Help! Has anyone else had this? Re: caller ID Issu...

Question

Dear all,
I would understand if you didn't have the time to read my extensive notes below so the short version is the following (if you wanted a good laugh at my expense and a diatribe on the perils of switching ISP then do read it).
My caller ID doesn't work.
Having switched to BT on February 10th it is now two months and my caller ID still doesn't work.
I have called and reported it several times. I have gone through all the line testing. I have plugged my phone into the master socket. I have dialed #234# and it says it's active. I have even bought a new BT phone and tried that.
BT can see no fault on the line. It says caller ID is active. But no caller ID's appear on either of my phones when someone calls in. It just says 'incoming call'. I am convinced it is not the phones. There is no menu option to activate caller ID on the phones. They're gooid quality phones and are supposed to automatically work 'if caller ID is active on the line'.
I am about to call BT again and ask for an engineer visit. But on their last email to me it said "Please note: we'll provide a working service up to and including the main socket in your house. If your problem isn't with your BT service, you might need to pay a £130.00 repair charge. So it's worth checking your own equipment before the visit and cancelling the visit if you fix things."
Before I risk the £130 charge, has anyone else experienced this kind of fault with caller ID?
My extensive notes on my user experience switching from Virgin to BT
Finally decided to get Infinity end of Jan and phoned up Virgin on 21st January to request a MAC code and see what penalty fee I would have to pay for cancelling early. Guy was very helpful, gave me the code and said I would have to pay £44 penalty. Incidentally he also warned me to phone up Virgin after the switch had taken place to ensure everything really had been cancelled.
I subsequently received several emails from Virgin. One was the Mac code – great! Two were duplicated ‘disconnection of phone’ emails. There was no mention of disconnecting the broadband. Which was odd but who am I to guess how this works?
I rang BT and set everything up to be switched over on Tuesday 7th February, which coincidentally was the time when I was using up the last of my annual leave. Engineer appointment was arranged. All seemingly went smooth as! Great!
I subsequently received several emails from BT as well, confirming all the arrangements – great!
Home hub scheduled to be delivered on Friday 3rd Feb to be ready for engineer on Tuesday 7th. I had arranged for the hub to be delivered to my work address. It did not arrive and this was the first black mark against BT. There was an attempted delivery to my home address and we weren’t in…we were at work…hence why I’d asked for it to be delivered there. Hence I had to go to the local sorting office on Saturday 4th Feb to collect it in person. No worries I thought…BT Infinity would be worth it!
So I am enjoying my annual leave and on Monday 6th Feb I get an email and text message to say sorry there is a delay – we will contact you Wednesday 8th Feb to reschedule the engineer visit. WHAT!!!!!? I am on the phone urgently asking what has happened? Will this affect my connection currently? I am told not to worry and they will get back to me early on 8th Feb. Represents second black mark against BT. Don’t make appointments 2 weeks in advance and then cancel the day before. It does not make for happy new customers. But I am too far into the process now and have no power to intervene. So I wait.
Tuesday 7th arrives. No engineer and no Infinity. Virgin send me an email saying my phone is now cancelled and disconnected…still no mention of cancelled broadband like you would expect.
Wednesday 8th Feb. I receive a text and email from BT to say my new engineer visit is 20th Feb. WHAT!!!!!? That is unacceptable when I have taken my last bit of annual leave to be off for the original scheduled visit. I can’t take off more time 12 days later. I phone up and communicate this to BT. Helpful guy says he’ll try and arrange something else and thank god that afternoon he comes through for me and I have the engineer coming, finally, on Friday 10th Feb.
Get emails from BT on 10th and 14th Feb saying broadband is now active and order is complete respectively. No mention of phone which is weird but it still works so what the hell.
On Friday 17th Feb I get an advanced DD notice from Virgin. I am expecting this to be the final bill including the £44 penalty fee. It says they’re taking £30.35 beginning of March. Er….what? I phone them to have the bill deciphered. At the same time I wish to check that I am all cancelled with them. I find out that the phone is cancelled but the Broadband hasn’t been. Honestly I can’t believe this. I demand to know why this is when I’ve been using Infinity for the last week. They blame BT and say BT used the MAC code incorrectly. I immediately cancel it as they confirm I’m still paying for Virgin Broadband. Two advisors are unable to explain the bill to me. I am finally put through to what I presume is the finance section and I speak to ‘Joanne’. She seems to have a brain and is helpful. I need to know how much I need to pay to settle everything, including any penalty fees. I really want rid of Virgin. Joanne tells me that all I owe is £6.96. I query this as that makes even less sense than the first bill. She says that is all that is outstanding on my account. I presume my cancellation has gone through on their system and that is all I owe. I am not going to argue anymore. I pay the £6.96 (payment reference 020835) there and then and I ask Joanne can I now delete the direct debit from my bills account? I know how these things will go and I do not want Virgin taking money from my bills account without explaining anything. Joanne agrees that I can delete the direct debit as I have no outstanding amount on my account. Ok then…I delete the direct debit. As of 02/03/2012 as I write this I have not heard anything more from Virgin.
Back to BT. Having got off the phone from Virgin I bite the bullet and decide to phone BT as well because a) there is no 1571 service on my phone b) there is no caller ID and c) I can’t login to their swanky online system – laughably it says my username, which they have repeatedly sent me in their emails for three weeks, is not recognised. I get through to an Indian call centre and explain these three issues. They are quite helpful and I can mostly understand what they’re saying. The guy says they will activate both phone services immediately – I can’t be bothered to ask why they weren’t already active? He has to transfer me to someone else for the online thing. He transfers me and to cut a long story and lots of waiting with god awful standby music – they can’t sort it out that day as there is some inexplicable software issue and can I call back another time. Ok I’ll let them off – just make sure my phone service is fully operational.
I subsequently get two emails from BT telling me the 1571 and caller ID will be active by 20th Feb in 3 days time.
Note that date of 20th Feb. That was the date that was referred to when they’d cancelled my 7th Feb original engineer visit. I have a strong feeling that all this is due to them changing that original engineer visit.
Note as of 02/03/2012 caller ID doesn’t work on my phone and I am still unable to login to online BT. They did activate 1571 though. I suppose I should be grateful.
It is now 24/03/2012. I have spent the time putting up with no caller ID. I have just realised today I had to register with MyBT on the website which I have now done, but I’m still not sure if this is correct given that they sent me a username and password previously which didn’t work when I tried to login. Anyway I have set it up but still can’t view my bill. Perhaps that will clear. I did buy a BT phone, yet another **bleep** phone, 4th in two years, in the hope that it would miraculously fix my phone fault caller ID but to no avail. It still doesn’t work. I have just phoned BT India again and done all the steps over the phone with the guy, who can’t see a fault on the line when he’s tested it. He has handed it over to the engineers with a promise that it will be fixed by 29th. I won’t hold my breath. If it isn’t fixed it will be a matter of a huge complaint letter. Update: on the evening of the 24th I received a text and email to say it had been fixed. But it hasn’t. It still doesn’t work. Oh BT how you play with my nerdy heart promising simple things and utterly failing to deliver!
01/04/2012: PhoningIndiaabout the caller ID again. Its April Fools I have to try for a third time don’t I? Right so the lady I spoke to didn’t make me go through all the checks from her script, which I appreciated. To be honest I didn’t give her a chance – I began the call and didn’t stop talking and said:
I didn’t want to dial the #234# thing
I didn’t want to try another phone
I didn’t want to do a line test
I couldn’t see any alternative other than an engineer visit
She went off to speak to her supervisor and said she’d call me back. Amusingly, while I was waiting for her to call back I received a call from BT India asking me to rate the efficiency and politeness of the woman I just spoke to. I refused to do this pending the outcome of my problem. Come on BT don’t ask me to give positive feedback when this problem has been going on for two months. Anyway the original lady called me back finally and said her supervisor was escalating the problem to 2nd tier support and they would have it fixed in three days and she would again call me back to make sure everything was ok. I am not holding my breath and there was no mention of arranging an engineer visit. We shall see what transpires.
It is now 10/04/2012. I have never received the call back. I did receive a text and an email to say my fault had been fixed. But of course it hasn’t been fixed. Amusingly, at the bottom of the last email there was this statement – “Please note: we'll provide a working service up to and including the main socket in your house. If your problem isn't with your BT service, you might need to pay a £130.00 repair charge. So it's worth checking your own equipment before the visit and cancelling the visit if you fix things”. So it’s my fault? Before I call back again I am going to post on the BT help forums and see if anyone else has had this problem. 

Answer 1

Hi AP_In_Surbiton,
I am really sorry that you have had so much trouble getting your Caller ID up and going.  I'll be happy to help you out with this and get it working for you.
Could you drop me in an email please? Use the 'contact us' form in my forum profile under the 'about me' section. You can find it by clicking on my username.
Thx
Craig
BTCare Community Mod
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