him all but one (the first) were rejected by Eircom who send Esat back an open-status error for that line which no-one was ever able to accurately explain to me during my hours of phone calls to them, but from what I gather, it basically means that there is already an order on that line! Therefore you are in the situation where Eircom aren't doing work on your line because they have sent back an open status message and BT see that open status message but don't have any record of the other orders they placed.

A quick email to the (then) CEO of EsatBT sorted it out in less than 24 hours, likewise a quick email to the CEO of Eircom there last week sorted out the terrible contention that my connection was experiencing for the last few weeks!

It could equally be argued that boards isnt representative of the misery people suffer at the hands of isps. there are loads of people who are not clued in at all into the mysteries of bb (or even dont know about boards to post or to get information from) and getting signed up etc etc and who must put up with terrible crap. Surely it is an indictment of a company that people have to resort routinely to getting on the Chief executive to get even the most basic thing done?

Fallschirmjager

jeeze i was just about to BT web order this morning...maybe i need to do a bit more checking..


why is it always this way in ireland....maybe i will not cancel my existing account yet...

mikeruurds

|.Murderer.| wrote:

I've said it time and time again, people come onto boards.ie to complain about a service. So what you're seeing on boards.ie isn't an accurate representation of the sucessful orders placed everyday.

Judging by the OP's behaviour (similiar to that of mine when I ordered broadband last year), it was partially his fault. afaik, BT's system doesn't show up orders until they are processed. After all of the OP's phone calls I reckon about 10,000 orders were placed through for him all but one (the first) were rejected by Eircom who send Esat back an open-status error for that line which no-one was ever able to accurately explain to me during my hours of phone calls to them, but from what I gather, it basically means that there is already an order on that line! Therefore you are in the situation where Eircom aren't doing work on your line because they have sent back an open status message and BT see that open status message but don't have any record of the other orders they placed.

A quick email to the (then) CEO of EsatBT sorted it out in less than 24 hours, likewise a quick email to the CEO of Eircom there last week sorted out the terrible contention that my connection was experiencing for the last few weeks!

Not true... BT's online order system failed and then the order got tied up by bumbling BT staff. It took them from the 5th Aug to the 30th Aug to realise that their online ordering system lost half of my information and then 19 days after having all of my details they finally decided to ask me for a deposit. Your experience and mine are totally different. Eircom only heard about my order yesterday!

If their online ordering system had worked I might still have waited for three weeks after the 5th Aug to be asked for a deposit, but at least I would have bb now. I did not call in and make numerous orders... I queried the original order made on the 5th each time I called... each time the CSR looked at the initial order and told me everything was on track.

Eircom only received notice of line activation yesterday. So unfortunately this delay is totally BT's fault and I have full right to complain. They should have told me on the 8th of August that my online application had failed and also that I would have to pay a deposit. Then I would be a happy BT customer right now having had broadband for a month already.

Their systems need to be reviewed and amended to avoid this happening to anyone else in the future.

Naturally I am not saying that my experience is shared by every person that applies for a broadband connection from BT, but my case is an example of what can go wrong and highlights the weaknesses in BT's procedures and systems for setting up new customers.

If anything my case shows that to get a broadband conenction quickly you have to:
1. Call BT EVERY day... if something goes wrong they will not call you
2. If you are a tenant, expect to be asked for a deposit. The sooner you tackle this subject with the CSR, the sooner you will have your line
3. Don't assume that every CSR is equally skilled at their job. If you don't like what you're hearing, call back again and speak to someone else.

Call me a pessimist, but this could happen to you.

Dan Druff

Its sad to hear all this, its really incredibly busy in there lately, first with the rebranding change from Esat BT to BT, Online bills, Single billing, and the updated billing system. BT is a huge company but with a small base in Ireland, 800 staff vs 10,000 working for eircom.
The fact is, currently Ireland is being used as an experimental testing ground for the latest applications, and new processes, before they are rolled out to the rest of the BT family. However Customer Service problems like this shouldn't be happening, even with the huge Corporate customer base which seems to get preference. I know the Customer Service side of things is huge, there are always mails going around with the view "the customer comes first", so it is a pity to see negative occurances..they are the ones that usually get posted anyway as the frustration must be mighty. The perception is that isn't a lot money floating around the BT Irish operations at the moment (believe it or not), BT are pretty tight, and this can filter down to some of those staff members who obviously give less than 100%, shall we say.

parasite

your new applications/processes suck, surely the mails that go around only say "tell them it'll be two weeks" as that's all you'll hear

been waiting over ten weeks now >_<

gimmeh meh modem !!

dub45

Dan Druff wrote:

Its sad to hear all this, its really incredibly busy in there lately, first with the rebranding change from Esat BT to BT, Online bills, Single billing, and the updated billing system. BT is a huge company but with a small base in Ireland, 800 staff vs 10,000 working for eircom.
The fact is, currently Ireland is being used as an experimental testing ground for the latest applications, and new processes, before they are rolled out to the rest of the BT family. However Customer Service problems like this shouldn't be happening, even with the huge Corporate customer base which seems to get preference. I know the Customer Service side of things is huge, there are always mails going around with the view "the customer comes first", so it is a pity to see negative occurances..they are the ones that usually get posted anyway as the frustration must be mighty. The perception is that isn't a lot money floating around the BT Irish operations at the moment (believe it or not), BT are pretty tight, and this can filter down to some of those staff members who obviously give less than 100%, shall we say.

Updated billing system?????????????????????????? :eek: Is there a system to update????

I am not quite sure what point you are trying to make overal but (as a non customer admittedly except for a short period years ago) from reading the voluminous threads on here and talking to a few people who are customers it is clear that they have been lousy on theh accounts side for years and dont ever seem to have made any effort to sort it out so trialing new systems etc are no excuse for blatant incompetence.

It is extraordinary given the number of emails that have been sent to the Esat chief executive from boards members alone that someone has not copped on that there are serious accounting/billing problems that really need urgent attention. You say that money is tight yet they dont bill people for up to 12 months................... :rolleyes: and the cost of staff time in 'firefighting' must be enormous.

Another very common complaint on here is that orders are routinely lost? LOST???????????? that has got nothing to do with new systems surely. Money is tight and they have a system in place that loses orders and therefore money!!

And all I can say is God help the rest of the customers of the BT family when they extend these 'systems'

Dan Druff

Orders shouldn't get lost - the Siebel customer GUI has become more complicated recently due to the necessity to deal with eircom on an ongoing basis. There are still a lot of kinks to iron out. If there is a problem with existing orders they are meant to be dealt with by Order Operations but the fact is there is too much out-sourcing going on, and the team has dropped from a core on-site employee base, to a load of people who don't know what they are doing, and some who can't even speak English properly. :eek:
The simple nuts and bolts of the situation is, there is not enough staff, and BT are loathe to hire anyone on a permanent basis. We get someone in who is actually very good, and after 2 months its like "we can't get the finances to keep them on" and its back to dealing with the workload yourself, resulting in a permanent feeling of desperation throughout a lot of departments in the company, which can't be good for the consumer.
What would draw people to BT is the €23.44 (ex-vat) Broadband & Line Rental Discount, which should help a bit at curtailing Eircoms €39.96 (ex-vat) line rental, and those that are set up are happy enough. However I would hope those that are going through hell getting set up in the first place are compensated. I should think a miscellaneous credit of €100 would suffice..but its not very likely. These companies are instructed from above, and believe you me, BT Ireland takes its orders cap in hand, and runs with them..even to the detriment of the customers so it would seem.

Dan Druff

BTW let me explain the system.. a bit simplistic but anyway..

New customers are entered into a well known application called Siebel. An account number is generated.
After Credit vet etc. orders are added to these accounts e.g. Broadband. This is sent to billing application called Arbor (which is being updated).
Arbor is where the accounts are billed and invoice number is produced on 4 bill cycles - B08, B24, C08, C24.
(B=Jan, March, May, July, Sep, Nov. C = Feb, Apr, June, Aug, Oct, Dec)
If the customer ordered online then 3 basic applications are involved - The Portal (btireland.ie)- Siebel - Arbor. There are more, like Servcom, and SPS etc but those are the 3 main ones.
BT also must send requests to eircom for your account number, and they reply so that the Line Rental charge goes on the account (Single Billing).
All these are done using a number of APIs, and a reply from eircom can take time, which results a good few of the delays I have seen on this site.
During the bill run on the 8th or 24th of the month the account in Arbor is picked up, and a bill is generated based on the packages/traffic on the account, all pulled from a great number of indexed databases. Depending on what the customer has ordered discounts/payments/credits etc will be applied at this stage also.
The bill run has speeded up now in the last few weeks, so bills can be viewed by the 10th or 26th at the latest. Its a huge process.
The bill should then be viewable online or a paper bill can be requested.

FYI the order number is stored in Siebel..if this can't be found then the Customer Care person should be able to locate your Customer_ID, CLI or SITE_ID..they must be stupid if they can't locate your order, or else they must be inexperienced newcomers.

dub45

Dan Druff wrote:

Orders shouldn't get lost - the Siebel customer GUI has become more complicated recently due to the necessity to deal with eircom on an ongoing basis. There are still a lot of kinks to iron out. If there is a problem with existing orders they are meant to be dealt with by Order Operations but the fact is there is too much out-sourcing going on, and the team has dropped from a core on-site employee base, to a load of people who don't know what they are doing, and some who can't even speak English properly. :eek:
The simple nuts and bolts of the situation is, there is not enough staff, and BT are loathe to hire anyone on a permanent basis. We get someone in who is actually very good, and after 2 months its like "we can't get the finances to keep them on" and its back to dealing with the workload yourself, resulting in a permanent feeling of desperation throughout a lot of departments in the company, which can't be good for the consumer.
What would draw people to BT is the €23.44 (ex-vat) Broadband & Line Rental Discount, which should help a bit at curtailing Eircoms €41.32 (ex-vat) line rental, and those that are set up are happy enough. However I would hope those that are going through hell getting set up in the first place are compensated. I should think a miscellaneous credit of €100 would suffice..but its not very likely. These companies are instructed from above, and believe you me, BT Ireland takes its orders cap in hand, and runs with them..even to the detriment of the customers so it would seem.

All you are telling us in this post is that BT cut their costs as much as possible and the customer or potential customer (and the staff of course too)
suffer accordingly.

'Due the necessity to deal with Eircom on a daily basis' as an excuse? Don't all the resellers have to do that and hasn't that requirement been there since day one of dsl bb in Ireland?

Fantasising about BT 'compensating' customers does not add anything I am sorry to say. And orders to get lost pretty frequently to judge by posts on boards. And if you admit that a load of people do not know what they are doing doesnt that confirm what we are saying on boards on a regular basis? It also raises a lot of questions about BT's management!

zod

I'm currently waiting 9 weeks for my BB from EsatBT now. :mad:

I've been on to a girl in the complaints department in BT for the last two weeks every day. She says she doesn't know whats wrong with my order and she can't give me an eta for any progress.

I honestly don't know what to do now.

Comreg say that I must follow the complaints process of the operator.

So every day I call them and every day they say maybe soon. Should I give up ?? I thought there was not a worse company than Eircom but it seems BT are even more incompetant.

They've even overbilled me on my first phone bill on which I made exactly 0 calls have no BB and got charged €178

I'm at a loss .. is there some body above comreg that I can complain to??

Dan Druff

Originally posted by dub45
All you are telling us in this post is that BT cut their costs as much as possible and the customer or potential customer (and the staff of course too)
suffer accordingly. Fantasising about BT 'compensating' customers does not add anything I am sorry to say. And orders to get lost pretty frequently to judge by posts on boards. And if you admit that a load of people do not know what they are doing doesnt that confirm what we are saying on boards on a regular basis? It also raises a lot of questions about BT's management!

I'm not in management in the company, nowhere near it. I don't know everyone in the company either..I do know a lot of people who are really good workers..jesus if you knew the hours and the work people put in to sort technical problems out. I don't work in the customer care area or order operations, but have been around long enough to see the detrimental effects of cost cutting, and yes it raises questions about the management - bigtime!
The problems are managerial, and poor customer care training.

Sponge Bob

The biggest problem on the customer care side is that its impossible to get and retain good staff in Dublin . If they are any good they will get a job elsewhere.

The cust care and billing should have been moved out years ago , what happened to the plan to move to Castlebar (I think it was) in 2001

Automan

I was looking for a new connection with BT, was told that I would be connected in 3 days and another 2 weeks for broadband. Rang up after two weeks and they told me the application never went through and they would have to do it again.
Rang again the following week and same story so I kept ringing them for at least another 7 weeks and got many excuses application did not go through a few times, waiting on Eircom, Training problems in BT, and after waiting for 8 weeks to be connected was told again that the application did not go through that the application would have to be done from scratch so I asked for a supervisor, they would not let me talk to one so I asked for a team leader, they have no team leaders. They said they would escalate it to the supervisor, after waiting 4 days for the supervisor to ring back I rang them and canceled my application.

There customer service is crap, they don’t answer the phone with there name, you have to ask for it, they don’t have a clue what they are doing, they put you on hold and hang up on you, tell you they will ring back in 10mins and don’t bother to. They have no team leaders and the supervisors don’t bother to ring you back.

Sponge Bob

Nothing will ever improve as long as they stay in the middle of Dublin and recruit their staff there.

byte

Hmm, I had the exact same problems as OP, except I didn't wait that long, I just told them to stuff their service, and got Eircom Business Starter instead (higher cap and speed than Home Starter), it was all running in a week and half (that was lucky as it apparenlty should take 3 weeks).

It's about the only good thing I can say about Eircom, they didn't f about on getting my DSL enabled. Getting ISDN disabled at previous address however is a different kettle of fish!

I very much doubt if there is such thing as a FULLY competent ISP at least not in Ireland.

Tony H

hey mikeruurds i was told i am live at BT NOW
just waiting for the bt modem now