‘The nightmare when trying to change landline and broadband contract with BT’

Kate Birbeck, who lives in a village near Bishop’s Stortford, writes about the problems she and her husband had with BT in the hope of helping Indie readers who may experience similar problems...

I have a BT landline and BT broadband. The broadband works a single old computer in the household. I don’t have a smartphone and, apart from an old 2002 pay-as-you-go mobile purely for emergencies as there are no longer any telephone boxes, I don’t have any other communication devices. I rely on my landline to stay in touch with friends and family.

Last November, I looked into changing my BT contract to move onto a cheaper rate. After being bamboozled by the BT sales team, who attempted to explain all the options and whose sole desire was to sign me up to Digital Voice (DV), I decided against changing and to remain on my old contract, which relied on the copper cable landline service.

One of the main reasons was that, living in a small village, we have a lot of power cuts and rely on the landline to receive updates from our electricity supplier. Under the ‘new improved’ DV system, if the electricity goes off, the landline goes off.

When I put the phone down I thought that was the end of the matter.

However, on December 1 our landline suddenly went dead. Not sure why, we tried to contact BT and find out what was happening.

Bearing in mind BT’s business is communications, trying to contact them was a nightmare.

They have this glossy website that looks like they really want to help, but there is nothing behind that thin veneer. On one of their pages it says if you have a problem with your landline ring this number! (I kid you not). The e-mail contact facility does not work (it won’t even let you press the button to send an e-mail) and if you follow the tabs on the website you just keep going round and round in circles.

In the end I had to power up my old pay-as-you-go mobile to ring them. If I hadn’t had that I’m not sure what I would have done.

When I rang I was told how important my call was to them, that I was in a queue and someone would answer my call in the next hour-and-a-half.

After speaking to countless operators who didn’t know what was happening and who once more tried to sign me up to DV, I was eventually told an Openreach engineer would attend.

After waiting in all day, no one arrived. When I queried this they said they had no control over Openreach and could not contact them to find out what happened.

One of the more helpful operators thankfully gave me a long code I had to put into the computer that allowed me to request a call back. Without this, this whole experience would have been even more unbearable and expensive. If readers in a similar position contact BT, ask for the rapid call back link. This allows you to request a call back without sitting waiting on the phone (though you have to have a computer or smartphone to use this). The link is not on their website.

A new appointment was booked for the engineer who, yes, you guessed it, didn’t turn up. Another wasted day. There was no contact from BT or Openreach saying why they hadn’t arrived.

It was now heading towards Christmas Day and for over two weeks we had had no landline. Eventually, after many more frustrated phone calls burning up my pay-as-you-go credits, I was put through to the “Data Integrity Team”.

They explained that when I had looked into changing my contract in November they had partially implemented the change to DV (that I didn’t want) and had failed to cancel the order, which in turn cut off our landline.

I was told they might not now be able to put us back onto the copper cable system as the wiring had been removed.

We were told that if we wanted a landline we would have to have DV. Just wanting a phone and feeling completely exasperated by the whole experience I just said yes (which was probably their intention in the first place).

After I agreed to sign up to DV they sent me a large box containing a number of smaller boxes.

I was told because they had made a mistake they would graciously give me a free power pack that plugs into a socket in case of a power cut (apparently they have to provide this free of charge but will try to charge people for it).

However, my old landline phone did not work in their new plug-in electricity socket so I had to spend another £60 buying another box that plugs in between their box and the phone, which converts the signal so my phone now works. However, even with this new box the sound quality is still not great, with a constant background buzzing present.

They also provided a new phone that had the following warning on the box: “Radio signals from this phone can sometimes interfere with hearing aids, causing a humming noise. If you’ve got a pacemaker, please check with your doctor before you use this phone.”

“You won’t be able to call 999 (or any other numbers) from this phone if there’s a power cut or you have a problem with your broadband connection. So make sure you’ve got another way to call for help in an emergency.”

They gave me a temporary telephone number, but as all my contacts, from friends to banks to doctors to a myriad of other services, had the old number, I asked for my old number back. They said they would try to do this and we should have the old number back by Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve arrives. They cut off the temporary number but did not reinstate our old number. So, no phone for Christmas Day. In desperation, I tried to contact someone but just got a recorded message saying the call centre was closed and they wished me a very Merry Christmas. Thanks.

Our original landline number was eventually reinstated 29 days after it was cut off. I really do worry for people who do not have a mobile or computer. If their landline is cut off, how are they supposed to contact BT?

I was told this new DV system was supposed to make things better, but looking at the large battery pack sitting on the floor, the myriad of cables and boxes, and poor reception, I do wonder who this whole changeover was better for.

No doubt BT, who are partnering up with EE, will now not have to maintain a copper cable system and can get rid of all their engineers and pay their shareholders a bigger dividend. Or is that just me being cynical?

With their advertising slogan of being the best broadband and mobile provider, there is no mention of providing a landline telephone service and I can see them eventually forcing everyone to have a smartphone, which I really, really don’t want.

On a more critical level, with the current unstable conflicts around the world and the constant cyber attacks the UK suffers on a daily basis, turning our communication service over to one that relies on a computer system seems very dangerous and leaves us extremely vulnerable.

What was the old BT advertising slogan, “It’s good to talk”? Yeah, right.