Another lost connection and abysmal customer servi...

Question

Sorry about my username (registered today), but that is mild compared to how I feel.
I have spent most of the day trying to report a faulty line - cannot make or recieve calls. Every time I have tried to report the fault or speak to someone, I have been directed to a ridiculous robot 'help' srevice which has tried repeatedly to tell me how to test my appliances. It seems that the customer service phone number has been masked at every attempt to find my way through the maze of unhelpful 'helpful solutions'. Eventually, after finding the relevant number I spent 6 minutes listening to another robot before being told that I was now in a queue estimated to have an average 5 minutes further wait before a representastive became available! All this at eyewatering mobile phone non inclusive tariff cost! Eventually I tried to log the fault by email explaining that I wanted the line fixed and was certain after trying every test available that it was not an equipment or internal issue. Some time later an email came back saying 'I did ran a test on your line and cannot find an external fault - however, if you report a fault, we will send a technician'. I had reported the fault!
So I sent another email insisting that there was a fault and please therefore log it and send a technician. No reply, so eventually (now 7pm) I phoned customer services at mobile phone rate costs again and this time got through in under 10 minutes. The operative then wanted to go through equipment checks again regardles of my request for a engineer's visit: eventually, she said there seemed to be an external fault on the line and she would log a request for an engineer to investigate. I was told I could expect a visit by 5pm next Wednesday (5 days)! I asked if there was any way to escalate the process or any other assistance available and was told no.
How was the fault diagnosed differently each time? Having now looked at the BT customer service agreement, it seems that the fault should be dealt with within 3 working days of being reported, so since I reported it this morning (Fri) surely it should at the latest be fixed by Wednesday morning? Also, what about the cost of mobile phone calls, firstly to BT and secondly any other calls which are now incurred without my my all inclusive BT calls? She didn't mention the offer for compensation which is detailed in BT's Ts and Cs.
Let alone the time and anguish I have endured today. What is more frustrating is that this also happened earlier this year and I was given the same excuses and run around then. Also, BT have never fulfilled their promise to look into my pathetic download speed of .26mb/s, again trying to blame internal wiring issues which have been positively disproven.
All this after 10 years of good natured custom from me - until now.....SHAME ON YOU BT!

Answer 1

Glad to see you've calmed down a bit after a sleep - I was the same as were many others 
For the phone line, all you can do is wait until the engineer turns up on Wednesday. If he doesn't resolve the problem then you can escalate this to the mods of this forum. The mods are the only BT people on the forum and they can only get involved after a certain amount of prior fault finding. If you need to contact the mods, get your account info and fault number from your online account details and include them and a link to this thread. (Don't post account details here - only in the email to the mod). You will then get a reply within 3 days (but often faster, mine was half a day) and the mod who contacts you will take ownership of the problem until resolved.
As I said before, if there is a phone problem (noise etc) then this will kill broadband very quickly and it doesn't matter how many resets you get, the speed will quickly drop again. It does this because the exchange is continually monitoring your connection and every time it sees noise or a reset on your hub it slows down the connection until such time as it is stable. It will then slowly speed up again as it maintains stability. This happens naturally and it will typically recover a lot of the speed within 3 to 5 days. If you've been told to wait for 10 days then this is probably after a noise reset at the exchange and the line is seen as a 'new' broadband connection again and therefore a longer retraining period. However, as before, if the phone line is bad it will quickly reduce to 'dial-up' speeds again.
If you go over to the broadband forum from the link I posted before and post your info then some of the experts (mostly customers, not BT) will come along and take you through a process of eliminating where the errors are and how to get them resolved. If you want to see how this process works have a look at my thread Here. I had a similar problem with the same speed as you and the forum and finally mods helped me to recover back to 11Mbps down/1Mbps up. My problem was finally identified as a line fault.
The main advice I'd give for now is:
Wait for the engineer to fix the phone (he may also reset your broadband if lucky).
Contact mods if it isn't fixed.
DO NOT unplug your modem/router unless necessary as this is seen as a fault and restarts the training period.
Read my original post with similar problem.
Post your own stats on broadband forum and take the experts advice - they'll be along soon 
DO NOT call India - this will confuse things - leave it to the engineer and then the mods if necessary.
Good luck and ask again if you want more info.
Alan