How British Telecom Failed Me

At long, long last, I am back on line. It’s taken so long because a) BT let me down big time, and b) I wasn’t hot enough on chasing them up. Here’s the story.

On July 1st I called BT and told them of our move and that there was a Sky line in the house we were moving to. They said a BT line would be activated on our moving day and they would send me a text on my mobile informing me of the phone number. I called my Orange broadband provider and was told to call them once I had my new number, after which it would take a couple of weeks to set up the service. So I thought I’d only be offline for two weeks or so.

Our move was accomplished on July 17th as planned. I didn’t think about telephones on that day as we tried to sort ourselves somewhere to sleep that night once we’d been out to eat. The next day I realised I’d not received a text but found a dialling tone on the phone. Thinking BT had just not managed to text me, I used the landline to call my mobile so I could get the number. I then called Orange and was told to call again once the line had been set up for at least 48 hours. The following Monday they still couldn’t find any data on that number with BT. I should try again later. We had a wedding to go to and lots of other things to do so it was three days before I got around to trying again – still no data. They thought the number couldn’t be a BT one.

I called Sky. Oh, yes. The number was part of a package which they’d just been informed should be cancelled. This would happen soon. BT could just take the line over. I called BT. They had no record of me placing an order and the two phone lines at my previous address were still operating

Hang on a minute – I had placed an order on July 1st but it had been cancelled. Cancelled? I hadn’t cancelled it. Well, someone had cancelled it. What did I want them to do now? They could book an engineer to set up the line for me but the first available appointment was in a week’s time. But Sky had said that wouldn’t be necessary. Well, Sky weren’t BT and they had to send out an engineer, at a cost of £120+, although when I placed the order that someone cancelled, I’d been told it wasn’t necessary. In the meantime my previous lines would be stopped over a week after I had moved away from them.

Of course when the engineers came and sorted out the line, they said that Sky got their line from BT anyway, so I bet it hadn’t really been necessary for them to come out at all. They didn’t actually say that, of course, but it was implied. In the meantime, NTL had got in on the act, and the line they found here was one which that company had hacked into. All very confusing and all I understand is that I’m the one that has to pay for it. I’ve even lost my adboxes at Project Wonderful because I haven’t been able to get enough traffic to this site.

Anyway I finally got my phone line and had to contact again everyone who’d been given the previous number. And now, another two weeks on, here I am, very relieved to be back online and able to communicate and get some more work out into the ether.

Well, I knew the likelihood of problems arising after moving house. Of course there are more, but I’m saving those up for later posts.

Fortunately I did have some sales of my showcased work at Constant Content during my down time. I also got my writing star back at Helium without submitting anything, which means I can earn up-front payments there again. So I need to get back to work with a vengeance.

Despite all of these problems, I am now living my dream of a home near the sea, and I can walk to it every day. Whoopee!