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

Tony H

fitzdragon wrote:

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

IT WAS ALL A BIG FAT LIE
bt told me i was live on bt and i was still with eircom , i did not discover this until eircom sent me a broadband bill and i queried this ,
bt continued to tell me i was their customer for another week and days and countless hours of phone calls later admitted i was still with eircom
after 3 more weeks attempting to get bt broadband to set up broadband and not even being able to give me a go live date i finall gave up and cancelled all my bt orders (bt broadband plus and line rental ) and returned to eircom , i had my broadband back in 7 days and a two meg connection for 42 euros . After reading all the horror stories about bt billing i went and cancelled the orignal direct i set up in mid august for bt.
Today i checked my bank and BT HAD STOLEN 120 from me .im still waiting to hear back from my bank on my options for getting the stolen money back
The moral of this story is if you cancel an account with bt after setting up a direct debit . CLOSE THAT BANK ACCOUNT ON THE SAME DAY

mikeruurds

b@stards...

Wertz

I still thank myself that I never gave these morons direct access to my current account...I can only deduce that their inability to debit my CC bimonthly was some sort of effort to have me change over to direct debit; at least I still controlo when and if I pay them.

BTW to whoever above suggested getting on to a manager, I tried that a day or two after I posted in this thread, was assured the matter was cleared up this time...but since checking my bill and calling their billing dept again a few days later, no action at all had been taken on the account and their system apparently showed NO escalation level on my CS ticket.
No-one seems to be at the helm of the good ship BT Ireland...the sooner someone wakes the captain the better.

dub45

fitzdragon wrote:

IT WAS ALL A BIG FAT LIE
bt told me i was live on bt and i was still with eircom , i did not discover this until eircom sent me a broadband bill and i queried this ,
bt continued to tell me i was their customer for another week and days and countless hours of phone calls later admitted i was still with eircom
after 3 more weeks attempting to get bt broadband to set up broadband and not even being able to give me a go live date i finall gave up and cancelled all my bt orders (bt broadband plus and line rental ) and returned to eircom , i had my broadband back in 7 days and a two meg connection for 42 euros . After reading all the horror stories about bt billing i went and cancelled the orignal direct i set up in mid august for bt.
Today i checked my bank and BT HAD STOLEN 120 from me .im still waiting to hear back from my bank on my options for getting the stolen money back
The moral of this story is if you cancel an account with bt after setting up a direct debit . CLOSE THAT BANK ACCOUNT ON THE SAME DAY

It is appalling that there appears to be no sanction available against Companies who abuse the dd or credit card system so they have no incentive to behave properly:( If you cancelled your direct debit what explanation have your bank giving you for allowing BT to steal money from your account? Why not report this incident to the gardai?

Tony H

problem solved , Bank of Ireland pulled back the money from bt

Sapele

I too have BT billing problems, actually i'm right in the middle of it now, with no resolution in sight :mad:

For a number of years i have been a Broadband customer of BTIreland. Last August I received a phone call from BT billing informing me that my account was in deficit to the tune of €563.44. Apparently a problem had developed with my Direct Debit with I had set up and was paying with BT. For over a year BT had not been taking payments for the Broadband service out of my account. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed that the payments were not going out of my account, but once I investigated I found that they were correct, I did actually owe them the €563. That was fine; I have no problems paying my bills. I rang BT billing and gave the operator my credit card details and he told me, that’s great, your account is now clear. The payment went through on my credit card early September.

At this point I forgot about BT until I applied for their online billing option in early October, about a month and a half after I paid the bill by credit card. When I logged onto BT's site and viewed my online bill, I noticed that the €563 was still down as owing on my account. I immediately contacted BT billing, who said they would have to initiate a payment trace to find the payment, as they had no record of it. I provided BT with details of the credit card payment, my card type/bank and the date and reference number of the transaction. They told me they have all the information they need. This payment trace is down on BT's system as having begun in mid October '05. I was told I would be informed when it was finished.

Over the next few month's I contacted BT regularly to see if they had found the missing payment. On each occasion I was told that the case was high priority and somebody would ring me back very shortly. They never did. In actual fact, they took the payment out of my account via Direct Debit again on the 13th of February '06. So, to clarify, I made the payment of €563 in August '05, this payment was not applied to my account with BT and by the start of February '06 this bill had risen to €818, which includes the €563 which I had already paid by credit card, and the rest is made up of the legitimate broadband bill for the months between August '05 and February '06.

At this point one of BT's operators suggested to me that I contact BT's complaints department, because the credit trace was just not being done. On the 15th February '06 I emailed off to complaints@btireland.com . I received a reply telling me my complaint has been logged, an investigation will take place and that I will be informed. In the email im also told that if I require any information on the case to ring a number listed in the email. However, the number is constantly on voicemail :mad: I have rang BT's 1904 number several times trying to speak to anyone from Residential customer complaints, but was unable to speak to anyone. I forgot to mention earlier I was promised a managers call back twice on the lost payment issue, but no-one ever called me back. One of BT's customer service operators actually hung up the phone on me and was extremely rude.

BT's customer service is disgraceful. I am unable to talk to a person who can sort the mess out. BT is not returning my calls and I am ringing BT's 1904 number and then being put on hold by an operator who checks if their is someone available to deal with the call and then being told their is no one available. Obviously I have cancelled my Direct Debit with BT with my bank. However, AIB tell me that in six months BT may still be able to take money out of my account again. To me that sounds incredible, surely if I don’t want somebody to take money out of my account by Direct Debit they simply they can't do that.

I long for the day when I’m rid of BT for good. I have literally made 20 phone calls to them (and the same amount of emails). If I see anything with a BT logo on it I will run a mile (no joke here).

I get the feeling that this is well-oiled machine BT have and the machine is definitely not customer focused. BT does this because they can get away with it. What's to stop them?

Peace and stay strong, ima gona keep ringing and ringing, and if I don't get the money back, call the Garda in .....

dub45

That is truly appalling but unfortunately hardly surprising!!!!!!!!

The consumers association of ireland are now interested in broadband companies and how customers are treated so might be worth contacting them. http://www.consumerassociation.ie/

Couple of other suggestions:

I would demand to speak to someone at a reasonably senior level in my bank and tell them you are far from happy with Esat and want advice and action from the bank. Remind them of the bank's obligations under the direct debit scheme. Contact ipso see www.ipso.ie and ask them for advice have a look at these parts of their site:

http://www.ipso.ie/frames/documents/PayersGuide.pdf

http://www.ipso.ie/frames/documents/OriginatorsDay-to-Dayfinal_001.pdf

I would send a copy of your post by registered post to the Chief Executive of Esat and tell him that you regard Esat's actions as theft that unless your payment and appropriate interest is returned within the week together witha fulsome apology and a full explanation of why you have been treated this way you will refer the matter to the small claims court and the gardai.http://oasis.gov.ie/justice/small_claims_court/small_claims_court.html

Other posters here have reported excellent results there. the fact is that Esat have stolen money from you and are not responding in any sort of reasonable manner to put it mildly. (Did they advise you in advance of the direct debit which included the double payment of the amount outstanding?)

Anarchist

I would just take all my money out the bank account and open a new one, I have done this b4.

dub45

Anarchist wrote:

I would just take all my money out the bank account and open a new one, I have done this b4.

that's not going to get the money back though is it?

din0saur

Sapele wrote:

I too have BT billing problems, actually i'm right in the middle of it now, with no resolution in sight

Maybe get in touch with Conor Pope who does that consumer price watch thing for the Irish Times and now recently on TodayFM. He recently sorted out some listener's issue with a mobile phone company requiring written notice despite the fact that 2 consumer rep's mentioned no such thing when explicitly asked.. I'd say get this into the mainstream media..

Sapele

Thanks for the good advice dub45, I never thought about the registered letter to the chief executive, but ill certainly do that. They never advised me about anything, they knew there was a dispute about a missing payment but they still went ahead with the DD anyway....

What I dont fully understand is that they ring me telling me my direct debits were not going through (bank now tells me the DD was always active), i pay by credit card, then they take the money out a few months later by DD, sounds to me like the old one two sucker punch ....

There appalling full stop ... ill post any updates with the problems

Edit: good idea 2 dinosaur

IT Loser

I had a similar problem to that mooted by y'all

Tried to sign up to Talk Plus.....and failed. The Application was "In Progress" for 1 month....with no sign of qualification, so I rang them.

Their excuse: I had selected "OTHER" from the list of options under the domicile heading. Their rep agreed that there should be more divisions

[as it is I think its "owner" "tenant" or "other"...pick "other" and you get shafted. Convey the premises into your name and hey its all good...]

Finally got it all sorted and an application for Talk Plus, Line Rental and 3Meg BB is on the way, guy told me to just ring him in 2 weeks to nail it down.

K-Fella

Glad to see I'm not the only one having these kind of problems with BT.

It took over 4 months to get my service setup. I have 2 lines and they originally put bb on the wrong line.

Since having it setup (on the correct line), I've received 3 bills with extra hidden charges (€180, €145, €115 - when it should be €80).

For the last 2 weeks my connection has been dropping because of upgrades. Apparently my line (which is only 10 years old; if even) is incompatable with the upgrades. I'm still waiting for the line to be downgraded.

I originally wanted to go with Smart Telecom but my local exchange hasn't been setup by them yet. I'm seriously considering leaving BT, but I expect that to cause me more headaches... sheesh.

In closing..... BT are a useless, hopeless bunch of eejits that can't get anything right!

Sapele

In closing..... BT are a useless, hopeless bunch of eejits that can't get anything right!

Yes they are, there is no doubt they are a body of knuckleheads, if something goes wrong with your BT billing (it happens a lot) get ready for a major HEADACHE, my advice give them a wide birth, a VERY wide birth, once they have your money they don't care, honestly they really don't....

philologos

I think BT have managed to sort a lot out lately though, I find their customer service is a lot better now

dub45

Jakkass wrote:

I think BT have managed to sort a lot out lately though, I find their customer service is a lot better now

In view of the posts above and the most recent threads where bt seem to admit that they have got this month's bill wrong (yet again!) perhaps you could tell us exactly what you mean by 'sort out a lot lately' and what firm evidence you are basing this on?

Wertz

For the last 2 weeks my connection has been dropping because of upgrades. Apparently my line (which is only 10 years old; if even) is incompatable with the upgrades. I'm still waiting for the line to be downgraded.

Ditto. 3 mails to CS, several unanswered calls to the robot at 1904....seemingly no caring that their flagship domestic product simply doesn't work. Seems when I try and log a fualt with their online system, the system tells me I have NO services with BT that I can log a fault for (WTF?)....they're not shy about billing me for those "non-existant" services every two months though...
Trying to get a downgrade myself, but since that (eventually) means a cut in the price I pay, they don't seem bothered about getting back on to me.

Why did they go ahead and push an upgrade onto users whose lines were already on the outer limits of operability?

Sponge Bob

Wertz wrote:

Ditto. 3 mails to CS, several unanswered calls to the robot at 1904....seemingly no caring that their flagship domestic product simply doesn't work.

The Consumers Association are currently on the case of BT , see this story on ENN yesterday

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9671650

Were one inclined one could use the communications channel thats evidently opened between the Consumers Association and BT in recent weeks to progress the resolution your case deserves.

CC to info@comreg.ie but ensure that you tell Comreg the Consumer Association is getting it or Comreg will do nothing as usual .

The upgrades that were not upgrades are eircoms fault but the billing sure ain't

30 new BT customer service droids with no training and no billing system will last until Easter and then piss off sharpish like so many 1000s (literally) of their predecessors in ESAT BT have done .

Comreg is aware of BT billing since 1997

Wertz

Thx for the tip....looks like I'll have to try this route as well, since I can't get any sort of response from normal channels let alone a resolution.

49 connetion drops since logging on at 11 this morning...those don't include synch loss of which I 'd say there's been twice that again...

surveys

Don't ever sign an ESATBT direct debit. ! If anyone reads this and is thinking of doing it - don't. ! I have a 4" thick file on my problems with Esat. I would not know where to start, or to end, when trying to explain to you guys about my problems. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, and in the process I have written to MD's CEO's and even got Comreg to accept my complaint and send an official complaint to ESAT. I recently went through the saga of not receiving ten (10) online bills for part of 2004 and the whole of 2005. ! They ended up admitting it was their fault, and then sent me a bill for €850 !! I refused to pay it, of course, and eventually ended up with an agreement with "Credit Control" to pay off a certain amount each month. I made two monthly payments then suddenly "boom" another direct debit amounting to €886 was debited to my bank account. ! This was partly the banks fault as I had naturally instructed them NEVER to pay anything to ESAT. This latest incident is only the tip of the iceberg, my problems go way back right to my first day of signing up in 2003, and are very similar to some of the posts I have read here, only 10 times worse. I have recently obtained the name and address of the Director who handles "European Operations" in London, and am considering writing to him, and sending him the whole 4" thick file. I would have left ESAT a long time ago, but to go where ?? Eircom ? They are as bad, if not worse. ! I recently had a visit from an Eircom sales Rep wanting to take my business back, but I am afraid to do so as I also have a 3" thick file of complaints about them, which I had to endure before signing up with ESAT. I have to admit that my broadband connection with ESAT is superb. I have no 'technical' problems at all, as I have an average connection speed of 700 KBSec, which I think must be very good, but the billing and administration is, and has been, a really awful nightmare. !
I would suggest that if anyone is forced to sign a D/Debit in order to sign for the ESAT service, that they cancel it with the bank after the first month. ! If not then ESAT will just charge whatever they like, whenever they like. !
Does anyone have any ideas about a good broadband company to join ??

Sponge Bob

700Kb a sec is like a 5 Mbits connection.

Smart will do you 6Mbits for €65 incl vat
Magnet do something around that , maybe even up to 8Mbits for ???
Digiwebs heavy user ADSL packages are supposed to be good value for 5Mbits against eircom prices
NTL may have 5Mbits soon for around the Smart price.

depends where you are, most of the country can only get the Digiweb one but they are all in Galway and Dublin cities.

surveys

Thanks Bob. I'm in Dundalk, and have tried a company who have wireless b/band but my area is down by the sea and cannot get 'line of sight'.
I find this speed business a bit complicated. ! My connection says it is connected at 100MBPS. ? I recently did an internet test and it reported back that my speed was 2.2MBPS. ? I know there is a difference in 'bits' and 'bytes' and there are 8 bits in one byte, but is 2.2 MBPS in Bits or Bytes ?
Incidently I have noted MANY posts on the whole site about complaints to ESAT and terrible billing and terrible administration, would anybody else like to send me their files and I will include them in my submission to the Director in London ? Why don't we all get together and parcel up all our files and send him the lot ?? "Seriously". ! It seems to me that ESATBT in Dublin have to be bypassed and that nothing will get better until BT HQ in England is alerted and told exactly what is going on ? Lastly, I am new to this 'forum' and 'thread' business, so how does one keep track of a thread like this one so that one can return to see new postings ? 'Bookmark' it ?

RuggieBear

surveys wrote:

Lastly, I am new to this 'forum' and 'thread' business, so how does one keep track of a thread like this one so that one can return to see new postings ? 'Bookmark' it ?

withi your user control panel you can set it to subscribe to anything you post on. Alternatively, you should see thread tools at the top of each thread...in there is a link to subscribe to this thread

Sponge Bob

Digiweb are the only national DSL operator based outside Dublin , in Dundalk as it happens , so you can always drop in if a billing issue gets out of hand.

They are as competitive as BT in the high end home DSL and the business DSL packages , typically 3-5 mbits rather than 2.2 mbits

You can transfer from one to t'other with minimal downtime once you find someone in BT who understands Biotstream Port Transfer forms aka BTS forms

Sapele

surveys, that problem you describe sounds very similar to the one I had (have). In my case DD's were also not taken for over a year, a bill had built up which I paid off by credit card, then the money was mysteriously also taken from my account by DD. Therefore I ended up paying the bill twice. I'm still waiting for the money to be returned to me. esatBT's abuse of the DD system once again. I don’t have a file as such, just what I have wrote on boards such as this one ..... and my email to comreg

If you are sending off something to the "big guy" in London, I could forward the email I sent to Comreg to you, detailing what happened to me. However it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we found out they were the exact same over there as they are here... complete knuckleheads :eek:

Sponge Bob

Sapele wrote:

If you are sending off something to the "big guy" in London

The Big Guy may be interested in having a look at his companies dedicated billing interface in Ireland too while he is on the case

rogue-entity

I am probably the only one here that had a good experience with BT's CSD.

I signed up on the internet, gave in all the needed details. It said on the site that it could take up to 4 weeks, so I waited patiently. Two days later I called to confirm the order. The lady that answered the phone told me that they were missing some of my details. I just thought, well, noone is perfect, so I gave her my bank account number again. She told me that I should have the modem on the 24th (last october).

I thought, excellent, all I need to do is wait. I got the modem a week early. I connected it up and found that it was not working. It had synced but BT neglected to tell me that I had to add "@btbb" to the username. I did that and it worked. I have never had a single problem since.

And I have always connected at the full possible speed (1024/128 and 2048/256 after the upgrade) unlike what you get with eircom.

All in all asside from issues with there CSD there service is well worth the money compared to €ircon.

surveys

Thanks Guys. 'Sapele' seems to have had the exact same problem as me, except that he paid them by c/card but I refused, on principle as well as financially. !
As I sat in my office over the past year or so getting so upset with Esat, I always felt "if its happening to me, its happening to others" and now that I am on this site it appears that is some cases users got an even worse deal than me. ! I have always been a believer in that old expression "the people have the power" and the truth of this can be seen all over the world, so I think its time that the 'people' got together and boycotted Esat. ? Bob kindly sent me to Adam's web page which explained more, and when I went to "TelcoWatch" I was amazed at the number of complaints. Apart from 'rogue-entity' :-) it seems like everybody has had, and is having serious problems with Esat. !
Incidently, having seen TelcoWatch I think perhaps we should be on that thread and not on this. ? If I go to that Thread and post on it the things I have posted here will I be violating any of the 'rules' ?
It also seems like Esat must be reading these forums and posts, in which case why is the message (messages ) not getting home to them. ? Are they totally incapable of doing anything about it ?
Thanks 'sapele' for your offer, I think I will accept. How does one pass on our email addresses or postal addresses on these forums ?
I went to digiweb Bob, and was amazed at the great offers I found. Thanks for the info. I just need to ask them about the system of transferring from Esat, and then I will move over. No doubt Esat will refuse and cause more problems and won't allow the transfer over to Digiweb, but I will have to tackle that when and if it arises.
I noticed digiweb are also not just in the North East but also in Dublin and some other significant cities/towns, so there is an opportunity there for all those disgusted Esat users to switch over. ?
With regard to his 'lordship' in London I am currently collecting as much info as I can, and printing all of it so as to send to him, and I will also include the links to all these forums and any other links such as "his companies dedicated" etc.etc.
Just for interest I would add that the latest news I have is that Esat 'customer services' knows nothing about agreements made with 'credit control department'. ! Thats what I was told yesterday. ! The guy in customer services actually said to me "credit control should tell us about any agreements they make so that we will not keep billing customers that have an agreement with credit control" !!!!! :rolleyes: Can you imagine that. ? One major department doesn't know what the other is doing. !!
Does nobody in Esat ever get any training ? Do they just throw people into jobs without any training at all ?
""Lets humble Esat, once and for all".

Sapele

surveys, perhaps the best way would be to use the sites private messages. If you for example click on my name to the left of the one of my posts, option 2 is to send me a private message. When I log onto the site, at the top right of the screen where I’m welcomed, I can then see if someone has sent me a private message. In this case it could be you with your email address. If your intention is to try to get as many esatBT billing disaster cases and send them to the big director guy you might be better off making an email address public so people could send you info if they wished. I'm not sure if you want to do that, or send him a few examples of esatBT's out of control runaway billing dept, which could be done over private massages.

If you decide to go ahead with it, you can certainly have my story to add to your file, so drop me a PM (private message) with your email address and I’ll email you off my headache, oh I mean BT story ... :eek:

surveys

Thanks Sapele. I am new here so I have not yet learned all the 'ropes' My email is: surveys@iol.ie for anyone wishing to send me their 'headaches' :rolleyes: (I hope I dont get spammed). !! Thanks for explaining about private messages. too. Bob sent me one so I am now aware it exists, but I was not sure how to send one to somebody else. I presume there are loads of 'instruction' pages, about using the forum. ? I suppose I should go looking for them. Incidently what about Guys (and gals) who might not be reading this thread. Maybe some of them might want to contribute, to the 'dossier' for his lordship in London, but will not know about it unless they read this thread. ?