Nightmare installation experience! Please help, I ...

Question

I've been having some major problems with my BT Infinity, phone and
vision service since they were installed 6 days ago. I spent most of
Saturday afternoon trying to get them fixed. When I was eventually
offered an engineer appointment I was told that this was going to be
on Thursday which is a five day wait to try and fix a faulty
installation. I asked to cancel my new contract because it is not
functioning as it should, but was told that I could only do this if I
paid a £600 cancellation charge! This seems totally unacceptable for
an internet, phone and TV service that is not working.
Here is my scenario:
I ordered BT Infinity option 2, a phone line plus the Youview vision
package. This was installed on Wednedsay 11/12/13 of this week. When
the engineer left he tested it and was getting 60MB connection speeds
and a clean phone line.
I started using the Youview box on Thursday and streaming things over
the internet and the router was cutting out (flashing red and no
connection) whenever I was trying to stream anything either on my
computer or on the youview catchup player. We might be able to watch
10 minutes, but after that time it cuts out and we have to start agin.
We get this on the youview box or on a computer. It seems that the
connection cannot handle something that draws a fair bit of data. On
Thursday and Friday I found that streaming did not work well for us,
but we could use the connection for basic browsing and email. I'd
noticed a bit of crackling on the phone, but we do not use the home
phone a lot so it was not really registering for us. I could handle
the poor connection for a few days if it was going to improve, but
that has not happened.
On Saturday morning we had more problems. The router was cutting out
all the time and the internet was basically unusable. It sometimes
drops the connection when there is nothing using the internet. It
might hold it for 30 minutes sometimes if nothing is using the
connection, but if I try to use the internet it cuts out pretty much
straight away. I decided to phone BT broadband faults and they raised
it to the level 2 broadband faults team. I never spoke with them but
it appears that they decided to sent out an engineer (but did not call
me to say they were going to do that and the engineer only called
ahead on the landline to say he was coming). I was out and so he left
a phone message (only on the landline phone) and when he arrived home
a bit later I found a card to say he had tried to visit. If he had
phoned my mobile I would have come home for his visit but no-one did
that. I also did not get a text message or email to say he was coming.
I tried calling broadband faults around 1pm and because there was now
crackling on the line they said that I would need to report the fault
to the telephone line faults team. So they put me through. I explained
the problem and the operator had me do lots of things to test the
socket. She wanted me to use a different phone in the socket, but we
only have one phone. We arranged for her to call back later in the day
when I'd got another test phone. We've just moved house and I did not
feel I could ask the neighbours so I drove to a friend's house to get
one. I tested the line again and there was still crackling on it so
she said she would book an engineer to come out. When she checked the
first available appointment was Thursday. This took up most of
Saturday afternoon with phone calls and investigation.
I wanted to go with BT for the BT Sport channels and because it
appeared that with infinity they now had a broadband offering that was on a
par with Virgin. I've been with Virgin for 6+ years and been happy.
The BT offer seemed good and so we switched across when we moved
house.
I've had a really bad experience since installation and the connection
is not acceptable for what is a premium broadband package. I can't use
the TV service and the sports channels will only stream for a few
minutes until the internet connection drops out. I'm only able to
access the internet through tethering on my mobile, but I have
limiited data for that and I expect that I'll run out of my allowance
within a week or so.
What I really want to do is just cancel the contract without any
charges. I don't see why I should be charged anything for a service
that is not working and is unusuable. Reading around online it seems
that people in my kind of situation are pursaded to try a number of
engineer visits before cancellation and still nothing seems to get
fixed. By that time they've had the service for a month or two and
cancellation is much harder. I'd just like to cancel it now because
the service it not usable - I'm 6 days into it and it is just not
working. I don't see why I should pay any cancellation charges for a
service that is not working.
I know that Virgin works without problems and I'd like to go back to them.
Can anyone advise me how to cancel this contract without charges and get the services all out?
Thanks,
Matthew

Answer 1

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