robwoolford.com

BT problems remain. Cue angry letter/e-mail.

To whom it may concern,

Having moved into my new house on July 1st I went about contacting BT to have our landline reconnected. The first day my details were taken and I was told I would be contacted regarding direct debit details and finalising the order within 24 hours. This never happened.

A few days later I rang back and again, my details were taken, and my request was resubmitted – and I was told I would DEFINITELY hear back from BT by the end of that day, or the day after. This never happened.

It wasn’t until over a week later (Friday July 13th), and an hour and a half of queuing that I managed to have my details taken by ‘department’ who ensured me that my line would be reconnected by Monday (16th).

Before my request if you picked up our house phone you could hear a dialling tone, but upon dialling any numbers you would get an error. Since submitting the request the line is silent. Also, if you try to ring the line (XXXX XXX XXXX) from a separate phone you simply receive the message ‘number error’ which suggests that this hasn’t even been processed. It is now the 23rd of July and after various attempts to ring BT and have the problem resolved, I’m stuck with a dead line (and a bill for this magical dead line).

Having spent more than 12 hours on the phone to BT this past month, being bounced between various advisors on various days, I’m starting to lose my patience. I’ve been told that our actual phone is the problem, and not the landline, but having tried the neighbour’s working phone that clearly isn’t the case. I’ve been told that BT will run ‘diagnostic checks’ on the line and get back to me, but that has yet to happen, and I’ve been told various other things.

I was told originally reconnecting the line would take 24 working hours. It’s nearly two weeks later and nothing has happened.

I live in a house with six other people and they are all growing very impatient and frustrated that we can’t order internet or satellite TV because there is no active phone line. We’re paying for a phone line and we’re not receiving one. What’s more frustrating is that all BT want to do is bounce me around different operators and fob me off with what ‘may be the problem’ rather than actually reconnecting the phone line.

You have my details, you’ve had 10 days – what seems to be the problem?

If you could contact me on my mobile XXXXXXXXXXX (as I don’t have the internet to read e-mail) a.s.a.p. I would be grateful. If this matter isn’t resolved soon I will seek to cancel service with BT, seek a different provider and I will also be registering a letter of complaint to my local MP.

Thank you,

Rob

An automated e-mail response tells me that they hope to sort my problem with in two days.

Steam is coming out of my ears. Their time estimates mean nothing to me any more.

They say moving into a new home is one of the most stressful experiences you can go through in life. They’re probably right, because my move from uni halls to a 7-person-house has been nothing but stress and complications for the past three weeks.

I’d like to say it all started the day I moved in, but even than that’s not the full truth. My contract with university halls of residence finished on the 23rd of June, whereas my contract to move into my new house started on the 1st of July, leaving a 7 day period where I had to work in Sunderland but with nowhere to stay. The solution? To squat in my halls of residence in Sunderland. That doesn’t actually sound too bad, but it’s a funny thing that a packed-up room/flat is nowhere near as homely as it was when all the posters/pictures were up on the walls, when the DVDs were stacked and the hifi could be on. Even though all my possessions were in the same room the reality of seeing them in bags and boxes was that I didn’t actually belong in this room anymore.

That week was a pain. I was the only person I knew of living in a 300 bedroom halls of residence. THAT was lonely. I had to stay indoors to avoid security/cleaners hassling me. Most of my friends moved back home and the only time I left the flat most days was to work. Far from the student life I’m used to. But it was only a week, so I put up with it and come Saturday 30th June I managed to move all my things into the new house.

The first few days in the new house were rosy. My six housemates made the trip up to Sunderland from wherever they were to ‘get things sorted’ in the new place (I’m still confused as to why my room is so pink, it doesn’t feel like my room because it’s pink and I currently don’t have enough money to buy posters and things to cover it… I will with time though. Anyway…) After trips to IKEA and much socialising, most people were content with their rooms and that they’d ‘moved in’. But as such, nothing was actually sorted. I realised this when they all went home again a few days later. There was a broken shower, broken cupboards, shit left everywhere throughout the house, everything needed cleaning, etc. etc.

I was left in a BIG 7-person house with one other guy, and the 10 days or so since then really have been frustrating. First things first we had to put motions in place for bills. As a flat we decided to pay an equal sum (£50) monthly into a joint bank account to cover all the bills. Easier said than done, because bank accounts don’t come at the click of a finger. They don’t come after waiting an hour in HSBC either. Or an hour after that in Barclays. No, it took me 2 hours one day just to get a further appointment with Barclays. After two more appointments, so many questions and a number of phone calls – we finally got the bank account. However, such is the delays in sending everything out, we can’t access this account (no card, no internet banking – all coming in the post soon I hope) so all we can do is pay in and set up direct debits (all that matters at the moment I guess). It’s easily taken 6 hours of my time over 3 days though, way more than I expected.

Trying to get seven people to pay £50 into a bank account is no easy task either. It’s funny how quiet people go when it’s time to cough up money. The people who’d been texting me all week and had such a laugh with only days earlier were suddenly very quiet. But I’ve no qualms about that, I’d be the same if someone demanded £50 a month when I wasn’t living in the house at the time.

Now it’s time to set up Sky and the Internet and everything! (A week after moving in) but alas, we need our BT line reconnecting before any of this can happen. Easy, right? We’ve got the BT line, we’ve got the bank account, just switch it back on? No. Not that easy at all. I rang up last Thursday and spoke to a foreigner with broken English (no, this won’t be a rant). I’m not entirely sure she understood what I said, although she seemed to, and she ended the call with “we’ll ring you back within 48 hours”. I’m yet to hear from BT and I’ve spent two more lengthy phone calls trying to hurry the issue along. Do the maths – on Thursday they said they’d ring back within two days. So, I should have heard back from them at Monday by the latest (if you include work-free weekends and all) but not a peep. It’s Wednesday now and you know what? I probably won’t hear from them today either. This really pisses me off as it’s the only thing we’re waiting on for Sky, Internet and a host of other things. And all it takes is for them to flick a switch and take some direct debit details (5 mins work). Disgraceful.

So at the moment I’ve pretty much no idea what’s happening in the outside world. No Sky to watch the news and no Internet to keep up with the rest of the world (music, football, etc.) – it’s killing me. I’ve got to make my way all the way to the city library just to check my e-mail… And the worst thing is that until BT get in touch with me (probably next week at the rate things are going) I can’t even order the internet (which will probably take ANOTHER week).

Other problems remain too. The washing machine which we rent (not from our landlord) is mouldy. Thus any clothes you put in stink. My flatmate rang the guy up and he kicked off about how previous tenants of this address had never paid him, how he was sick of it and that if we wanted to rent this washing machine it’d cost us £25 a month. £25 a month for a mouldy washing machine? Get the fuck outta here! So I’m not sure what we’re doing on that front yet. Grumpy-stiltskin picks up his substandard machine on Friday though.

If you’re not feeling sorry for me by now let me add that our analog aerial is broke so we can’t even watch channels 1-5 on analog TV. The bath water runs slightly warm at best, meaning a long process of heating kettles for baths, I’ve been working 5 nights out of 7 each week and I’ve not been able to goto the gym/eat properly for the past few weeks because of all this – meaning my beer gut has resurfaced with my holiday in Barcelona only a month away.

And my fucking phone bill is going to be through the roof this month.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.