Home highway robbery. (BT)

Member Name: wishywalshy

Product:	BT
Date:	18/01/02 (2107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High speed connection, 2 phonelines, computer dedicated lines, some of the assistant are really helpful

Disadvantages: Double charging, Sales assistants on commission, others are just darn rude, Not economical compared to other systems

High-speed digital connection from British Telecom.
Boasting 128,000 kbps on full speed. Incorporating 2 telephone lines and two ISDN connections.
Package costing £30 per month, at the time there was no installation charge.

My tale of woe begins with a telephone call from BT sales.
“We see you have 2 phone lines, you would surely benefit from our unbelievable Home highway package, no more line rental to pay, it would be much more economical than the system that you are using at present”.
Mr wishywalshy thinks about, asks for further information and the like.
Read enclosed literature, digest the written information and decide that we’d give it a whirl.
In due course the engineer arrived to connect the magic box into the circuit.
On his arrival he asked where we would like the box to live, unknown to us there was a real reason behind it.
We stated that in the same place as the TX4 box was. (In the hall, by the front door)
Fitting now completed, the difficulty now arose, as to how we were actually going to get a USB lead that was more than 7 metres to reach the computer, only to discover that USB leads are designed to work perfectly for up to 5 metres and after that there are no guarantees.
Obviously now fairly irate, as the bloke who came to fit the machinery obviously knew this fact.

Picture the scene, Mr wishywalshy sat on the bottom stair monitor perched on stool and keyboard teetering on his lap, trying to avoid the 4 children and 2 dogs barging past.
Result, nothing. Tried again and again. Finally we managed to connect, only to be thrown back off several times.
Becoming tired of the situation we contacted BT on their premium rate customer service help line, who initially blamed the computer, only to discover that the system was not compatible with Windows XP.
The guy on the phone stated not to worry, that a patch would be available and to bear with them.

The solution
would be, to pay real money to buy a windows 98 disk, the difficulty being was that I didn’t have the money straight away for this purchase.

Finally installed 98 onto the computer and was able to connect at an amazing 128kbps, only after subscribing to another internet service provider, as our trusty AOL just didn’t like it.

After several searches on the Internet we were unable to find a server that would allow you to pay a monthly charge, connect via the ISDN and have free unlimited access.

Consequently our selected ISP was to charge 1p a minute.
Okay for starters we thought.

Wind on another month.
The bill arrives, a whacking £250. Oh my gosh!! Thinks Mr wishywalshy, until we closely scrutinise the bill in hand.
On the basis that my unlimited AOL access cost £15 per month and the line rental only £9 (approx), how could this system be more economical?

Some irregularities seemed to be appearing, we were being double charged for many of the calls made, many of which I add that were failed calls as there was no way that we could log on and do anything on the system in 4 seconds, which is what I was being billed for, several times, not just the once or twice, but in all over 20 times.

On contacting customer services I was informed that the matter would be investigated.
Some days later I received a telephone call from Home Highway stating that there was no double charging and that when a full speed connection is made the charge is doubled because two lines are being used.

Well hold on a minute!!!, was there anything in the paperwork sent by BT regarding this absurd charging system?
Of course not!!.

Deciding that this was actually a con, I explained to the operator that I felt that I had been mis-sold this package and that I was giving them 28 days to come and remove the system and revert the old lines back.
The operator then became very uppity and informed me that
I was contracted to keep the system for 12 months, I did then state that I would be in contact with trading standards in due course, and if they wanted their money for the next 10 months rental, then they could try and get it.
A date was confirmed to remove the equipment (Jan 4th)

Having disconnected the system from our computers we happily logged back onto AOL, with no ill effects.
Christmas and New Year came and went with no adverse effects, until the 3rd of January.
Furious that I could not contact Mr wishywalshy one evening I contacted BT faults, to be informed that there was a fault on the line and that the fault had been reported, little did we know that the kind people at BT had been informing our friends that we had been disconnected, nice of them to tell us first.
Scrutinising my bank statement I was able to confirm that all monies due to them had been paid, therefore I couldn’t understand why they had disconnected us.
The next day the Internet phone line went down.

Quite irate by now, I contacted customer services to try to get to the bottom of this "glitch".
After an awful lot of being passed from pillar to post I finally spoke to Jamaican sounding woman.
After explaining our situation, she abruptly informed me that we had requested that all lines be removed. Amazed at this statement I reiterated exactly what I had said a month earlier, that I had requested that the Home highway system be removed and my lines put back to their original state.
This” lady" argues that there is no reconnection request in place and that there would not be an available engineer until Thursday of the following week.
And.............. the reconnection charges would be £28.00 per line.
Show a bull a red rag!!!!
In my best I will not be messed around and I pay your wages kind of voice, I calmly explained again that the request to return my telephone lines to their original state had been made
at the very same time that we had asked for the Home highway equipment to be removed.
Again I explained why we wanted the equipment removed only to be called "Stupid" for not being aware of the double billing system, which I did not take kindly to.
By now the "lady" was becoming increasingly agitated and accused me of swearing at her, which I did not. I reminded her of the message that precedes calls to BT operator services stating that the call would be recorded, and invited her to rewind and play the tape back. After stating that I worked with the public everyday I knew better than to swear (as you immediately loose the argument), she said that there was no reason given for requesting the removal of the system.
I calmly explained that it was highly likely that the person who dealt with me in the first instance also neglected to fill in that little box with "sold package under false pretences".
By now she was furious and slams the telephone down.

Determined not to be beaten, I contacted the supervisor, who in turn agreed that not only had the operator been way out of line, that my complaints were entirely justified and that she could enable reconnection for free.
I informed her that while the lines been out of action there was no way that my employer could have contacted me to work on my rest days, resulting in loss of earnings.

Assured that the matter would be resolved and my lines would be in within a couple of days I was content, not sure that that is the right word though.

The very next day an engineer was on the doorstep to not only remove the Home highway equipment, he was here to reconnect the old line.
Even the engineer knew nothing of the double billing procedure, and concluded that to be the reason that he had removed over 30 systems in the previous 4 weeks.

Eventually the line was back, but not the Internet line, so logging on became impossible.
The difficulty
arose when we refused to allow the engineer to piggyback the net connection line onto the normal line.
Now everything was becoming as clear as day.

We had only been seeking an alternative to log onto the net at a faster rate that 28000kbps, which is all we had ever been able to do. We had tried different ISPs, new modems etc, but nothing would make us log on any faster.
The cheeky whatnots had split our line resulting in half speed connection for nearly 5 years, but had billed us for a complete installation all that time ago.
No wonder the ISDN connection seemed so fast it was running at four times the speed of our old connection.

Eventually the new line was installed, but not until the engineers had dug up the road and routed a new line through from the exchange.

Finally Mr and Mrs wishywalshy are happy....... until another bill arrives, this time demanding £330, including 9 months advance payment for a system that had been sold to me under false pretences. (£194).
Determined to sort this matter once and for all I contacted customer services yet again.(Glad it's a free phone number).Was sent all around the houses until finally I was connected to a nice chap called Andrew, who was more than happy to listen to my grievances and who kindly sorted the whole thing out in a matter of minutes.
He had to agree that there was nothing in their literature that stated that at full speed the connection charge would be doubled, nor did it take into account all of those thousands of windows xp users.
From where he was sat there was no reason whatsoever that I should have to pay for something that I was definitely not going to use, and that had by all appearances been sold on a commission basis and was most certainly correct in stating that Home highway was not a more economical option for us.

After what seemed to be an eternal wait he came back on the phone to inform me that I was not being unreasonable and we woul
d not be charged for anything that we had not used.

Finally today I received a call from BT accounts.
Mrs BT."Mrs Walsh your new amended bill will be £77"
wishywalshy"Coo, thanks very very very much. We weren't being unreasonable"
Mrs BT."No madam, I'm just reading the notes, mmmm, not in the least unreasonable. Your new bill will be with you by the middle of next week, however it is payable in full"
wishywalshy" No problem at all, thank you very very much"
Click.............

So the moral of the story is...............
Don't be mugged by the Home Highway robbers.
In today’s competitive age it is difficult to believe that British Telecom is quite prepared to deceive their customers in order to make a sale, increasing their already overflowing bank account. Their share price has continued to fall and their customer base has reduced as more competition enters the market, you would have though that they would have tried to keep their existing customers especially ones like us who have been continuously customers for 13 years, rather that to view us as fat cows to be continually milked.

For a communication company they need lessons in talking to people.

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