faulty ADSL connection - are you sure?

[Tightscot]

The cost of a BT engineer finding out the ADSL problem is with the wiring in your property and not down to BT is set to increase from £50+vat to £144+vat.

Full Article: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/3045.html

i get the feeling BT have had lots of wasted call outs...

[Paul K]

It went up for installs last year as well. No matter how many times you ask people to check their own equipment they always say they have no matter what. You can warn them about the fees till you are blue in the face but 9 out of 10 times they still demand an engineer.

[awibble]

Originally Posted by Paul

It went up for installs last year as well. No matter how many times you ask people to check their own equipment they always say they have no matter what. You can warn them about the fees till you are blue in the face but 9 out of 10 times they still demand an engineer.

Doesnt help that some tech support teams are not the shapest in the world...

I had to get a friend to bring his computer round one just to prove that the fault was not with my equptment... Then they magically managed to fix it.

If the tech support had of listened to me, it would of been fixed in 30 minuites instead of 2 days!

I would agree with the charges if the tech support was reliable, but im sorry i have only ever called one reliable tech support team (NetGear).

(Please note i understand there are some very knowladgable techs that work on the desks, but unfortuneatly they tend to be out numbered by staff that will not listen to clients)

So Yes, sometimes you might have to tell clients over and over.... But sometimes the clients have to tell the techs over and over

[MovedGoalPosts]

For most customers the difficulty is in fact the fault diagnosis bit as in where is it. Customers generally do not have two modems, without which it's often impossible, even if the modem is customer supplied, to identify if it's a broadband fault or somewhere else.

[Paul K]

At BT you didn't worry too much about the modem, you ran a thorough diagnostic on the line looking for issues and responses. Certain things would trigger your interest but if nothing showed you could punt it on to the ADSL techs after making sure the end user had done basic things like switching filters etc.

[MovedGoalPosts]

hmm, why then do I have a shiny, only used once modem, sitting here in my office that I had to rush out and buy because no one would believe me the ADSL service was broke Worse even once proven by me it took a week for BT to get off their backsides and resolve it despite continuous pressure from me and (reluctantly) my ISP.

Call out charges are all well and good when they are justified and viable. This seems like a bit of a hike against a clientele that are being held over a barrel.

Originally Posted by Tightscot

The cost of a BT engineer finding out the ADSL problem is with the wiring in your property and not down to BT is set to increase from £50+vat to £144+vat.

Full Article: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/3045.html

i get the feeling BT have had lots of wasted call outs...

Obviously increased charges to the consumers are never welcome, but this does reinforce the need for people to carry out some self diagnostics before requesting an engineer visit via their broadband provider. Most service providers do go through a check list to ensure users will not have to suffer the fee; for example, trying the ADSL modem at the test socket that is part of the BT master socket, or borrowing a friends hardware to ensure that the fault is not with the ADSL kit.

How the blue blazes is internet connectivity ever going to become universally available and accessible to all when it is considered acceptable for service providers to make their customers jump through these sorts of hoops?

Can you imagine an elderly or infirm person being able to cope with fiddling with the master socket or 'borrowing a friend's hardware'?

It seems to me that the main reason for such a punitive increase in the cost of an engineer visit is to try to dissuade people from getting an engineer out or daring to press their reasonable demand for the service they are paying for to work properly.

[Paul K]

If only you knew just how lenient BT tech support was asked to be when dealing with the elderly or infirm while I was there
When I was there we were always told if the customer is elderly or infirm then we didn't have to make them take the socket cover off unless they were happy to do so, if they couldn't do any of the tests themselves we would always send an engineer round to sort it for them without charging.
I actually spent 5 minutes explaining to a pensionner how to get a new phone every year since she was still renting. Then I arranged for her replacement and added a note to her record for someone to call her back after the phone was signed for to check if the fault was still there...... we weren't all a bunch of heartless sh**s you know

[awibble]

Originally Posted by Paul

we weren't all a bunch of heartless sh**s you know

The system would be perfect if none of you were

One thing i was trying to say... i know its not everyone, but a few make a bad name for the many.

Originally Posted by Paul

If only you knew just how lenient BT tech support was asked to be when dealing with the elderly or infirm while I was there
When I was there we were always told if the customer is elderly or infirm then we didn't have to make them take the socket cover off unless they were happy to do so, if they couldn't do any of the tests themselves we would always send an engineer round to sort it for them without charging.
I actually spent 5 minutes explaining to a pensionner how to get a new phone every year since she was still renting. Then I arranged for her replacement and added a note to her record for someone to call her back after the phone was signed for to check if the fault was still there...... we weren't all a bunch of heartless sh**s you know

Those with face-to-face contact with the customers rarely are, in my experience. It's the bean-counters and other assorted troublemakers who hide behind their terminals that come up with these wheezes and give the whole show a bad name.