Bullshit Telecommunications

Bullshit Telecom

OK, it’s rant time and the recipient is British Telecom.

I have been with Sky for many years and as soon as they offered ‘phone line rental and broadband I signed up. I wanted to change my ‘phone number and was told by Sky that as they only rented the lines from BT, BT were the ones that had to change my number. BT told me Sky had to change it. I spent many wasted hours going from one to the other and in the end I gave up.

When I moved house a few months ago, I cancelled all my Sky products and signed up with BT. The reason was that after nearly 20 years of using them - Sky tv - they wanted to charge me £99 to enable my new ’phone line. What a disgraceful way to treat faithful customers.

I was told by a BT engineer that BT Vision plus ‘phone line rental and broadband was excellent. I found out it was a pile of shit.

BT Vision is basically Freeview with the added option of playing back a programme whenever you want it. Well, not really because you get half way through a series and it disappears leaving you moving onto the next series and feeling totally pissed off wondering what you’ve missed.

Every time I rang BT with a problem I was put through to India to someone I couldn’t understand, so I know damn well they couldn’t understand me. It’s a regional thing with us Brits. Since when has a broad Derbyshire person spoken like they have a plumb in their mouth? A simple word like ‘our’ comes out as ‘aaaa’. There’s not a cat in hell’s chance of having a normal conversation with a foreigner trying to speak the Queen’s English, so how the hell can they sort out something technical?

I would ask for someone who spoke English and be told ‘I speak very good English’. Not to bloody me, you don’t!

Anyway, I got sick to death of redialling and thought ‘sod this, I’m going back to Sky’. At least they have British people on the other end of the ‘phone.

So, after a dozen calls a day from BT and endless letters informing me I am still tied by a contract, which incidentally I never signed, I finally got my MAC code and off I toddles back to Sky. And very welcoming they were.

However, after only two months, my connection suddenly dipped form the 6.5Mb I usually get, to only 0.4Mb from the afternoon onwards.

My friend, lippy57, has been staying with me for the past few days and she must be horrified at my language. I’ve effed and blinded for the past two days because I may as well be on dial-up. In fact yesterday I was so pissed off I turned my laptop off altogether.

Tonight I rang Sky yet again, to be told by a technician that BT have recently put a cap on Sky connect customers from the afternoon onwards.

‘But I’m not on Sky connect’ I told him, ‘I’m on unlimited’.

‘No you’re not’ he replied, ‘unlimited isn’t in your area yet. We don’t even have our own equipment at your exchange and there are no plans at the moment for it‘.

Well, that did it. I’d been on the ‘phone just short of an hour and my fuse was well and truly lit. I tried to keep calm as I knew it wasn’t the technicians fault. I asked him if I could cancel my contract. Thank fully he said yes and put me through to the appropriate customer service department. One problem, there was a 15 minute wait and I had to listen not to music, but a message repeated over and over and over again.

Finally I was through and the lady informed me that as I am still in contract I have to email my cancellation through to head office. What bloody difference does it make ffs?

Lippy passes me another fag, she can see I’m beginning to lose it.

My mobile ‘phone is on Orange so after emailing the details through to Sky, I checked online to see what they have to offer and find they actually do line rental now. And they have their own equipment at my local exchange.

Great, I thought, I’ll sign up. Not so easy, I then have to ring bloody Sky again for a MAC code.

Here we go again, I thought.

I had just about had enough. I got the usual stupid robot asking the usual stupid questions. What is your postcode? I screamed it down the ‘phone and it told me ‘Sorry, I didn’t understand that’. Lippy passes me another fag.

I decided I wasn’t playing ball any longer and found that if I screamed ‘FUCK OFF’ to every question it put me straight through to someone.

I now sort of have it sorted. I have to wait five working days, but it’s Christmas / New year so it will be more likely two weeks by the time I get my MAC code, through the post of course. Why the hell they can’t just email it is beyond me.

I hope to God Orange provides a better service otherwise there will be a part two to this story.