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

Sapele

Yes your right surveys, I'm sure there are lots of people who would like to share information but will be unable to because they won't know about your initiative. Bar reading through previous BT billing posts and PM'ing those who have told a similar story I don't know what can be done. Maybe Comreg would provide you with that information, or errrr maybe not.... :eek: You will soon have an email giving my account, so that will be two of us at the moment anyways

surveys

Maybe I could writer to the 'boss' :-) Doesnt Damien handle all this ? I seem to get a lot of emails from him. ? Perhaps he could then email all 'members' and tell them ? I would think there must a database of members somewhere ? I will send him an email and see what he thinks. "unless it should go to someone else" ?

dub45

I know it may sound a bit extreme but have you considered picketing Esat's HQ say for an hour some day and alert the newspapers in advance?

You could even write to Esat and tell them that unless you are sorted out within say 10 days a picket will take place.........

I dont know if anything can be done to get them to sort themselves out short of massive public embarassment:eek:

Sapele

lol you know dub45 that is a fantastic idea ...!! If I haven’t received my refund cheque for the stolen €563 by the end of the week I would love to do it

In actual fact, even if I do receive the cheque I'd still love to do it

surveys

As much as I would like to try I do not think ESAT will take any notice at all of 2 or 3 Guys standing outside their HQ ?? That kind of thing requires 100's to have any affect. I still believe going to the 'top' and waking him up about what is actually going on in 'his own subsidiary' is the most effective. ?
I can imagine what happens at ESAT when he does a periodic visit, presuming he has ever visited them ?, the big 'Red Carpet', the big 'Whitewash', The big 'three bags full sir' and jokes, and coffee and booze, but does he ever sit down and ask to see the files, to see the screens full of complaints, ?? The local CEO would steer him clear of anything 'unclean' and 'irregular'. I have seen it all in my own management days. He needs to be 'told' and to see with his own eyes from his 'customers' point of view what really goes on. To really know what a company is like you have to be at the 'sharp end', the 'consumer' end. This is what a company survives on or perishes on. - 'Its customers'.
Anyway i have written to Damien to ask if a circularised email can be sent to all members to ask 'who' wants to join, and who will supply documentation. As soon as I get his answer I will post it here.

babdub

The odd thing with BT is that they seem to be perfectly fine with being ****e... As one of the CS reps said "...well, we have a lot of unhappy customers and a lot of happy customers..." Hey - let's keep all the unhappy ones!!

As many of you, I have also had a really bad experience with BT (not over yet!!). It's currently with comreg and I'm waiting for a refund. I'm not sure what kind of power comreg has - does a complaint filed through them matter in the BT world at all? Seems like they're not that concerned... Even after the complaint, BT still managed to add some more mistakes to the "saga" - and I thought I was home free when canceling the account in January (didn't realize that getting the deposit back would be such a pain)!

I think I will miss the frustrating calls to BT CS - I mean they're friendly and all - just full of crap... the empty promises, that ticking clock, the waiting...the waiting... and the waiting...

Well that's enough ranting for now.

PS. If BT happens to read this thread - I'm happy with NTL now thank you very much

Sapele

I got an email last Friday telling me my refund cheque had been posted from BT. It's now Wednesday and their is no sign of it (what a surprise). I've replied to the girl from Customer Complaints who sent me the email but have not got a response back yet (what another surprise). Trying to actually talk to someone from Complaints is like trying to talk to the woman on the moon except a bit harder. I'm thinking I need to make someone else aware of this again as the process has once again stalled.

Could anyone give me the name or names of someone senior in BTIreland who have been helpful (by BT's low standards) in the past. I've read about Bill Murphy and a Pat McCabe on these boards, has anyone had any luck with either of those two trying to sort a problem out?

Here we go again around and around on the bT billing merry-go-round, except there’s nothing merry about it at all :eek:

Sapele

Update: My BT refund has arrived ... !! It turns out I can blame BT for everything except a delay in our postal system :eek:

Well after having made this payment last August (05) and making my way through their customer care, billing, customer complaints, billing, customer complaints, customer care ..... it's finally over. The missing payment has been found and the charge on my credit card returned to me in the form of a cheque. Next Thursday (i'm paid up to use the service till then) I will be finally free of that dispicable organisation. But I'll be watching my online bank balance like a hawk just in case they come back from the grave to haunt me, and attempt to put through a cancelled direct debit as a first payment and so fooling the bank. If that happens I think I'll literally hit the roof ..!

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice on the boards, you've been a big help. I am now a committed opponent of esatBT until they sort out their customer care and billing (even then I still won't like them). That's what one prolonged bad experience can do. Any decent company would have sorted this problem out in days not months, one or two phone calls not twenty plus calls and the same or more emails. They are a disgrace. People thinking about giving esatBT access to their hard earned cash deserve to be forewarned that things can go wrong, so I'll be hanging around these and other boards doing just that

surveys

Well done Paul. At long last, and horrendously overdue, but at least you finally have your money. You are right of course, it should have taken days not months and months. ! Maybe when the 'dossier' gets to his 'lordship' they may even offer some compensation. ! If they did I personally would refuse, just on principle. !:) "Stick their money, etc.etc"

surveys

The 'dossier' is going off this week to London. Probably about 40 pages. (not including my own file, which is much too large) Any last minute additions. ??? If anyone has anything please post soonest.. Thanks.

Sapele

Great job with the dossier, one more piece of ammunition in the battle against rip off companies ....

surveys

Correction. ! The final figure is 89 pages. Anyone care to add one more to round it off to 90. ? :rolleyes:

(The 'dossier' is going off this week to London. Probably about 40 pages. (not including my own file, which is much too large) Any last minute additions. ??? If anyone has anything please post soonest.. Thanks.)

surveys

I have today made a claim with the Small Claims court for my latest D/Debit fiasco with ESATBT. The dossier also went to London today. I will post a message back here, and on other Threads if and when I receive any response.
"Keep kicking them" !!

surveys

My apologies for not getting back here to bring this thing uptodate. The 'dossier' the 'bank' and 'Esat' took up so much time that I got behind on work. Plus the PC and internet went 'bust' . ! Anyway the net result is "NIL". Complete silence from everybody. BT London (A.Green) no reply, not even an acknowledgement. My own bank who paid Esat the money, 'silence'. EsatBT ? Of course 'silence'. Even the Small Claims Court rejected my claim. ! They said they only handle "Product & Services disputes" !!! :mad: So, thats it, nothing at all to report. Have been thinking about it a great deal, of course, and I am filing a complaint with the Financial Services Regulator today about my own bank. Also sending a complaint to IRECC (Irish Retail Electronic Payments Clearing Company) ! 'Phew'. Could they not have thought of a smaller name ?
Some have suggested going to the Media. Another suggested all the way to Europe. ? Anyone have any ideas ?

Sponge Bob

It would maybe be an idea to contact the Consumers Association of Ireland and hand over the entire dossier to them together with names and email addresses in BT

They would have questions for BT with whom they are in contact together with Comreg and the banks . It is an unholy lack of regulation that allows BT to carry on like this.

start here

http://www.consumerassociation.ie/press080206.html

dub45

I hate to go off topic but its also the whole direct debit/electronic payment system - in reality there is absolutely no sanction open to a customer against a company who abuses it.:rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

thats why the Consumers Assocation may take this separate strand up with the Financial Regulator .

A DD is surely not intended to function as an invitation to continual financial rape . Ultimately there are chargeback sanctions for Credit Card merchants so why not for DD merchants who keep putting false DD's through.

I have long advocated sending the Garda Fraud squad into BT simply because there is a prima facie case against them as fraudsters

surveys

I did this once before (complain to the CA) but they said they do not have any complaints proceedure and cannot act on consumers behalf ! ""Why are they in existance if they cannot do anything useful"". ?? Anyway, went to their web site just now and its all about "how to complain" to the RETAILER, not to the CA !! Also "know your rights". ! A useless web site if ever I saw one. ! Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

thats why the Consumers Assocation may take this separate strand up with the Financial Regulator .

A DD is surely not intended to function as an invitation to continual financial rape . Ultimately there are chargeback sanctions for Credit Card merchants so why not for DD merchants who keep putting false DD's through.

I have long advocated sending the Garda Fraud squad into BT simply because there is a prima facie case against them as fraudsters :(

Agree totally on this point.

What is badly needed is some central authority that the consumer can complain to in respect of electronic payments as in a complaint that must be investigated.

At the moment they can do what they bloodywell like without any fear of sanction - for instance theres a post on here somewhere in the last day or so where UTV claimed to a customer that they did not know how much notice had to be given to a customer in respect of a direct debit:rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

dub45 wrote:

Agree totally on this point.
What is badly needed is some central authority that the consumer can complain to in respect of electronic payments as in a complaint that must be investigated.

There IS one, its called IFSRA and it wants to be the new Comreg.... useless and uncaring in other words.

At the moment they can do what they bloodywell like without any fear of sanction - for instance theres a post on here somewhere in the last day or so where UTV claimed to a customer that they did not know how much notice had to be given to a customer in respect of a direct debit:rolleyes:

Once your systems fail repeatedly , and you fail to fix them , then you are systemically committing fraud because you simply do not care about taking other peoples money .

Thats why we have a fraud squad in the Gardai, to investigate all manner of fraud no matter how it is committed .....even through the DD system for example.

surveys

Quote - Also sending a complaint to IRECC (Irish Retail Electronic Payments Clearing Company) ! 'Phew'. Could they not have thought of a smaller name ? -Unquote
This is why I included this in my message. This appears to be the place who handle all the regulations regarding DD's. Have a look at their site, and read their documents.
http://www.ipso.ie/frames/IrishPaymentServicesOrganisation.htm
From the wording in their Doc's there appear to be fairly strict rules applying to 'financial services' and in particular to DD's. From what they have said we do have a place to complain, so I have emailed them today and asked for full information on making a complaint. Will post their reply.

dub45

surveys wrote:

Quote - Also sending a complaint to IRECC (Irish Retail Electronic Payments Clearing Company) ! 'Phew'. Could they not have thought of a smaller name ? -Unquote
This is why I included this in my message. This appears to be the place who handle all the regulations regarding DD's. Have a look at their site, and read their documents.
http://www.ipso.ie/frames/IrishPaymentServicesOrganisation.htm
From the wording in their Doc's there appear to be fairly strict rules applying to 'financial services' and in particular to DD's. From what they have said we do have a place to complain, so I have emailed them today and asked for full information on making a complaint. Will post their reply.

That crowd handle the regulations but you will note the complete absence of any complaints procedure or even contact nos. There are so many other issues in connection to this whole direct debit business - for instance there is no mention as far as I could see as to the storage of information. Who has direct access to customer information (I know everybody!!! in the company) is there any security whatsover in relations to the thousands of accounts for which information is held in any company and as for this recent business of signing up for a dd over the phone:eek:

I notice that there is some responsibility for the behaviour of a company put on the 'sponsoring bank' but how does anyone find out who Esat's sponsoring bank is? I have found that bank branch staff are not very informed at all on direct debits so I cannot imagine too many of them being aware of 'a sponsoring bank'.:rolleyes:

dkc

In fairness to BT, I am now very happy with the service that I receive. Especially as they upgraded me to the 3mb package a few months ago. The line has never dropped on me and I have no problems with the modem. Latency in games is also very manageable, sometimes even better than our European neighbours with their much faster connections.

However, it is hard to balance that with the woefully poor customer service and sales/technical systems and processes that they use. Like so many others, I had to endure 11 weeks of delays and excuses from BT, but only after I rang them up to find out the progress. I think they rang me once during those 11 weeks. Their excuses ranged from 'technical difficulties' to 'the person handling your case is on holidays' to 'you need to get eircom to provide a reference number for your line' (even though by then BT owned the line), etc. But at least they never asked me for a deposit.

A further difficulty has been their billing. The first 3 bills were wrong... way wrong. They overcharged me €120 in the first one. A combination of getting the connection date wrong, charging me full line rental instead of the reduced €10 and not giving me my discount for online billing. Regarding this last one, good luck to you trying to find a reference to this on their website any more, but when I signed up they were offering a fiver off per month for online bills. I am now on the 4th bill and I think they have finally sorted it all out... for now.

And of course, I am not looking forward to disconnecting with them as I know from past experience (I had line rental with them 2 years ago) that they will continue to send bills to me after disconnection, probably even going as far as to threaten legal action and solicitor's letters again. Happy days.

In summary: great when you have it but an administrative nightmare getting it and leaving it.

Keep records of your important dates, promises made, people spoken to, special offers, all that stuff... you'll need them!

surveys

I visisted the Garda. ! I have seen several posts where people say thats its a case of Fraud, so I went to make a 'fraud' complaint. The Garda (local guys) were very good and listened to everything, and then promised to call the bank. They rang me latter having spoken to the bank and the bank refuted all claims of negligence, wrongdoing, etc, and even said its nothing to do with the bank. !!!!
They did admit that a letter was going out to me today, but the Garda reckon that was only said to placate them. ! A letter will obviously now be sent, but only as a result of the Garda telephone call. ! The Garda say that they helped but that it is actually a 'civil' case. ! NOT a criminal case. ! i.e; ESAT supplied me a service for which I was duly liable to pay, etc. etc. The fact that they took an unauthorised DD from my account is not 'Fraud' but a civil case for maybe, 'negligence' , or some other wording. ! so, thats it. For anyone contemplating a claim for 'fraud' - forget it. ! I only got as much as I got because they are local Guys and obviously wanted to help. !
Back to the 'drawing board'. !:mad:

surveys

Following my last post I received a call from my bank, only 2 hours after they received the call from the Garda offering me a full refund of the entire amount of the Debit by early tomorrow morning. !!! Need I say more. ??? It all speaks for itself. ! I would just like to add that the total difference in the Bank's approach to me was amazing and the treatment I 'should' have received this past 2 months, as a long time customer of the bank was put into immediate effect, but only after a call from the Garda.::(

RuggieBear

fair play to you.

dub45

surveys wrote:

Following my last post I received a call from my bank, only 2 hours after they received the call from the Garda offering me a full refund of the entire amount of the Debit by early tomorrow morning. !!! Need I say more. ??? It all speaks for itself. ! I would just like to add that the total difference in the Bank's approach to me was amazing and the treatment I 'should' have received this past 2 months, as a long time customer of the bank was put into immediate effect, but only after a call from the Garda.::(

This might be an opportune time to ask your bank who the sponsoring bank is under the scheme for EsatBT - according to the scheme the sponsoring bank has a responsibility for the behaviour of the company - people could then get onto the bank with their complaints - also a good time to ask your bank if they will be pursuing BT's behaviour with anybody!

dont forget to thank your local guards - theres plent of them would not have taken the time and trouble!!:)

dub45

dkc wrote:

In fairness to BT, I am now very happy with the service that I receive. Especially as they upgraded me to the 3mb package a few months
................................
Keep records of your important dates, promises made, people spoken to, special offers, all that stuff... you'll need them!

How you can use the word 'fairness' at the beginning of an account of such mindboggling incompetence is beyond me and how you can be happy with the service of such a company when you have to minutely examine your bill every month and as you say keep records etc etc etc Pyramind schemes have more integrity!

Sponge Bob

surveys wrote:

The Garda say that they helped but that it is actually a 'civil' case. ! NOT a criminal case. !

locally yes they are correct , thats why the fraud squad is a specialist unit in Dublin.

Back to the 'drawing board'. !:mad:

find out about this sponsoring bank or branch or regional office.

surveys

I will look into this sponsoring bank business. Might take a while but I will keep plugging and find out who is the sponsor for Esat. Anyway this was all my personal problem with Esat and my own bank, the overall problem with Esat for everyone still remains, and that dossier to London is still unacknowledged. ! I think I might try telephoning him tomorrow, unless anyone has any other good ideas. ?