I am sorry this is not IVA related but I seriously need to rant.
I called out an engineer to check my BT Master Socket which was faulty and they said I wouldn't have to pay anything cause they are responsible for the master socket. Anyway they never knocked on the door and told me everything is fine from **OUTSIDE**. Well you can imagine I was unhappy staying in all day and they didn't even knock so I asked for another one to come out. On arrival he said he was the wrong engineer and not trained to help me with my problem. Off he went.
I received £250 worth of charges for these two failed visits so I rang up and spoke to their call centre in India of which I am so not a fan. Lovely people but they read from scripts and don't understand you and they come accross as robots, hate it hate it hate it!!!! I finally got through to a manager who authorised to refund the £250 which was good.
Few months later the £250 went onto my bill. I rang back and sorted it out to be removed again but then my direct debit jumped from £16.50 a month to £87.50 a month to pay this non existent bill. I was assured this would be rectified immediately. 3 Months later the £87.50 is still being taken out on direct debit despite my phone calls of complaint. Every time I ring it takes a minimum of 5 working days to get the overpayment back and their call centres and managers are borderline ridiculous. I had to write off to a separate department with the £60 worth of bank charges i received for going overdrawn because of their error. I had to wait a month to get these back.
Well it happened again this month and I rang them on the 11th and was told sorry it will be refunded **again** within 5 days. It is now the 20th and no refund and they state its due to tomorrow. I haven't got the luxury of spare cash to keep making up for their incompetence every month and trying to get hold of a manager in a uk call centre is near on impossible.
Why on earth do they treat customers this way, when I said i would leave they said sure i'll close your account right now. No customer retention at all.
I got through to a very nice lady in the UK who appreciated the drama I have been through about 10 minutes ago. She has confirmed the direct debit has been reduced to the correct amount and the refund has been actioned for my credit balance for sure. She has also credited my account one monthly rental as compensation for my troubles after I explained what I had been through. She advised me this is not something they normally do but due to my several months of stress they were happy to do this for me.
I said to her that I don't care where the call centres are but it really helps when you can interact with the person on the other end of the phone. Language barriers can cause frustration and slow things down or in this case make errors when you are not being understood properly.
I have a 3G phone and their call centres are in India as well but their advisor's speak English fine and I have never had any issues with anything I have asked them to do for me. My grievance is being assured my request has gone through and it hasn't several times. If they are going to use call centres in other countries they should be able to liase effectively and not be expected to work off scripts because this is not fair for the employee or the customer.
sorry to hear of your problems with BT. If by chance the wrong amount goes out of the bank again, why not do A Direct Debit Indemnity where you can recall the DD back into the bank and wait for them to call you
I hate BT Indian call centres as well Dave - I've had more than my fair share of problems with them over the past year or so to to with my broadband and broadband talk.
Glad you got sorted though.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
