Is this the worst customer experience ever?

[angrycustomer101]

If you're ever thinking of going with BT for Fibre Broadband, boy, do I have a story for you.

Here we go, buckle your seatbelts.

Imagine you're wanting to find a broadband provider that can bring the power of full fibre into your home. You search online, and compare a few deals, and then find that BT's pricing seems pretty reasonable. So you decide to commit. 

That's your first mistake.

I order BT Full Fibre 300 Essential on the 8th August 2024.  This came with £5 off per month for 24 months - and a monthly price of £39.95 guaranteed. There was also a one off activation charge of £20, and a delivery charge of £9.95. At the time, I thought this seemed reasonable, especially since, according to the email I got that day "An engineer will carry out an external survey and attempt to run the fibre cable to your premises within the next two working days."

Yeh, two days.... remember that number.

I waited a while, but no-one came, so I then reached out to BT on the 17th September (5 weeks after ordering and hearing nothing) to find what was taking so long. I was told that the delay was not with BT, but with Open Reach, and they offered me some free Wifi voucher codes, and promised to get an engineer round ASAP. Great I thought, at least I can get online while waiting a few more days. Sadly, no, there is no reachable BT wifi service where I live. So the codes do nothing. And of course, no engineer turns up.

I wait another month, and another month - still nothing. 

In November I get an invoice from BT for my first month's broadband subscription. Trouble is, they haven't actually connected me yet. So, dutifully, I ring them up, wait a couple of hours to get through to someone, and explain that I'm not going to pay any invoices until, you know, I'm actually receiving a service. The agent tries to get me to pay over the phone, but I refuse - and in fact I log into my bank at the same time and cancel the direct debit set up just in case. I tell the agent I'll be happy to reinstate the direct debit once my broadband is connected, and hang up.

I wait another month...

Eventually, I get an email from Open Reach saying they will come round to do an installation on December 4th 2024, almost 4 months after my original order. In the meantime, I had received a BT router in a box which came by post, which was something... but, dear reader, remember that router, it comes back later.

December 4th comes round and an Open Reach van shows up. I have a chat with them, show them the outside of my house and then they go to work. After an hour or so, they tell me it's all done, but I need another engineer to come separately to finish the installation internally. Something to do with wires inside the house, that apparently a man qualified to fiddle with wires outside a house cannot possibly do. OK, so how long do I wait for that, I ask - but they can't tell me. Sigh....

I wait another month - and get an email from BT this time saying an engineer will come round on the 3rd Jan 2025 (almost 6 months after my order). OK, this it I think, almost there.....

Jan 3rd comes and goes - I took a day off work to wait around for nobody to show up. I ring BT again and enquire as to where the engineer is - they can't tell me, that's an Open Reach problem, and customers are not allowed to contact Open Reach. OK, so please can we reschedule, I ask. And we do - for the 23rd January 2025. I get email confirmation of this from BT, and then I go back to waiting....

On the 20th January I receive in the post a letter asking me to send the router back to BT within 60 days "or you may be charged". What? I'm 3 days away from my (third) installation date - why would you want me to send the router back to you? I ignore the letter, and wait until the 23rd January (the day I'm writing this post) and take another day off work.

Of course, you guessed it, no engineer shows up. So, again I struggle through the BT customer service phone line, and ask the agent what's going on. "Oh, sir, your order has been cancelled"

What the actual f......

Apparently, my order was cancelled. Of course, no-one at BT thought to tell me that they'd cancelled my order. That would be actual customer service.  They instead told me it was my fault because I did not confirm with Open Reach for the 23rd January, despite me having spent two hours on the phone with BT literally confirming that date. So Open Reach did not show up, I've taken two days off work and spent at least 8 cumulative hours on the phone while waiting 6 whole months, just to receive nothing except for a threat of being charged if I don't return a router.

6 whole months, dear reader, let that sink in - when the original promise was two days.

OK, I think, let's see what we can do to get a positive outcome. I ask the engineer to uncancel my order. He can't, of course that would be too easy. No, I need to create a NEW order. OK, can you please create me a new order then, same as the first, same deal, same price? Yes, he can do that. But, I have to join the queue again from the start. The need to send me a second router (I have no idea what is wrong with the first one) and book an Open Reach engineer to come and do an installation. But I already have a router, I say, and the installation is half done already - I only need the internal engineer. Sorry sir, but we can only start the whole order again.

OK, fine, let's start again. 

An hour later I get an email from BT confirming that I have a new order. Trouble is, it's the same product, different price. This time, they have decided to multiple the activation charge by x5. Yes, dear reader, they charge me £100 for an activation charge, when 6 months ago it was only £20.

So, I get back on the phone to BT and ask why the activation charge has increased by 500%? I'm told, it was an error, but they can't reverse it until my billing account is activated, so please could I set up a direct debit. No chane in hell, I tell the agent - I'm not paying a penny until the service is actually active!!!! And when will that be? I'm told it will now be in February - but I'm not counting my chickens just yet....

TL;DR - BT took over 6 months to fail to compete an installation, tried to charge me for services that weren't active, made me take two unpaid days off work for no reason, threatened to charge me for not returning a router, cancelled my order without telling me, and then charged me 500% on the new activation charge.

And I still don't have BT broadband installed.....

[edbostan]

BT is chaotic. I have been with them for 36 years and have seen its decline. I had the email to say a digital voice meeting is to be held in a community centre but the address and postcode did not match. It was corrected so I turned up last November. I had to have a Hub 2 for digital voice. The Hub arrived on the Monday and fibre was to be installed on the Thursday. Engineer did not turn up so a call to BT confirmed the order was cancelled. I was supposed to have a reorder but that never has happened. Luckily I use the copper connection so I still have a broadband service. An Openreach van parked outside our house so my spirits were lifted but our neighbours had fibre installed.

[Peter_W]

Hi there @angrycustomer101.

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to us here on the BT Community and share the details of your experience here. 

I can really understand why you're feeling so let down here, especially considering how much longer the delays have been since your initial installation estimate. 

With Openreach, internal and external work are completed by separate teams, but the level of delay on both of these in your case, and being billed before services were active, definitely doesn't sound quite right. 

My recommendation here would be to allow Openreach until the scheduled February appointment to get you up and running, and then from there you can get this raised with a complaint with our dedicated complaints team. 

It'll be best to wait until things are up and running as we can then look at your experience as a whole, including the delays and unexpected charges etc, and look into the best resolution available. 

On the chance that there's further delays though, you're still welcome to log this with them, as I appreciate I'd be feeling exactly the same way if this was happening to me, and I want to make sure we've looked at every option we can for supporting you.

You can find the full details of our complaints process here:

Our complaints code of practice

Peter

[siteguru]

I've recently left BT and now have full fibre broadband with Trooli ... 900mbps up/down for £29.99 per month, fixed for the 2 year contract period with no annual price rise. (Yes, it means I've lost my landline - but we never used it so no great shakes). And I do get the full speed with a suitable device - even over WiFi if I'm close enough to the router.

Of course this was a Black Friday deal and the normal price is £39.99, but their 500mbps package normal price is £34.99.

If I were you I'd cut my losses and look elsewhere.