I am writing this email as I want this in evidence in print before I escalate this matter further
Last year in April I booked BT Home Essentials. Installation. I am eligible for Home Essentials because I have a very severe Anxiety Disorder. It is a disability, I have it that bad. My life has been very difficult, in and out of mental health facilities, sectioned,suicidal, trauma, etc. I have WORKING MEMORY issues as a result. Think the complications of ADHD.
I say this so you people can grasp how this issue affects me. I have real memory issues and I have anxiety issues.
In April (I think: again - MEMORY ISSUES) I booked an installation at 1pm - 6pm slot. The OpenReach engineer turned up between 8am-9am - I THINK - it was in the morning, I know that. The installation was booked under my name, but I was not in at the time I was at the gym, because it was the morning! My eldery mother in her late 70s phones me up in distress because "a man just came into the house and he was gonna start drilling into the walls". She was confused and your engineer entered my house without my permision - THE CUSTOMER - and was going to proceed with an install (as far as my mother believed), whilst I was not present. The obvious problem I him not knowing where he could install the damn internet arose when he asked my mother and she didn't have a clue. Astonishing, isn't it that BT? You go into people's homes at random and if the customer isn't there, you can't have answers!
Anyway, this interaction shook my mother up. God I WISH you could comrehend how angry I was, and how angry i am still! THAT's why I do not let this matter go.
This is where I will be honest and tell you, I wasn't recording my phone calls. I wish I was. I have a vague memory of phoning complaints and telling you guys off. The person was apologetic and insisted the engineer would return at the correct time.
THEY NEVER DID!
I phoned back leading up to 6pm to ask where the engineer was. Again, apologetic, and they said OpenReach would get back to me tomorrow with a report on why the engineeer didn't come
THEY NEVER DID!
Long story short, complications on the 2nd appointment meant another 4 week delay. (Happy to talk further on this one if needed, not angry about that one, only the first install).
In the end it was at least 8 weeks delay, I think recently your saff claim it was something like 60-70days bertween inital booking and eventual installation.
Ever sinceI have been assertive in demanding automatic compensation. YOUR engineer missed the appointment time and didn't turn up at the correct time. YOUR mistake.
Every time I phone you are apologetic and you submit a complaint and it gets ignored. I wait 30days for the credit to kick in, then I phone and complain. We're now almost a year down the line.
Over the last 10months or so I have spoken to many people, raised many complaints, had many wilde goose chases from your company. I always tell you about my disability and I always demand to speak to someone who can actually help me. One time a woman (again, don't remember her name) said she was... something... and she had the authority to look into thismater. She did and told me the OpenReach engineer claimed the "customer wasn't in at the appointment time". She then said the time records didn't match. I had booked 1pm and the engineer attempted the install at 8something am. Thus confirming my story. I do not recall if she confirmed that the engineer also claims he came back
THAT ENGINEER IS A BARE FACED LIAR if he does.
She told me she had sorted it with OpenReach and to expect a phone call from them confirming the compensation. So all I had to do now FINALLY was wait for that call, which she was adamant they would make.
THEY NEVER DID!
So I phone back, and back, and back, and back, and here we are today. Each time you claim you are opening a complaint, and each time you mess me around. Last time the guy said "do you want a letter confirming the complaint sent". I said yes, because clearly this whole thing appears to be heading to the courts and I need a paper trail now, don't I?. He also set up a call back appointment for last Thursday between 3-4pm.
YOU NEVER DID
I complained and now there's gonna be another phone call between 3-4pm, which I may not be able to make now, because it's taken me almost an hour to write this complaint. And I have work to do.
It would be the first time I have inconvenenced you time-wise if I do not make that call (I may make it yet).
THAT letter came today BTW, along with another letter. One says "Complaint opened", the other says "complaint closed". They were sent within the same day.
Your true colours are revealed, I phone, I make a complaint, it gets dismissed and the whole circle jerk continues.
Every time this nonsense happens it causes me irreparable anxiety, distress, anger, self harm and then depression. I'm sick of it, I'm sick of you as a company shirking your responsibilities.
One email, that's all it needed. One transfer during the many hours of phonecalls I've racked up on your complaints line. One transfer to the right person in the right department would have sorted this there and then.
YOU NEVER DID
Instead I'm stuck in the perpetual loop of waiting for a phone call, which either won't come, or you'll phone at a different time, when I am working or in an appointment and I can't phone back. This is not a way to do these things BT it's not!
So here's my post. Next thing I do is a GDPR request then it's a complaint to the ombudsmen and also looking into no-win no-fee legal repsentation.
OR you can talk to me in person, give me a number and I can phone you when I am actually free and we can stop the nonsense altogther.
Your call.
Matthew Shingleton
