If that doesn’t work write a letter to Lord Vallance, HoL, London SW1A 0PW (ex-BT Chair). I was totally ticked off with my connection being lost on a daily basis. Looking back at my notes I had 10 hours connection over a two week period. BT refused to acknowledge it was their fault and threatened all sorts of charges if they were proved right. Our provider had to prove that they had detected an ‘unstable line’ before BT would even come out. They put a sticking plaster over the problem and essentially told us to live with it.

Er,no. Within a week of explaining very politely to Lord V how this affected my business, one well-placed phone call had a fleet of BT vans doing the job they should have done years agao.

I am extremely grateful to him (and to http://lordsoftheblog.wordpress.com/ )so please be nice!
———————-

AJS, re: Sky – I feel your pain. Even I haven’t managed to get anywhere with Sky’s ways, especially their customer service. I did manage to get a good recipe for a curry while I waiting on the phone, however. I probably could have cooked it given the time taken.

Anyone know anything about the legality of disproportionate penalty charges?

When I was with Virgin Media for the Internet, their DHCP servers used to go up and down more times than the lifts at Aston University. It was kind of annoying to be told by an automated message, while I was ringing them to report a server problem, that I could report the fault over the Internet. No I couldn’t — you need an IP address for that, and you can’t get an IP address from a broken DHCP server.

Anyway, I never ditched the BT line anyway; because having lived at that address for awhile, I didn’t want the hassle of my number changing (and they never even printed the cable phone number in the phone book anyway). I just kept the cable line for inbound data calls, at least while I still had a dial-up modem. I already switched my broadband to a provider who gave me a proper static IP address (in VM’s defence, they only changed it once about every six months, so it was just about feasible to use it for some services — I didn’t dare use it as an MX though). And when the Branson/Murdoch dummy-spitting incident kicked off, I switched my telly to Sky Plus.

Now if I could just work out how to get my Sky Plus box to show the time VCR-stylee (AM/PM irritates the tits off me), it’d be perfect.

emailing them with our correct postal address, they told us that we, and by implication the Royal Mail, were wrong and their records didn’t have such an address.

Fine by me, it’s now on record (they never bothered to reply to our letters). It’s a wonder how they keep the license so low…

There are no depths of incompetence which BT cannot plumb…