Appalling Bullying Behaviour

[45SM]

A manager from BT phoned this morning and I informed him of the 'problem' with the BT employee who is handling my complaint and who signed the ADR letter - although the manager was friendly and polite, I got nowhere except to be told to complain to the Ombudsman - I do not think that he believed anything that I told him. I pointed out my age and circumstances but this is not important to BT. As I have no mobile phone signal, other telecom/broadband suppliers will not accept me as a customer. I have mentioned my telecare alarm too. Clearly being registered as a vulnerable customer is not important to BT and indeed at one point with the BT employee (the one I have made a complaint about today) when I informed him that I had a telecare alarm, there was a silence and then some such statement as 'oh yes, so you do' - he had clearly had to look this up, but this did not change his attitude. 

[iniltous]

You do realise the ADR is the independent arbiter that judges the veracity of your claim , and sets what it thinks as a suitable level of compensation, in this case £30 , BT don’t have any room to reject the ADR adjudication but you do , if you feel your case is strong , and the independent arbitration has woefully underestimated the level of ‘harm’ you have suffered, reject it (as your right ) and say you’ll see BT in court , you may win and get a better level of compensation (presumably what you want otherwise why bring up the amount) or you may lose with the potential risk that entails.

[45SM]

reply to @iniltous 

I did not know that the ADR is an independent arbiter. The ADR letter is written on BT letterhead and at the bottom of each page it states 'British Telecommunications plc' with the registered office address and the registered company number - thus it does not appear thar the ADR is independent of BT. Perhaps you will inform me of the ADR legal company strucure  (in England) and  how the ADR is an independant legal entity -please provide Companies House details of full name, registered office address and company number will suffice, or if not a registered company, the full details of name, address and legal entity structure - thank you. Until such time as you can provide the evidence that the ADR is an independent entity, then I will continue to believe that the ADR is part of British Telecommunications plc, which is part of the BT Group.

BT in the letter to me dated 13 September 2026, using  British Telecommunication plc letterhead, subject 'ADR Letter', acknowledge 'the concern and worry caused by the notification letter' - this is their wording, not mine. Whether I accept or decline the offer of goodwill for the concern and worry caused to me is a matter of principle. Any goodwill offer for causing someone concern and worry (and in my case, with a telecare alarm and no mobile phone signal, I was terrified) should be meaningful. I equated the amount offered (£30) to the remuneration package of the CEO of BT Group to show how insignificant (to BT) the amount offered is - to BT this amount is trivial and not meaningful. Whether or not this amount is of significance to me is not relevant - BT have caused me harm and offered a goodwill gesture that will not in any significant way affect their position, so they will not have learnt a lesson from this.

I have noted that throughout this thread that you (@iniltous) are unsympathetic to people such as I who have been bullied by BT in this manner - this bullying terrified me and has terrified others.  I am registered with BT as vulnerable and using a telecare alarm. As above, BT acknowledge the concern and worry caused and I suggest that you should too. Even a small amount of understanding and sympathy would  go a long way. As far as compensation is concerned, and as previously noted, when a company has acted in a way to cause 'concern and worry', the compensation for this should be significant to the company and to the leadership of that company and of the Group within which that company sits - it is not.

copied to @Midsummer100 ; @chrisjp ; @Jane2018 as you are all sympathetic - thankyou. I am sure others are too, so all who are sympathetic, thank you.

[garybs29]

You've raised a complaint & been offered resolution but the ADR letter will.likely be telling you how to escalate further if needed

[iniltous]

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/cy/phones-and-broadband/service-quality/adr-schemes

[45SM]

Yes it is - but I am replying to what @iniltous said - please read his last message in this thread - the letter does not make any independence from BT clear as it's subject states 'ADR Letter' - I am in my 80s and have no family support so please understand my confusion especially when @iniltous has been rather negative all through (I am not the only one to have commented on this)

[iniltous]

Perhaps if you quoted here what was  stated within what you are referring to as an ADR letter it may provide some clarification , it may say BT are offering £30 for your ‘hurt’ , and that your options are to accept or reject that and go down the ADR process if you feel that offer is insufficient, or perhaps it’s says an ADR dispute was opened and they instructed BT to pay you £30 as compensation for your distress ….as you simply refer to it as ADR letter , it’s impossible for anyone to know .

Its pretty easy  to establish the ‘independence’ of ADR companies , hence the link provided , as far as my supposedly lack of a sympathy,  that’s because I’m not an employee of BT so don’t need to sugar coat my responses to make them palatable to those that are quick to see offence or treat any corespondents on here with kid gloves , but ( in my own opinion ) I don’t treat anyone disrespectfully either , if someone takes offence that’s up to them , nothing I post is hurtful or knowingly incorrect.

As stated , (assuming the ADR letter was in-fact pointing out your option to take your complaint further to an ADR and was not an adjudication from them ) , do that , that way you don’t deal with BT anymore ( regarding this matter ) the ADR people deal with you and they deal with BT , and when they reach a conclusion , they set what they deem the appropriate level of compensation and you get that amount , that final verdict may be communicated to you by BT or by ADR .

[45SM]

I make it quite clear in my post (no 33 in this thread) that BT are offering this (£30) because they (BT)  acknowledge 'the concern and worry caused by the notification letter'  to me -: I was more than worried and concerned - I was terrified.

Unfortunately I had no idea what ADR is - perhaps you could have enlightened me earlier instead of again finding fault. I am in my 80s and am not conversant with such abbreviations.

I now see that this ADR letter includes very inacurate information stating that 'your order was placed on 29 June 2026' - it most certainly was not as I was away on holiday then. My order was placed possibly on or  in the week commencing 7 September 2026 when I discussed with BT the Bullying tone of the email received on 4 September 2026 and followed by the letter stating the same threats. My BT 'call usage' shows that I did not use my BT line from 11 June 2026 through to and including 3 July 2026 and this is as per BT records on my BT account. This unfortunate episode, as above, commenced with the bullying and frightening email of 4 September 2026.

I did receive a phone call from a manager on 26 September 2026 (shortly after 10-00am) and I will notify this manager (by email) of this further discrepancy.

[iniltous]

You referred to the letter as an ADR letter , suggesting that it either was in part the result of ADR involvement or offering ADR involvement, if you didn’t understand what the ADR was , you never stated that , in fact the only thing you did say was that you doubted their independence…..a fair criticism of you (in my opinion) is to ask why you didn’t simply state verbatim ,  the actual content of the letter if you didn’t know what the abbreviation ADR meant ,  and ask what this letter was for ,  why would anyone assume you would use an abbreviation while not understanding it .

You still refer to the letter as an ADR letter , but instead of addressing the questions asked of it ( basically is the letter simply an invitation to use the ADR service if you reject the offer of £30 compensation or it is an ADR adjudication and £30 is what they decided was fair compensation) but you obfuscate with pretty irrelevant information about order dates and usage ,  perhaps you can confirm what this letter actually says .

Presumably you want to take this further (which suggests it’s not an ADR adjudication but pointing out your option to take the matter to ADR ) so take the ADR path on offer  , they will obtain all the appropriate account notes, and when they  were entered , a copy of the letter you received , the emails etc , and they can decide themselves the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the dates and relevance or irrelevance of that information , which you seem to think important, but frankly I don’t , you now  know why the original letter was sent , presumably you have now agreed to some action (as you mention order dates ) the only issue it seems to me is the ‘tone’ of the letter , and the appropriate compensation for telling you the imperative of acting quickly to contact BT .

With regard to what presumably still is your core complaint, that you were asked to contact BT urgently, and this apparently was (in your opinion) unnecessarily frightening , the ADR can look at this letter , and the context in which it was sent , presumably that you were risking having no telephony after Jan 2027 , or losing broadband as a consequence of being moved onto a basic telephone service and any subsequent interactions between you and BT , and then decide if they agree with you and £30 is insufficient compensation.

As far as your continued posting here , it’s not clear at all what you expect that to achieve, it’s only for the ‘benefit’ of other BT customers, those that have the same opinion as myself or those that are more sympathetic to your plight  (as you would put it ) nothing posted here can’t materially affect anything , the Moderator will defer to those already handling this , and you have clearly decided that you are unhappy with the compensation on offer , in that situation I’d have thought the obvious way forward for you is to take the ADR router and then at its conclusion, post their verdict, FWIW , I doubt ADR will consider what’s posted here , by you , me or anyone else as relevant, this is only a customer to customer forum 

[45SM]

as stated - since I did not know what ADR meant, I'm not sure what I could do - I came to this site to find if others were or are feeling as bullied as I - clearly some are.

I am sad that you cannot understand the worry  with these threats and the confusion of not knowing abbreviations.

I will no longer reply to your posts as clearly you find me very inadequate - so be it. A moderator should  perhaps be involved.