Is BT a massive rip-off?

I am so mad right now. To cut a long story short, without any warning they stopped my line. Two weeks ago i got a reminder (i pay by direct debit) for Â£59. i called sraight away and spoke to a lady who processed the payment. Then she said i could re install direct debit by calling the next day as the system was down or something. Then been trying every single day to call them and couldn't get through. They stopped the line yesterday with no warning. When i called today they told me i had to pay the balance (Â£289) in one go before re installing direct debit! I made the paiment but i am fuming, it's really heavy on my monthly budget. Are they not supposed to send u a reminder before they stop the line? The reminder was for Â£50 not the whole balance. I tried to negociate and
was willing to make a payment of Â£150 straight away but they refused.

I am fed up with them. Everytime you try to contact them it's almost impossible. They have so many different numbers u never know which one
Additional Details
Yeah Jane, i ve paid and am thinking of switching to Sky or another provider. I still need to BT landline, right ?
but anyway i am done with their broadband. I ve been with them too long and when **** hits the fan, they are not flexible at all.

Couldn't agree with you more!

BT was absolute rubbish when I tried to transfer my mum's phone number last year when she moved into sheltered housing. It took many hours on the phone over a couple of weeks, not helped by the fact they transferred her number to a faulty line (despite their insisting they hadn't). On three different occasions, they gave the excuse "We cannot process that (whatever) just now because our systems are down". Sometimes they asked me to call back: Other times they said they would call me back ... They never did. The worst was trying to talk sense with people in a foreign call centre who had no idea what I was talking about.

BT was arrogant and could not have been less helpful .... which is a real shame because I used to work for them so I know how much SOME people would like to do a good job were it not for incompetent managers and meaningless targets. Half the time, I am sure the excuse 'our systems are down' is used as a way of dumping a call that would otherwise stop the operator reaching their 'target'.

At the same time my own (expensive) BT broadband was working slowly and intermittently with slow data rates and abysmal server-lag. Again it meant dealing with overseas call centres and making no progress whatsoever. I decided to leave BT and take my business to the Post Office who had just launched broadband.

BIG MISTAKE! Their administration for supplying the broadband kit was terrible but at least they answered their help line calls, unlike BT. Broadband set-up was not as straightforward as their adverts suggests. The Post Office email interface is so bad as to make it virtually unusable - less than basic. The on-line account management functions (necessary to see your bill, change payment method, set up your 'favourite' numbers for discount etc.) didn't work, and still don't after 4 months. Post Office say there is a temporary problem ..... 4 months???? temporary ????

Most disappointing of all, their server lag was at least as bad as BT's. I have since found out they source their broadband from BT so no wonder it is still rubbish. My 8 Meg broadband is, today, delivering 510 Kb!!!! The best it has ever been is 2.2 Mb and I am only 2 Km from the exchange. My broadband service is so bad, the signal from my Tesco VOIP phone is too broken up for anyone to make out what I'm saying.

There must be a fault with my phone/ADSL line but no one wants to admit it and incur the cost of fixing it. My next move (if I don't physically move house first) is to transfer to cable which, luckily, runs past my house.

So, on balance, I sympathise with your experience of BT. I know there are good people in BT who would like to do better. At the same time, I know there are many mindless jerks with their eyes set firmly on this year's bonus or on the avoidance of the mind-police who are waiting to 'counsel' them over missed targets. None of it actually helps the paying customer.

Yes they are theiving sdratsaB!!!

Move over to the Post office - far better service, cheaper line rental... can get thru to customerservices dept without waiting for 3 days, and u can keep the same number

We ditched BT in oct last yr and havent looked back.

The more people who leave them the better!

u may have to pay 3mths line rental up front to the P.O> but u then get a budget card and can make extra payments whenever or set up a DD (no extracharges either ) friends n family discount still available as well

BT are crap. They did that with us aswell AND tried to charge us for stuff we didn't even have! To cut a long story short, we paid them then switched to Sky.

edit: I think you do need your BT line, BUT, we don't even deal with BT anymore, We pay Sky and they pay BT, having said that, we still had a massive carry on with BT because before we could switch to Sky, Sky needed our mac code and BT just wouldn't give it to us. After many lengthy phone calls and being transferred from this dept. to that dept. BT were saying they didn't have the code (but they do, thay just don't want to lose your custom) Sky had to actually ring BT and demand the mac code (cos apparently BT can't withheld that info.) and after about 6 weeks we finally went online with Sky. Two words: good luck!!!!!

no Kingston communications is

We have had nothing but problems as well, no one in their call centres seems to know what department does what, we spent just over an hour on the phone to them last month simply to ask when our years contract was up!!! Six different departments we had to speak to.
We have now switched to Sky.

Yes, they seem to be doing a 'British Gas' with customers - various numbers, indifference to individuals' Am looking to change to another company.
In their favour, my line went down for a couple of weeks last year just at the time a close relative was killed in an accident and they were superb. Refunded quite a lot of line rental etc plus an allowance for using a mobile.

I find BT to be rather good.

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES

I think they are pure robbery, and when my 18 months are up I intend to switch to P O.

yeah bt are the worst i want to change but i have to wait till June when my contract is up :(

Yes, definitely. And are absolutely useless as well.

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