"I don't believe it..."

I'm still utterly amazed at the nonsense I was treated to when I tried to get a telephone fault sorted out yesterday. Call me naive, but I expected better service from BT.

I'd been helping Jan, a friend from work who keeps an eye on Bob, her 96 year old neighbour. His 'phone had been on the blink for a couple of days; outgoing calls were OK but it wouldn't take incoming calls. Jan had rung me to ask if I'd report the fault, as whenever she'd tried, the people at BT seemed to dismiss the problem, as she was calling them from the 'phone she claimed was 'faulty'.

"If you report it, from another 'phone, perhaps they'll take it more seriously", she said.

So I went through the usual rigmarole of calling the Fault Line and wading through various options until I eventually managed to speak to a human being. I answered all her questions. I told her my name, the number of the 'phone I was calling from, the number of the 'phone with the fault, the name of the householder who had the faulty 'phone. I even had to explain my relationship with the householder with the faulty 'phone, although I can't think why that should have any influence on a telephone fault. At some point in the interrogation, I may have been asked to explain what was wrong with the 'phone, but it's quite possible that I dreamed that.
Finally, she ran out of questions.
"Great!", I thought, "Now she'll tell me when someone can fix the problem"
Did I mention that I can be a bit naive sometimes?

"I must tell you," said the BT woman, "that if we send an engineer to check the fault and it isn't a fault in our equipment, we will have to charge you a hundred and twenty-five pounds for the call-out."
"Er, what? "
"The fault could be in the house and not on the BT line."
"So how do I work out whether it's a BT fault?"
"You can check at the socket"
"Do you mean the telephone socket?"
"Yes... but it must be the main one, not an extension."
"OK... How do I check the socket?"
"You take off the socket cover, an-"
"Wait... Hold on a minute. Are you telling me to explain to a ninety-six year old man that he has to dismantle his 'phone socket so that he can find out whether your engineers will come and fix his telephone without charging him over a hundred quid?"
"Yes"
I've heard a few lame ideas in my time, and I've come across some poor customer service, but this was a new definition of "abysmal".
Struggling to retain my self-control, I decided to find out exactly what her suggested diagnostic procedure entailed.
"All right. I may be able to get someone to check the socket, but you'd better explain exactly what to do. I'll write it down"
"OK", she said "take off the socket cover. Inside the socket you'll find another internal socket."
"What, just like the normal one?"
"Yes. Plug the 'phone into that and see if it works. If it still doesn't work, the line is faulty and we will repair it free of charge."
"Thank you. We'll give it a try."
It was a relief to hang up.
I simply couldn't believe that I was being advised to dismantle part of a telephone installation by someone who had no idea of the condition of the equipment, let alone my knowledge or competence to take it apart.
Add to this the whole concept of threatening to charge your customers for a service which they reasonably think they already pay for...
I think that it's just despicable.

A couple of hours later, Jan and I managed to get another of our colleagues to nip round and have a look at Bob's 'phone and investigate the internal mysteries of the socket, but in the end Jan decided to have another bash at getting a BT engineer to visit.

Jan is clearly better than me at this sort of thing, because by the end of the day, a charming young man from BT had been round, and Bob's telephone is now in full working order.

We still don't know whether they'll try to sting Bob for the call-out, but I get the distinct impression that Jan is already preparing to launch a retaliatory strike on them if they do, God help them.


Dali makes more sense than BT