If you are a regular follower of my sporadic and woeful
ramblings here on Jodhpurs on the School Run, you may remember that a few years
ago I wrote a piece about rural broadband and the misery imposed when your
internet is shambling along slower than a very stoned, 3 legged sloth.
I laughed merrily when my friends asked me if I had
Netflix, I left laptops attempting a Windows update to work alone through the
night and my whole family knew that if something was being watched on the
Amazon Firestick no-one else was allowed access the internet. It was a bit like
having an old dial up connection but without the screechy sound effects.
However, at the beginning of December my Very Tall
Landlord informed me that Superfast Broadband was available at my home. Unable
to believe this, I ran an internet speed check and discovered that my broadband
was hitting speeds of as much as 5 megabits per second which was a vast
improvement on the 1.7Mbps we were used to.
Sky has provided our internet and telephone for a few
years and they always do me a terrific deal as they are essentially unable to
provide the speed that I pay for. They have real people that you can in fact speak
to and once when I rang to negotiate my new contract I spoke to Darren in
“Sunny Dumfries”. He assured me at the start of the call that he was going to
do me such a great deal, that I would “immediately want to open a bottle of
wine and say, my God, I never believed I was going to get such a great deal from
Sky”. He honestly did say that and also knocked £15 off my monthly payment for
my broadband.
So upon hearing that it was possible that I could run more
than 2 internet-dependant devices all at the same time without buffering; I
rang Sky.
When I asked the nice lady for a price for Unlimited Superfast
Fibre Broadband, she sounded as though I had just asked to borrow her Rolex for
a magic trick involving a hammer. This was because it turned out, I was already
paying for Superfast Fibre but Sky were unable to provide it.
As the lady prepared to put me through to technical
support, I rudely hung up and began searching for another provider who could deliver
enough internet for me to browse the clearance items on equestrian websites
while Britney (Not her real name) watches nail art tutorials on MyTube.
I got the most unpleasant shock.
The only company with the infrastructure and therefore ability
to deliver Superfast Fibre Broadband to my home was BT.
And I hate BT.
I hate BT more than I hate the sound of nails scratching
down a chalkboard and the feeling of bare feet on a cold kitchen floor. I hate
them more than a wet weekend that follows a week of sunshine and battling with
Britney over her maths homework. I hate them more than my horse losing a shoe
on a bank holiday weekend, more than my sock slowly sliding off my foot inside
my welly, more than World Book Day, Trick or Treating and more than I hate
people who steal from the elderly. I hate them more than people who hog the middle
lane, more than people who throw their Macdonald’s rubbish out of their car
windows and more than people who think it’s amusing to feed their chips to Seagulls.
I even hate them more than I hate bloody Chris Packham
and that is saying something.
Nevertheless, determined to have the lightning fast access
to Ebay and the Daily Mail that I was entitled to, I swallowed my pride and rang
them.
My order was placed quickly and when I put the phone
down, I was astonished how easy it had been. The engineer was booked to come to
my house on 31st December to connect us to the fantastic fast
internet that I had been paying Sky for and we would have mammoth fast interweb
browsing that very day.
Due to the chaotic festive period and multitude of Christingles,
Christmas plays and parties, I sort of forgot about the Openreach lad coming on
New Year’s Eve until the day before when I suddenly realised that I had not
received confirmation of his visit.
So I rang BT.
The nice lady I spoke to apologised profusely that I had
not been informed about this, but my broadband order had been cancelled as I
had failed a credit check.
Absolute rubbish, I told her. I’ve never failed a credit
check in my life, there’s more chance of the Chief Cashier at the Bank of
England getting turned down for credit than me. She sympathised and gave me the
details of Equifax who run BT’s credit checks and told me to contact them.
The telephone number she gave me was incorrect but I discovered
(using my sloth-like internet connection) that an account with Equifax is free
for the first 28 days and after emailing them a copy of a utility bill and my
driving licence I was advised that my very own credit report would be available
shortly.
The next day I was able to download this important
life-changing document and discovered that my credit score was excellent and
that no UK company should refuse me credit.
So I rang BT.
The nice lady who I spoke to, sympathised, agreed that it
was ridiculous I had been turned down for credit as my credit score was
excellent and once again tried to place an order for my broadband. After 30
seconds she informed me that I had again failed the credit check and she
advised me to contact Equifax as they would be able to explain why I was
failing a credit check for a broadband order which someone of no fixed abode
could set up without issue.
So I rang Equifax.
I’ll just point out here that should you ever be in the regrettable
position where you need to contact Equifax, always turn the volume on your
phone to “high”. All the call handlers (or at least the ones that I spoke to)
speak with a foreign accent and sound as though they are speaking through a very
thick, woolly sock.
The lady at Equifax told me that she didn’t know what
criteria BT check on a credit report but that I had possibly been refused
credit as I wasn’t on the electoral role.
I replied that I had been on the electoral roll at my
current address for 11 years, and I knew this for definite as I had been able
to vote at the last election which took place less than a month ago.
Ah, she replied, but Equifax don’t get the updated
electoral role until the end of January, so I would be able to apply for credit
then.
So I rang BT.
The nice lady sympathised, listened to my tale of woe and
put me through to Cruella de Vil in the accounts department. Cruella told me
that there was a discrepancy between the personal details that I had just given
her for security clearance and my personal details on my credit report, namely;
my date of birth was not the same.
I replied that the 2 dates of birth were exactly the same
and I knew this because I was currently looking at my credit report, and this
was the same as the date of birth I had just given her, my real and actual date
of birth.
She replied that they were definitely different.
So I rang Equifax.
The gentleman I spoke to told me that my date of birth
was correct (I knew this) that I was on the electoral role (I knew this too)
and told me to email my credit report to BT and ask then to do a manual check.
So I rang BT.
By this point I had found my old BT voodoo doll and was
not only viciously twisting its head and stabbing pins through it, I was also holding
it over a naked flame as I waited to be connected to an adviser.
Luckily, Lauren could hear that I was at the end of my
tether with her employer. To be fair, I gave her a very clear sign that I was
at the end of my tether as when she picked up my call I told her that I was going
to kill myself because I really, really wanted to give BT some money in return
for a product that I was absolutely certain they wanted to provide me with.
After putting me on hold for 7 and a half minutes she
told me that I had already spoken to 3 of her colleagues over the past 2 days
and her Supervisor had advised her to put the order through from her broadband
services desk and not run it through the sales department as it would be
rejected again, thanks to my apparently fictitious credit report.
Initially Lauren said she couldn’t find my landline which
we both thought was a bit odd as I was actually using it to make the call,
however she told me not to worry as she would put in an order for a new line
and the lad from Openreach would disregard this when he came to my house as he
would be able to detect the line then.
It took over half an hour for Lauren to complete this and
she even called me back once the order was placed to confirm that it was
definitely going through. I was so pleased with this information, I instructed Lauren
to tell her Supervisor that she and the rest of her team should receive a free bottle
of wine every Friday and a short city break at a European venue of their choice
as a thank you for their exceptional service.
So the Openreach lads came, gave me a new phone number as
they couldn’t find the landline I have been using for the past 11 years and
left me running internet speed checks for pure novelty value.
And so, we have speeds of over 100Mbs now, my phone is
running at the dizzy height of 114Mbs and when our computers start an update
instead of having to leave them overnight, it’s complete in a few seconds. It’s
absolutely amazing.
Until a month ago, when I discovered that our internet
service had been turned off.
I checked the details on the My BT App on my phone
and it assured me that as I paid by direct debit on or just after the 3rd
of the month, I had nothing to pay and did not need to do anything.
Instead of ringing BT, because frankly I just did not
have the energy or the patience, I began an online chat with Soumyadip who told
me that my first direct debit had been declined.
ME: When did
you attempt to take the payment?
I typed very loudly and with a muscle twitching
ferociously in my jaw.
SOUMYADIP: We
tried to collect the payment on 25th January 2020 and it was
declined by your bank
Came the reply.
ME: I have not
had any notification from my bank that a payment has been declined and as My BT
says you were taking the payment on or just after the 3rd February
as agreed when I placed the order why did you decide to try and take the
payment 9 days earlier than agreed???
I was so incensed at this point that the only punctuation I would
be bothered to use was an exclamation mark.
SOUMYADIP: As
a valued BT Customer I can only advise you to contact your bank but I am
turning your service back on now then you can use this link to make payment…….
So I rang BT.
I paid what was owed using their very quick automated payment
service and 2 hours later, Britney was back on Yourtube and I was able to surf
the net for items I could not afford.
All was well with our superfast surfing experience until 2 weeks ago
when I received an automated call from my friend BT saying that I had not paid
my bill.
So I rang BT.
But this time instead of calling the number they had given me
which only leads to an automated payment system, I found a number on the
internet where I could be connected to a real human person who I could shout
at converse with.
I spoke to Joanne, who asked me for my account number which I
recited from the My BT App. There was a long silence before she told me that
account number did not exist – and then the penny dropped. My BT was showing me
my original account that I opened at the beginning of December and despite the
original order being cancelled owing to my credit report stating that I was a
terrorist and a habitual money launderer, the account had not been completely
closed.
So Soumyadip had told me a lie so big it should be on a specialist
diet plan. My bank hadn’t declined the payment as the payment had never been
requested, because the direct debit set up on the old unused account had not
been transferred to the new account.
This made me exceptionally furious with Soumyadip but as he/she
probably already has a new job with a diligent employer there was very little
point in taking the subject further.
Joanne very nearly restored my faith in BT, as she has credited
all the charges on my account as an apology for how utterly shit BT is. She
even reimbursed the charges that the robbing bastards had charged me for my
internet to be reconnected and has given me a month of superfast surfing for
free.
Ironically Sky did ring me to ask why I had left them. I told them
that unfortunately they are currently unable to supply my house with Superfast
Fibre Broadband. The lady replied that they are rolling out Superfast to lots
of rural areas and that in the future they should be able to provide me with
the service that I want.
So this rant of a blog post is really a message for Sky; urging
them to get on with rolling out Superfast Fibre Broadband to those half-forgotten
rural areas as quickly as they can. Because Sky, as soon as you do, I’ll be on
the phone to Darren in Sunny Dumfries, I’ll have the bottle of
wine at the ready and I won’t even ask him to strike a deal with me.
And I hate BT.
