Request for help with phone fault

[progers]

My Sister's phone line is faulty and an engineer was scheduled to come two days ago and never turned up.

My Sister is quite ill with, amongst other things, Laryngitis which makes it difficult to phone CS as she cannot speak!!!

I called this afternoon to report the fault again but India said they were unable to access any customer accounts so couldn't help.

Any ideas for an escalation route anyone??

Peter (for Jean)

[Chris W]

If your sister can't speak then why does she need the phone...?

Anyhow, when you called CS and you say they couldn't access any accounts was that due to a system problem, or they refused to give you access due to DPA? If it was the former then try and give them a call again.

[dgardner]

Hi,
I would try calling tech supp again rather than cs as tech supp don't need to confirm dpa to get a tech out whereas cs do to look into the account and they would have to transfer you to tech supp anyway

[m419]

Thats strange never come across the indian call centre yet! Always manage to speak to someone in the UK.

[Paul K]

Hi,
I would try calling tech supp again rather than cs as tech supp don't need to confirm dpa to get a tech out whereas cs do to look into the account and they would have to transfer you to tech supp anyway
Erm with BT you need to confirm DPA for tech support unless you tell them you are calling as a third party to investigate the possibility of a line fault on someone you are trying to call. If you try to call as the line owner you must clear DPA to continue.

OP
If you sister can talk enough to give permission for you to speak on her behalf then make the call yourself, explain the line owner is ill with laryngitis, get your sister to quickly give permission for you to act as her agent in the matter and then take the call back from her.
Failing that try the email system or http://www2.bt.com/faults as BT have literally nearly a hundred people each day working on emails and issues put through by the web system.
Did BT say what the fault was and why an engineer needed access to the property?

[dgardner]

Is his sister with bt?
As he is posting on the vm forum i assumed his sister was with vm

[Paul K]

It should be the same for all fixed lines providers as line information cannot be given to just anyone that calls about a certain telephone number, I gave BT as an example as I used to work for them and know how they handle DPA ;)

[chickendippers]

If you have any female friends you can trust with the relevant information then give them customer number, phone number, address, DOB and answer to the security question (often mother's maiden name) and ask them to pretend to be your sister.


I always call VM and simply pretend to be my dad, I have called BT numerous times on behalf of a less technically-minded friend to help fix their broadband, so they'll never know.

[progers]

Thanks for all your suggestions.

Sister is with VM; they have accepted my authority to request an engineer call.

However, on three occasions now, the engineer has failed to turn up; my sister has had to be in for six hours each time.

I called the call centre (in India) again tonight and asked to speak to a manager; All he can do is book an engineer again requiring my sister to wait in for another six hours - he said it was impossible to do anything else.

The agent admitted that the three previous calls were cancelled from their end due to system problems.

It's obvious from this that the Indian call centres have absolutely no power whatsoever to help out customers.

IMHO, most companies would fall over backwards to help out after their engineer failed to turn up three times. It's quite obvious from this that Virgin Media don't give a sh*t about their customers; I've never known a company with such appalling Customer Service - in fact it's not appalling, it's not that good, it's non existent!

:mad::mad::mad:

[douglet]

VM tech support can send a tech out for anyone regardless if DPA has been passed aslong as the caller is over 18, also if the tech does no turn up then, you sould be credited with £10 as you would be charged £10 if the tech turns up and you are not home.

I used to call it a "no access charge".

If your not happy then call CS and express this, but bare in mind they cant do anything more than log a complaint that will be sent to FMC - fault management center (Liverpool) and sit in a big pool of complaints until it is dealt with and even then some one will only call and say how they are so very sorry (damage has already been done by that point).