BT

I am reviewing a very disappointing episode concerning BT Customer Services. To be clear I am not reviewing or complaining about the Customer Services operative I spoke with, he was doing his best to be helpful, I am complaining about the quality of the call.

I rang from a BT mobile, the background noise at the call centre was such that it was like trying to shout over a crowd. To make things worse, for some reason (not the fault of the Customer Services operator) the line faded away to inaudibility. Both myself and BT's member of staff had to shout to be heard. This meant that things needed to be repeated numerous times and it was an altogether unpleasant experience.

Added to the above the BT operative is clearly required to try and sell me a better/longer/more expensive contract. Why on earth would I sign up to that when the current line is not up to a basic useable standard?

BT, you must do better, much better in this area.

I have tried FIVE TIMES to request a return pack for my BT router, twice by messenger, 3 times by phone. Every time they have blithely promised me that they will action it. Still no pack nearly two months later. meanwhile they continue to send threatening messages saying they will charge me for their own incompetence if I 'fail' to return the router. The problem is that BT don't really invest in customer care because it's not important to them. IF customer care matters to you as a potential customer, avoid BT like the plague. I'm only sorry I had to give them one star.

I contacted B.T in October 2022 who guaranteed I would get faster internet speeds by going with them and installing fibre optic lines. I had email after email saying the engineers would be out to do the external work required. They never arrived with no apology for their absence. Eventually, yesterday, four months on I just cancelled. There has been no apology for the delay or any attempt to try and keep a potential customer, just an email asking for any equipment to be returned. Disgraceful behaviour from a reputed company, I certainly would not recommend.

Left BT recently because of billing issues was told I could leave without any exit fees and then kept selling sending me bills for £200 which was disgusting really they said it was on my account but they kept denying it I didn’t give up I kept pursuing with it it took a lot of my time and effort trying to resolve this got that resolved finally and then they threatened to send bailiffs round to recoup the money that I didn’t owe then I prove that I didn’t owe them anything and now they’re trying to say I owe them for the hub box which was also sent back over two weeks ago I truly believe they’re turning into some kind of sham company that bullies people into paying money they don’t owe anyone that’s with them please cancel your direct debit when cancelling your contract because they will try to take money you don’t owe them

I have mixed feelings about BT mobile phone and internet. On the surface the service is quite good, however, dig little deeper and their customer service is chaotic and inconsistent.

Looking at the positive aspects first, buying from BT is a pleasant and easy transaction. There appears to be clarity and some quite decent offers. I was very pleased when transferring my mobile phone account and Internet to them. Everything was transferred exactly as promised and in a fuss free manner.

The Mobile phone service has been excellent, I have had no negative issues at all. Coverage is scant in some places near where I live, however, it is gradually improving all the time.

Broadband however is where the problems start. I experience frequent lengthy "dropouts". Obviously I fully accept that there are times when the weather etc plays a part and BT has no control of this whatsoever, however, it is the customer service connected with these issues that is the key weakness.

To give a recent example, I experienced a lengthy loss of service falling a severe storm. I rang to ascertain a potential timescale for a fix. Unfortunately, after a lengthy wait to get through, the person to whom I spoke embarked on a lengthy explanation as to why it was my fault and I would have to pay for an engineer to come to my premises and renew the line within my property. However he entire locality was without the internet (which was unlikely to have been down to a fault in my living room) and I had only rung to see if I could be given a timescale for a resolution. I rang again and, after another lengthy wait spoke to somebody different who told me, more or less, what I wanted to know - no expensive engineer's visits, no renewal of everything within my property. This is where the real problem lies. You sign up to BT, get good initial service, but once you are a customer you are progressively less and less valued.

Recenty the bill has increased by 10%, no explanation simply the increase notified by text. Impersonal, disinterested and, quite frankly a 10% increase in prices from a hugely profitable business is simply avaricious.

Would I recommend BT? This is a difficult question to answer succinctly. I would've to say that I wouldn't. Mobile phone and internet providers to seem to all have very poor and disinterested service. Over the years I have dealt with Orange (now EE) who were dreadful, The Phone Co-op who were appalling, rude and unhelpful and BT Cellnet (a long way back) who were not too bad. Perhaps BT is the best of a bad bunch?

Fantastic service over the 35 years I've been with BT. I've only had 2 faults in all those years that were repaired promptly by the next day. Excellent all round

My broadband has been down for 2 weeks and constantly been told an engineer will be coming to resolve the problem but on chasing, no engineer has been booked and am always told the service is up and running but nothing working

Bt is an absolutely shambolic company

Bt is an absolutely shambolic company, I was offered their new customer deal for broadband by the value team, but then the next person refused to honour the deal. I raised a complaint and spoke to the manager in that team, but the attitude was extremely confrontational, they refused to except that any such commitment had been made.

I have even escalated it to the CEO, and to my dismay, the person calling from the executive team was even more confrontational and refused to offer deals which had been offered by the value team even.

I will be taking them to the regulator, because they promised things which they later on deny. It is because of these outrageously shambolic ethics and standards in the company that it is losing market share and has clearly got horrible reviews here.

My advice will be to stay away from them

Disconnecting their chatline mid query, and then without permission ringing back on landline and just putting the phone down without even saying a word is no way for BT Customer Services to deal with their customer queries when the operators are unable to grasp the nature of the queries in the first place. BT need to do some staff training - as the above is completely unacceptable, and upsetting for customers

Made the mistake of purchasing bt wifi extenders - after a full day of dropped phone calls from bt, they still didnt work. BT wifi signal from router is rubbish covering 20% of a small house. tried to talk to them on bt phone, line crackles can hardly hear what they say, asked if they could report the line after the call, fobbed me off onto yet another phone number. Their answer was send the BT equipment back to the shop and if you leave us we will charge you over GBP 500 stay clear they are rubbish