Now you may not have noticed, I mean my posting is quite irregular, but there was nothing from me yesterday, not a solitary peep, sorry tweet.
The reason, well it’s quite a simple one really. You see, we were cut off. Cut off at the telephone socket by our glorious national telecomms giant, BT aka British Telecommunications. But Mr Jellybaby sir, the reason that they cut you off is surely self-evident n’est pas? You didn’t pay your bill. Well no, not really because I did pay my bill.
As a matter of fact I paid it the day after it was raised. Oh yes. I have paperless billing, so as soon as I received an email from them telling me that my bill was ready I hopped on over to my online banking website and paid the bill – much like I did in the previous quarter. In fact exactly like I did the previous quarter. So that’s it thinks I. Oh no it isn’t thinks BT, silently, malevolently almost, as around 3 weeks later I received a red bill telling me that I hadn’t paid. I ring up and explain that I have paid, shurely shome mishtake? No they say, you haven’t paid. I ring my bank and they do a trace on the payment – their investigations result in a letter telling me that yes, BT does have your payment (it also says, but if if they won’t admit it, it’s up to you to sort it out, like here’s a proforma letter that you could send them, or get your solicitor involved… blah blah blah).
So, after that letter, I ring BT again and lo and behold, someone – don’t know who – tells me, yes Mr Jellybaby, we’ve found your payment. Everything’s fine thank you for using BT. Excepct it wasn’t fine and they hadn’t found the payment, I guess that the CSR must have been ‘new’ or hadn’t heard me correctly or was just telling me what I wanted to hear, because on Tuesday of this week (it’s Thursday morning now) I found that my service was ‘restricted’. People could call me, but I couldn’t call anybody, BT excepted. So I called them, and had a bit of a rant – and to be fair, they are good they didn’t rise to it. All those soothing noises, I’m sorry Mr Jellybaby, blah blah blah. I will say that the chap I spoke to wasn’t overly keen to supply me with the number for Ofcom – he first told me that I could find it on my bill – ‘erm sorry, I have paperless billing.
No matter, he also gave me a fax number for the BT billing section – that way I could fax them the information to show them that I had paid and then, and only then they would start an investigation to see where my money had gone within their system. I think that they must be like Sting you know. His accountant was able to swindle him out of a big stack of cash – he’s obviously got too much. Trouble is, my bill was only £143.39, a mere drop in the ocean, not even what they make in a second in profit so we are lead to believe.
I sent them a fax from the newsagents. £2.50! For three pages! Gah! By this time our service was completely cut off, no calls in or out, EVEN TO BT. I could use the internet, only to pay my bill mind. Eventually, I did find a geographical number so that I could call them on the mobile. Thank you for your fax, she said. A maximum of 24 hours for your service to be reinstated she said (later revised to 48 hours). Once the phone was back on, mid afternoon yesterday, I called them again to chivvy them along with the broadband reconnection, but nothing. At least that young lady had the experience, good instinct or whatever to take all the information pertinent to my case and enter it on their system.
So now it’s Thursday and we’re back on – can’t you tell? BT are making enquiries into where the money has gone. It’s not really any of my business to be honest, because I paid the bill, way back on the 18 March. I know it, they know it and they need to be more careful with their money. Good grief, that’s what we tell the kids…
