Difficulty getting an order cancelled

[DWM1952]

I recently received two calls from a third party organisation operating under the BT name who told me my contract was up for renewal and they could do me a ‘great deal’ to renew it. I said I wanted to look at the market but they convinced me that I could agree to their offers and cancel with no problem if I changed my mid within 14 days. I said I wanted to get a static IP address and one of them told me that wouldn’t be a problem, so I agreed to renew. The next day I found out that it wasn’t possible to get a static IIP address and my contract wasn’t due for renewal for another four months, so I cancelled both renewal orders, expecting to revert back to my previous contract. But this didn’t happen. For some reason, somebody raised another new order without my knowledge which committed me to a new two year contract. I have since spent about 20 hours in chat sessions or on the telephone to at least a dozen different people trying to get my original contract reinstated. The chats and telephone systems only offer a narrow set of options and I have  had to pick wat I thought was the most likely one (e.g. billing and account queries) On each attempt I have wasted about twenty minutes going through the whole story with my ‘guide’ before they have declared they cannot help me and I need to speak to the ‘Values Team’. There is of course no number or option to get to the ‘Values Team’ so we go round the loop again and again. Finally, yesterday somebody told me that they had updated my account, the matter was now resolved, and I would see it reflected in my online account the next day.  It wasn’t, and when I phoned 150 again the phone systems were down! I started another chat session in which I had to go through the whole story again before being told that they couldn’t help me and i needed to call the ‘Values Team”!

Can anybody suggest how I can break this viscious circle, because I’m losing the will to live here.

[Kimberlin]

Who was this third party organisation?

When my contract was coming up for renewal prior to me leaving BT, no one from BT or any 'third party' attempted to call me. If they had have done, I'd have politely told them to do one. The only time BT made multiple attempts to call me, was 3 hours after I initiated One Touch Switching and that ended up in me blocking the number concerned permanently.

I can clearly gauge from your account that this is causing you some distress and hopefully someone on the BT Forum team will be able to advise.

Top tip, never, ever get involved in a random call out of the blue on anything because as you've discovered, the whole thing can turn into a pot mess. When my contract was about to expire, I took action of my own volition, I didn't get involved with anyone from BT.

[DWM1952]

As I remember it the original calls were from StepChange outsourcing, although they said they were calling on bahealf of BT.  They are listed, along with several others on the the BT website. https://www.bt.com/partners

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

You need to raise a complaint with BT. The best way to do that is to email the BT CEO. You will find her email address with a simple Internet search.

You won't get through to her but her executive complaints team will pick up the message and take action.

You may also find that other BT employees will intervene and hopefully resolve your complaint and deal with the sales people who obviously gave you false information regarding fixed IP address and for failing to cancel your order.

[Kimberlin]

100 percent, make a formal complaint.

I know I've already said it, but I'd never engage with random calls from call centres and one of the main reasons why I'm on permanent silence unknown callers so I don't have to deal with uninvited callers. I guess though if you have a landline, dealing with uninvited calls might be more difficult to stop unless you sign up for a call blocking service.