It's good to come to a forum and be reassured that you are in the company of equally disgruntled and disillusioned BT customers.
I appreciate that there are far worse things happening in the world at this time - shocking, horrendous acts of cruelty, torture and war, death and destruction that I could never even contemplate happening to me or my loved ones, so this story isn't designed to be a 'woe is me tale' of 1st World entitlement.
BT - here's my problem.....
I cancelled my Sky Broadband service in anticipation of moving to a 'super fast fibre optic' BT package, which I thought I got a pretty good deal on when I bought it on Feb 19th 2016.
I received a nice email that day with a new account and everything 'seemed' to be very easy.
I set my pre-installation engineer date for 3rd March with installation date and takeoff booked for 10th March. EXCITED!
I cancelled my Sky talk and BB - it was packed and ready to leave my life forever on 10th March at midnight.
My wife and kids were very excited, as was I - to be honest the Sky broadband speed was akin to being back in the early 90s, so the anticipation of Mr BT Openreach engineer walking up the driveway, ringing on our doorbell, smiling and setting everything up on time was almost better than Christmas coming early. And my kids and wife love Christmas, so the 10th March 2016 was going to be a very special day indeed.
I received a call on 20th Feb from a BT advisor saying that there might be a problem with my initial order - very vague - but I was reassured that everything would be fine and I would be told if there was a problem someone would be in touch.
Being quite concerned after hearing nothing further for over a week, I contacted the BT customer service team and after about 45 mins of being 'tele-pinged' all over the world, was reassured that the first engineer was booked for 3rd March and that our BT knight in shining armour would still be clanking his way up the driveway on 10th March.
Slightly reassured, but still not over trusting, I contacted the customer service team again on 4th March - as no engineer seemed to be around the day before. I was again - after more globe tele-surfing - reassured that 10th March was still up there as an 'epic' 2016 day.
10th March @ 07:45
I woke up after a bit of a sleepless night (partly caused by an early preemptive celebration bottle of wine the night before - and also a wife and two kids who couldn't contain their excitement). I still hadn't received the router/hub/whatever you call it through the post, so a moment of panic, followed by mild nausea, set in.
08.15. I trembled (a combination of the alcohol in my blood and anticipatory nervous energy) as I dialled the BT customer services number. Over an hour later (and more globe surfing - during which time I also managed to shave, dress, go to the toilet, eat breakfast and brush my teeth - and they say men can't multi-task) I received this blunt message: 'your order was cancelled by the Openreach blah blah something or other team, but an engineer seems to still be booked to come - but he won't be able to do anything as you won't have received a router or any start up correspondence. Innit.'
Things didn't look good.
I was promised a call back by the customer team girl in an hours time (expected by 10:15) and also a call from customer services to shower me with apologies and also gifts for f*cking something so simple up.
10:15 came. I looked at my phone. Why wasn't it ringing?
11:15 - could Vodafone be blocking BT?
12:15 - still no joy. My lovely wife - and she is lovely and very patient with me especially; and hardly ever gets angry - started to cry.
I'm lying, she didn't cry, but she said that she would try to call BT back as I was at work and finding it hard to concentrate.
13:10 - lunchtime at work. Time to kill that hunger pang and mild hangover with a nice hot meal.
13:15 - I received THE call from BT girl. What's 4 hours between friends anyway eh?
BT girl: 'Sorry your order was definitely cancelled so you will need to speak with the order team and reorder. I'll just connect you now.'
And in a flash she left my life forever.
14:30 - my lunch was now very cold. After about an hour and a quarter on the phone to my new 'BT Order' friend, I was told that it might be hard to match my old order as it was so good, but she would see what she could do. That's nice of her, especially as I ordered something over 3 weeks ago that I was now never going to receive. I went slightly pale, buried my head in my lap and shuddered. Colleagues looked at me in a concerned manner.
14:45 - I was told that the new order has gone through and will be PRIORITISED. I asked what prioritised meant - and was told I should expect to hear from the (quite ironically named, as now I have no home broadband) 'Offline' team within a day, potentially sooner with new engineer dates. I began to picture our shining BT Broadband Knight again.....
The rest of the day was spent waiting for a call, an email, something, just a sign that they cared. It was like being a teenager in love again - and let me tell you it was tough with acute acne.
23:00 - I went to bed. Why weren't they calling? And what would tomorrow bring?
11th March 2016
09:00 - I got off the phone with Sky begging for forgiveness. After a bit of a verbal bruising and a slice of humble pie on my behalf they took me back - and gave me a 14 day cancellation fee. I still have sh*t broadband and a crackling home phone- but that's better than nothing, eh?
17:00 - still no BT call or email or even order confirmation. I only gave them two mobile numbers, one home phone number and two email addresses.
Was I too keen?
What have I done to you BT?
I'm a kind person with a loving family and spend my life doing good deeds to help people.
If I have been bad and deserve to be punished, please tell me why.....
Otherwise, please just shower me with apologies and give me my F*CKING SUPERFAST FIBRE-OPTIC BROADBAND CONNECTION DATE....
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