BT Home Broadband Reviews

Reviewing this simply due to the fact of how shocking BT's Broadband is. For the last year the Broadband in our area has been disconnected every second night without fail during peak times for around 1-2 hours, on top of this when it is actually running you are lucky to get any decent usable connection, when streaming video's you are consistently directed to 140P, even on this you still run into buffer problems, whilst contacting customer services about the situation BT essentially said there is nothing they can do until Fibre is installed, even then I doubt their speed will be all that great. Would highly recommend not going with BT for Broadband.

WOW.
What an awful company.
I switched over from Sky Broadband last May, as the current infrastructure only offered me up to 2Mbps, in reality it was only 0.7Mbps.
BT had a fibre backbone, so could offer much higher speeds. I clocked it at around 79Mbps.
After 2 missed appointments, and 2 days off work on my part, I finally had it installed. As a goodwill gesture for wasting my time, the guy on the phone offered me my first 3 months free, which I agreed was acceptable.
After 3 months I got a huge bill for around £190. So I called their ridiculous phone system, and on the 3rd or 4th try managed to speak to someone. They denied all knowledge of this promise of 3 months free, and I urged them to listen back to the phone call as I would like the goodwill gesture that I was offered. They said they would listen to the call, and call me back within 7 working days. 7 days passed, no phone call. I called again (through THAT phone system) and asked why I hadn't received a call. No knowledge of the request. Great. Apologies, blah blah, they will call me back within 48 hours. No call. Getting angry now.
After a few calls on different days, trying to get somewhere, I gave up hope. Very angry at this point.
So I had a moment of madness and decided to email Mr Ian Livingston.
He replied back within about 20mins saying he was very sorry and would pass my details onto a 'top level customer service manager' - sounded promising.
Sure enough, the next day I had a call from a lovely lady. She said she was sorry I've had such a bad start with BT, and that she didn't need to listen to the original call. She will refund all the charges so far, including the late payment fees (I refused to pay a penny until it was resolved).
So, as of 1st October 2013, I was about £4 in credit.
Wonderful result!!
Alas, it has gone downhill from there.
My standard month bill is £44.45, Infinity 2 + line rental.
I don't have a phone connected to the phone line, and BT Infinity 2 is unlimited - so I know what my bill will be each and every month.
Unfortunately the BT computer system doesn't see it this way.
I had a letter saying "You are using more than you should, so we are increasing your monthly payment to £70 to cover this".
I was furious.
Every month I call them, speak to managers, other staff, explain the whole story time and time again. I have been on the phone for 2hrs more than once and not got anywhere.
They have taken a total of £350 over the last 5 months (5 x £70), instead of £207.25 (5 x £41.45).
So I figured they owe me £142.75. They refute this.

Another thing is they generate a quarterly bill, which I wasn't told when I entered into a contract. I am also on what they call 'Monthly Billing' as opposed to a standard Direct Debit, all because I wanted the DD to exit my my account on a specific date. This practice is standard in the 'Utilities Industry', apparently. Which is funny because I don't have this problem with my gas and electricity providers.
By having a 'Monthly Plan' (they tell me) that the amount can be adjusted by them each month as they see fit. BS.

All I wanted was a bill each month for my usage. Whether that's in advance or not, I don't really care, because I KNOW what that bill will be because I CAN'T go over my allowances due to it being unlimited and not having a phone connected.

I had my final call about a week ago, and after 2 hrs I asked to speak to the cancellation department. After another lengthy hold, and explaining the whole story AGAIN, the adviser said I couldn't cancel as there was an outstanding debt on the account and I need to speak to billing first. I was furious.
An outstanding balance?? When I am owed over £140??? I couldn't believe it.
Again I was put on hold, back to billing. On hold waiting for a manager... Explain the whole story YET AGAIN... Either he hangs up or we get cut off.

.........

Speechless.

So, I'm still at odds as to what to do.
No matter how many times I speak to them, or who I speak to, I never seem to get anywhere.
Heaven knows how much time and money I have spent calling them from my mobile.

To add insult to injury, Sky released their own fibre service about 2 months into my BT contract.

On another note, 3 weeks ago some nice person decided to crash their car into the green BT node at the end of the street, severing internet and phone connections to my whole street. This is not BT's fault I know, but it took around 2 weeks to fix, with no email or phone call to apologise. I called them to ask why I very rarely saw an Openreach engineer at the crash site. They said they would look into it...

Internet is back now, so I'm expecting a refund for the 2 weeks I had no Infinity 2. What do you think my chances are?

15 months without a phone line and without broadband, and BT are sending debt collectors to take £600 off me for a service they haven't provided! This is with the ombudsman now and also registered at ofcom.On the 31st October 2012 I contacted BT and informed them that I would be moving house on the 1st November 2012 and asked for my phone line and internet to be moved as well. The lady seemed intent on selling me the infinity package and I accepted to upgrade to this.

It took you over 6 months for BT to arrange to connect the broadband. I made over 40 phone calls to BT chasing this and all the while from October 2012 - May 2013 they continued to bill me for the phone line in my OLD residence despite not having connected my phone and not providing me an internet service in my new residence where I was now living.

I made several formal complaints to BT, the first being in March 2013 having waited 4 months for a phone line connection but they were all ignored.

Thorughout December 2012 - April 2013 they were unable to arrange a visit to connect the lines - they gave dozens of excuses for the delay, including a claim that I was in a remote area! (i am in central London). Each time I rang I had to explain everything all over again and then they would say they would call back but they never did. I wrote to them but never received a response.

They then left me a voicemail while I was abroad telling me they were going to attend in May to connect my line. I was abroad at the time, so did not pick up their message and was clearly not here in London to let in their engineer. They made no effort to agree the time of the attendance with me first.

At various times BT said they were going to waive the first 2 months or 3 months line rental for the massive inconvenience caused but none of their subsequent bills reflected that.

The phone line and infinity connection was supposed to be as a package of £80 where the phone line connection charge is included but instead they charged me for both separately coming to a total of £130.

BT continued to charge me for a line rental from 31st October 2012 until 25th May 2013 despite not offering any services whatsoever.

They charged me for phone calls made on my old line after I moved out of my last property on 5th November (£130.59 and £26.88) by the new tenants that had moved in and they did not disconnect the phone line in my old property despite a written order form saying they would.

I made several formal complaints to BT but they did not respond to any of them. (they never do apparently)

I then made a complaint to the ombudsman and in response to this BT refused to speak with me at all about my service and disconnected my broadband altogether and charged me a disconnection fee!

A preliminary investigation by the ombudsman asked for BT to pay me £100, a full refund of the excess charged by BT and a formal apology but their bill does not reflect any of this. BT have still not paid a refund. This whole saga has cost me a fortune (60 phone calls to BT from my mobile on their premium line in order to chase up the absent services that they had agreed). I have been obliged to use my mobile phone for international and other calls and this has added several £100s to my expenses over 15 months.

BT did not answer any of my letters or emails and did not respond to 2 more formal complaints submitted by post and by email.

However, they did react to my complaints to the ombudsman by then piling on a late service charge of £7.50, then £2.00 and then proceeded without warning to disconnect my broadband.

BT then added a further disconnection charge.

BT then proceeded to add more and more to the bills despite still not providing a service.

Now I have received a letter from a debt collection agency and from BT to inform me that they have added a further 25% to what BT were billing me previously for 'late payment'.

I would warn all of you out there to avoid this draining and time wasting nightmare. BT is an awful company.

So bad. I had a total sky package and wanted to save a few pounds so decided to go to BT but really really regret that decision. If you are ever in my position NEVER CHOOSE BT. Everything has been a disaster, broadband, TV and phone. It has been one problem after another. They can do nothing right and just lie down the phone to you. i have never had such a bad customer experience in my life.

Absolutely dire, called broadband when I'm lucky if I get 150kb, 1 mile away they enjoy 35MB, BT wont go the mile to our village, pass you around the different centres. Cant wait for 4G to come, we all have mobile contracts with data packages, then BT will be gone. £41 a month they rip me off for, they state on the BT website l get 1-3.5MB, total lies, Rightmove web site speed test states 100kb, that's a realistic figure, THANKS FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BT AND THANKS FOR THE LOST WORK AND THE NON EXISTANT TECHNICAL AND CUSTOMER SERVICE. YOU LIED TO ME AND AS YOU CANT GIVE WHAT YOU PROMISED 3 YEARS AGO, I THINK YOU MIS SOLD ME A PRODUCT, LIED AND THEREFORE SHOULD BE DONE FOR MIS SELLING BREACH OF CONTRACT.
DON'T BOTHER WITH BT IS WHAT L THINK

BT USELESS

Wish I had read all the reviews before ordering BT infinity package - completely disgusted with the customer service. Due to have an engineer on the 22nd of January, turned up but engineer was not qualified to enter attic space and left the property saying someone would come back to me in four days!! Rearranged another appointment for 29 the oh January, waited in all day, no engineer arrived. Rearranged for 30th of January and guess what - no engineer. Wasted three days leave and still no broadband. customer services will lie to you just to get you off the phone. Open reach are next to useless and Kelly Communications send unqualified engineers and you still have to wait 24 hours for a call-back from a trouble-shooting team who will no doubt make promises they can't keep.

DO NOT CHANGE YOUR BROADBAND to BT INFINITY

Don't bother worst company I have ever dealed with I have cancelled after numerous calls to get no were

Absolutely dreadful service DO NOT USE BT. Four times I have been told the fault would be sorted that day and 4 times they have failed to do so and failed to contact me saying there's an issue. Every conversation I have had with them they have assured me it will definitley be done that day and said the issue was at the exhange. I then called today as the fault is still not fixed and was informed that an engineer came to the flat, three days ago; engineer didn't even borther phoning when he couldn't get in. Having not been told soemone was coming I wasn't in. Two days ago I spoke to BT and no reference was made to the engineer turning up the day before and again they assured me it would be sorted within 24 hours. They are now saying thay have to wait three days to update the order (6 days from when the engineer came round)before they even consider dates for a new appointment. Again DO NOT USE BT

I have just sent the following to the BBC: Well, it's 2014, I have high-speed broadband, and I can't listen to The Archers on iPlayer because it cuts out every few seconds, sometimes coming up with the 'insufficient bandwith' message. This is for radio, not TV! I'm sending the same email to BT. No doubt you'll both blame each other. Either way, it's a disgrace in this day and age.
Livid of Louth. So now I leave it to you guys - who's going to take the blame, the Beeb or BT? I'm told I have 40meg download speed, and yet I can't stream a radio programme...???

If you're with Virgin at the moment and tempted to switch to BT because Virgin don't give loyalty points to long time customers, pls don't. You'll end up wishing you're still with Virgin. Internet's so slow, programs don't appear on its TV guide. Can't wait for my contract to end.

In a world where Broadband and telephones are just about essential BT cannot allocate an engineer to fix a fault IN THEIR TELEPHONE EXCHANGE in less than a week. We have no useable telephone and no broadband and the earliest they can fix it is January 28th. Perhaps if they took customer service seriously they'd reflect on this employ more engineers and maybe reduce the pay of executives by a small proportion to fund this - the outgoing chief, Ian Livingston, was paid £18.5 million (yes million) last year. An extra engineer or several on £30K or so would hardly dent his pay.

BT are a deceitful bunch - I signed up to an 18 month contract with a fixed price of £16 per month. After just 3 months they increased the price from my direct debit. I queried this and was told they were entirely at liberty to do so. If you look at any of their current advertsing it all states fixed prices for the term fo the contract - and dont even try and look at their T&Cs - thousands of pages of them. Just dont ever trust them.

I ordered my broadband and telephone line on 2nd Jan and was given a date of 21st Jan for installation between 8am to 1pm.Took day of work especailly for this waited and waited until about 2pm an engineer phones as say that he can not fit the telephone toady because of some issues with my previous telephone.
Phoned BT and the call centres are aboard the people working there dont have a clue on what customer service is.Had to re schedule the appointment which was given 10 days time.
BT are the worst company for customer service.
So i cancelled my package with them and i am looking else where.
AVOID BT AT ALL COSTS THEY ARE A BUNCH OF TWATS!!!!

I moved from Virgin thankfully to BT (I used to call virgin and ask them for permission to use broadband it was so bad). BT performance has been on the button, no stupid capping, price is lower, I gave 5 to customer service, I have not used them at all in 11 months. so BT have a thumbs up from me, I gave virgin hell they were so bad !!

Wow I never knew how bad BT were until I tried to contact them. BT are a communications provider.....Right? So why is it impossible to communicate with them? I spent a full day from 9 am to 7.45 pm trying to speak to the options team, who are so named no doubt because it's their option whether they feel like picking up the phone!! I called wanting to discuss my increasing bill and to see if they could match a deal from Talk Talk and eventually someone picked up the phone. I explained that I was being offered the same broadband speed, unlimited, including anytime calls and TV for less than I was being charged by BT for broadband and evening and weekend calls. The response was that Talk Talk are terrible with nonsense reasons why I shouldn't go to them like they would cut me off if I used over £20 of calls! Really my phone provider would cut me off for using the phone? They said I could have a £5 reduction in my bill but they would take away my evening calls!!! Excuse me? Horrendous and they don't care about customers. They have lost this one permanently. Don't touch with a barge pole.

Just awful in every way. We switched from Virgin and have not stopped regretting it. broadband service was extremely patchy and slow for 4 or 5 months. When an engineer finally came after endless phone calls he told us the initial installation was poor and fixed it. Problems continued and we had a 2nd engineer's visit who told us the first engineer had messed things up. He seems to have done a good job and broadband is now ok but we've been charged £130 for the engineer's visit. I'm now on the phone trying to query it. 20 minutes to get through to the billing dept (in India) who told me another dept deals with payments for engineers' visits. Have now spent another 20 mins waiting to get through to them. The customer service is awful. Call centre has been outsourced and the assistants' grasp of English is not great. Avoid BT at all costs.

it is the worst internet connection ever it never loads anything and all it does it flash orange day and night. its alright until you try to search for something on your laptop or mobile and then it just messes up. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. it terrible.

We have a holiday home on the isle of Skye. We also have Bt broadband, as this was the only option at the time. We hardly use the Internet, just checking emails or web browsing. Usually use about 1GB a month as download speeds are woeful. So were surprised to get an email from BT yesterday to say we had used 10GB in 10 days, get this, when we were not at the property and the hub is turned off. Thought this would be easily resolved with a call to BT. 1.5 hours on the phone later they will not accept their usage monitor is faulty and want us to upgrade our package!!
Do not touch BT with a barge pole. Customer service is hopeless! The call centre is in India which makes it even more difficult to get any sense out of them as it appears the poor folks on the help desk are reading a script.... Which they repeat like a mantra whatever you say.

So frustrating. Just opening the pages to write this review nearly made me lose the will. I haven't waited for pages to load like this for about 7 years. I can't stream anymore - is this a strategy to force you onto fibre optics?

By infinity...I wonder what it means to bt....

I've ordered fibre optic package on 27th November..
Paid for 1 year advance line rental...I was given 3weeks installation date....on the day of engineer visit v had to stay home coz they said from 1 pm to 6pm slot..waited till 7pm and guess what? No engineer...I've contracted them around 7.10 pm and the lady on the other side (presumably in India)
Had no idea...I was put on hold and was on line for 1hr before she said I will check the progress and someone will call u back within 24hrs....
Guess what, no one called..but I did receive an email saying ur new installation date is 8th January....no apology, no explanation nothing...I was furious as my children were going back to school before that...
The next say I tried to contact them and guess what? I was online for 1hrs and 20 min before I disconnected line...and then I tried again...after long infinity years I gotthrough....
Now I need to return the box back...let's see how it goes......over and defo out....