Yeah, Nostradamusthey really messed me about. I thought about posting a thread about it here about a week ago but I was just exhausted by it all, so I padded my postcount with fluffy sillyness in ABTMB instead (doesn’t everyone?)
AOL are doing good so far! Actually a dead goldfish with a polystyrene cup lashed to its side would be an improvement after BT.
BT would be first on my Enemies List, if only I had one just like Richard Nixon sigh
Nostradamus
Amazing how the same company can deliver wildy differing levels of service…
I use Hometime (unlimited off-peak) with Freeserve as my ISP. One evening I just couldn’t connect so I phoned Freeserve:
“Hello, I can’t connect”
“Yes, sorry, we’re very busy at the moment; here’s another dial-up number”
As I’m a mistrusting bitch, I emailed BT to confirm the number they gave me…within a day they mailed confirmation.
On the other hand… my husband changes his contract for his mobile phone every six months/year with BT; always takes about two weeks to sort out as the fuckwits there can’t get anything right. Always waiting for someone who can’t even wipe his own arse to give him a call back.
I think it is with BT Anytime, a BT Openworld/BT Internet product, where the main problems have arisen, although this is not to say that other areas of BT are perfect, as your husband has experienced.
Although neither quality makes for good service, I believe that BT Openworld is operating with sharp practice bordering on the fraudulent with BT Anytime, whereas the areas which annoy Mr. Red Devil reflect incompetence.
Furthermore, BT and BT Openworld/BT Internet are two different companies, or so I have been told by both parties, which makes for no little confusion.
I myself have no problem whatesoever with BT, for telephone use, special services (call divert, call waiting etc).
As you may have read, my opinion of BT Openworld cannot be described as favourable. They truly are manipulating BT Anytime contracts to the point where legality is at least questionable.
Mr Runyon: just to fuel some righteous indignation (and I’m right behind you here: come the revolution, Busby will be the first one lined up against the wall):
Nostradamus I would really recommend AOL. You pay £14.99 a month, same as with BT Anytime, but with a much, much better service and more stable connection, also a 100 free hours trial and a free technical helpline as I said.
Get away from BT now! Save your sanity and your phone bill! I implore you!
I just found this site - http://www.fast24.net/ Which claims 24/7 access for £159 per year. I’ve got no idea about the reliability, but it may be worth a look.
One of the last lines on your link Crusoe has me wondering about ‘heavy users’.
What are the terms of that ISP, surely anytime access means just that, and for £14.99 per month and with line rental added on too, it flipping should be.This has to be costing a total of £25 per month and that’s without the cost of phone calls.
So users are penalised for using the service for which they pay ? This is surreal.
It looks like BT is saying ‘give us £25 per month and don’t call us’
At least when I have charitable donations taken from my pay monthly they are tax free, I think that BT is not what I’d call a deserving charity.
casdave: all of the ISPs seem to be doing that now, cutting people off for excessive use. I think that while they might have a legitimate point in a few cases (people leaving dial-ups always on) at the very least they could tone down their advertising to reflect it. It does make a mockery of the claims they make.
Mr. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, addresses Parliament this morning on the subject of BT Openworld and its nefarious commercial policies.
A hushed assembly will be informed that Mr. Blair himself is a BT Anytime customer (£14.99 per month) who has been placed on a ‘black list’ by BT Openworld for using the service Anytime he felt like it.
Apparently, Mr. Blair’s daily discussions of Important Matters with Messrs. Bush, Putin, Musharraf etc. on ICQ and via email, have placed him in the top 34,000 users (along with myself of course) who have been allocated a new access number which doesn’t work properly.
Mr. Blair will explain to a Packed House that he has been unable to contact the SAS fighting units concentrated in Afghanistan because his internet connection keeps dropping, and then he gets Error Message 650, which indicates a software problem, but it isn’t really.
Crack MI5 agents have been trying to discover the Secret Headquarters of BT Openworld but have so far failed to find any trace of this elusive organisation.
It has become clear that the main reason why no military action has thus far taken place in Afghanistan is because telecommunications (Bt Anytime) are inhibiting the flow of Battle Orders to field commanders.
Mr. Blair flies to Moscow later today to discuss BT Anytime with Mr. Putin, and he is hoping that the Russian Premier will send over the Mafia (The Russian one) to locate the HQ of BT Openworld and ‘make them talk’.
It is also hoped that the Mafia will obtain a refund of £10.37 for Mr. Blair, this being the sum he has spent on the BT Anytime Technical Support Line (£0.50 per minute).
Nostradamus, I just saw your posting. I’ve seen a setup that would suit your purposes, but I have no idea how much it costs the person running it or who his supplier is. Let me try to get some details for you.
Oh, has anyone mentioned that BT sucks yet? For they do, they really do.
The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, flew to Moscow yesterday for talks about BT Openworld with Mr. Vladimir Putin, the well-known Russian.
Mr. Putin had previously agreed, through an exchange of communiqes sent by Carrier Pigeon (not by telephone using BT) to share intelligence on this Mysterious Organisation with Mr. Blair, who has been ‘black-listed’ for using the BT Anytime product Anytime.
I can exclusively reveal, on this message board, that the entire BT Openworld Organisation is holed up in a network of caves in the Hindu Kush, close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Mr. Putin and Mr. Blair have formed a coalition to discover the exact whereabouts of these Caves, in order to confront the Chief Executive of BT Openworld with irrefutable evidence that his BT Anytime product is basically crap.
Mr. Blair is flying to Pakistan today to hold discussions with President Musharraf, who is having problems with PT Openworld (the Pakistani subsidiary of BT Openworld) who keep disconnecting his internet line for no apparent reason.
It is hoped that a tri-partite coalition of Russia, Pakistan and the UK, through judicious deployment of security forces, will be able to ‘smoke out’ BT and PT Openworlds from their Cave Offices and obtain Suitable Explanations for the terrible services offered by these Telecommunications Giants.
Mr. Blair is still anxious to obtain his refund of £10.37 from BT Openworld and says he ‘won’t rest’ until the money is safely back in his savings account with the Alliance & Leicester.
Osama bin Laden issued a bulletin yesterday saying he was ‘quite satisfied’ with the service he was getting from AOL and that he was not thinking of moving to BT Openworld ‘in the foreseeable future’.