Victim of slamming and BT incompetance

In March I signed up to BT Broadband on a special offer of £16 per month with the first 6 months free, I also paid for a years line rental in advance. 2 weeks later I was advised that BT had received a request to transfer my line, I stated very clearly that I did not request a transfer, why would I after I had just paid a years line rental. Since then I have made numerous phone calls and emails communicating with BT TRYING TO SORT THIS OUT. Despite all this BT have erroneously charged me for broadband that they have contractually agreed to supply free for 6 months. Customer service at BT agreed that I had been slammed and said they would refund me, nothing has been refunded and what's more I have been charged even more. After 3 months and dozens of phone calls and emails I am still being charged. I advised BT that I was so desperate that despite all the emails and calls NOTHING was done that I had no choice other than to invoke the direct debit guarantee and reclaim the money erroneously charged. I have today received an email from BT that if I don't contact them by midday tomorrow they would cut off my broadband service. I will of course contact them YET AGAIN, but I am not holding my breath in trying to finally get this catalogue of errors from BT sorted. I do of course have copies of all email correspondence between myself and BT which states quite clearly that what I am saying is accurate and a true reflection of the facts, but somehow BT have contrived to ignore and procrastinate immeasurably.

Hi Stevbren,
Welcome to the community forum. I would like to take a look at your account to see what has gone wrong. Please could you send me in your details using the link found in the "About Me" section of my profile?
Thanks
PaddyB
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
We are sorry but we are unable to deal with service/account queries via the private message(PM) function so please don't PM your account info, we need to deal with this via our email account :-)

Similar Messages

Slamming

Hi, it appears I have been a victim of "Slamming" (The unauthorised change of landline provider) by EE. I have tried to conplain to EE but get little further than an off hnd "not my responsibility" response from those at EE. There does not seem to be either a customer service department or complaint department to whom I can refer the issue for resolution. Can anyone offer advise. thank you David

You can make a complaint here:
http://ee.co.uk/help/safety-and-security/my-digital-life/ways-to-complain
or ring them up again, someone should be able to help you with this, or contact the company you have been with.

Fake Flash Drives Threaten PCs and Networks Alike! Did You Test Yours?

Hello Brothers;
I wanted to post this in the more mainstream Mac forums because it really does affect everyone who purchases flash drives or ANY memory product online.
In the past year, eBay and Amazon have been flooded with counterfeit flash drives that look identical to name brands. They look JUST LIKE the real deal. I know. Last month I unwarily bought a "Kingston" flash drive on eBay. Though PayPal grudgingly reimbursed me, this goes FAR beyond my being swindled.
Thousands of these fake drives have been purchased on eBay and Amazon as graduation and birthday gifts and party flavors and are landing in the unwary hands of those who jobs cannot tolerate data corrupted by one missing digit. When you walk past a hospital or construction site or industrial plant, someone there is plugging a flash drive into computers for precise medical and drug formula info or to feed instructions to heavy machinery or control a chemical plant or an aspect of our communications infrastructure. Maybe even computers aboard military aircraft and ships. This is an insidious and malignant issue that deserves FAR more attention by media and government than it has.
You can heads-up on this issue, find victim redemption assistance and test your flash drive at: http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/
Please write to your local TV station and political representative about this pernicious blight! The person you eventually help might be you! Would you want the doctor or med tech managing your mother in a hospital to be carrying a fake flash?
James Greenidge
Queens, NY

Sounds like all of the troubleshooting regarding your home's wiring has been done. The noise on the phone line says what the problem is, and we should address the issues with voice FIRST before we start dealing with the DSL. Generally, once the phone is solved, the DSL will follow along.
Since you're receiving noise on the line, especially when the DSL is online you need to give Verizon a call during the time of the static from another line. Use a cell phone or a neighbor's line. When prompted, enter in your phone number and then navigate to Technical Support to the Telephone Repair section. When the agent comes on, tell them you are receiving Intermittent Static. They should proceed to perform a test called the MLT test, which will check your copper loop for any problems that may be developing such as shorts or unusual resistency (which can cause issues with DSL and phone). If the test picks up a problem, the agent should immediately be able to write up a trouble ticket with the details of the test for a technician to repair it. Just be aware, do NOT answer the phone or use your phone line while the test is ran. Stick to the alternate phone you are dialing support from. It requires the copper loop to be idle. DSL can be kept on with no problems. While in the call and when the tech visits (if they need to stop down), do NOT mention the DSL. Let them do the task of repairing the phone line. Once the problem is solved, you should see the DSL line stabalize, and if the statistics improve enough, the speed return and increase past the highest levels you've seen in a few days.
Your line should be short enough to have 3Mbps running on it. Just need to get the loop repaired
========
The first to bring me 1Gbps Fiber for $30/m wins!

Intimidating behavior and deleted threads

Hi
I'm fairly new to these discussion boards and have been using it as a means of getting support or direction on either my iPhone3GS or Logic Pro. I've also been using it as a means of personal market research before purchasing an iPhone4 and iPad.
The issues (or none) around the iPhone4 persuaded me for example to cancel my order and stick with the 3GS until it had all settled down, however I'm sticking with the iPad.
What I have found as I've been surfing through the topics is the amount of intimidating or patronising responses that come back from some users (generally those who've got multiple 1000's of posts.....but not all of course)
I've been finding it increasingly more difficult to engage in any discussion because of this intimidating behaviour. It seems there are more than a few that feel they "own" the board or that they have the right to behave like moderators.
This seems to be leading to a number of threads being deleted and I've noticed this on at least 3 threads I've been part of, very anoying because the content has been valid. e.g. an hour ago a thread on Bluetooth functionality on the iPhone has just been removed. We had 2 users send very patronising responses to initial poster when all he was expressing was a wish list (like I did for the lack of Skip tracks functionality)
So I tried to pose a question to see if there was a techncial reason this wasn't implemented and bang the thread was deleted. Not off topic, not offensive, nothing on apple policy... so why?
Sending feedback using the feedback link to Apple is fine, however because it's only one way (i.e. you never get a response) I feel it is only fair for users to ba able to ask the questios to the general community without fear of being slammed by other uses.
personally I think it's healthy to see other users wishes and wants, there are times when others may even have a workaround, but to be dismisive and just say "this is a user to user board, Apple dont read this" every time seems to me to be plain wrong. Others may wish to engage in that discussion, and to me, if you dont then dont comment as if you "own" the board, just move on.
Just my 2 cs

Andy,
+"It just seems a shame to me that users can't have an open discussion around their hopes and wishes for a product, it seems a rule too far."+
Apple Discussions is almost certainly the best site you will find for help with Apple problems and I think that 'rule too far' gives it a narrow focus which is probably one of the reasons that it is so good. There are other places where people can chew the fat.
+"If people don't want to engage in that then they can move on"+
There is some truth in that but allowing such posts would produce clutter and make browsing forums more difficult (and reduce the narrow focus I referred to). You can also bet that threads would begin to carry some 'comment' mixed in with the technical questions and answers that rightly belong here thereby having their value reduced.
+"if I started a thread saying "What do you think about the iPad?" for example, I run the risk of it being removed or being slammed by people because it's not a technical question, and I find it deeply patronising"+
I don't know what your specific experience has been but I would comment that there are often posts here talking about being slammed (and often mentioning high number posters as being particularly bad in that respect) which on examining the posts in question reveal only a polite reference to Terms of Use. There is, of course, no excuse for pointing that out in a rude or aggressive manner.
As deggie suggests discussions in some forums are a little more - shall we say - robust than in others, but experience in the forums I have frequented in my time here suggests that Apple Discussions provide a remarkably gentle and polite environment. To me that is especially true of the high number posters, most of whom are remarkably helpful and tolerant in my experience. One or two can be a little blunt on occasions but certainly in some cases that is because they are not posting in their native language. Of course what you might detect on occasions from some old-timers is a degree of exasperation due to their seeing Discussions (in which they have invested a lot of time and effort in giving help to others) being weakened and perhaps even threatened by vents, rants, mudslinging and whatever.
I realise that your example question "What do you think about the iPad?" was purely hypothetical but it might nicely serve as an example of a thoroughly bad question which is unlikely to get useful answers. Much better would be something along the lines of "Could I do X, Y and Z with the iPad?", a specific question which would seem to be within ToU and which would get specific answers.
Michael

How do I take out my old Superdrive and install a new one??

I've seen an extensive list of problems with the superdrives.
Alas, my computer has fallen victim as well, and it won't read cd's or dvd's.
SO I bought a new internal drive, but I don't know how to install it.
Is there anywhere I can find this info? Can anyone please provide it??
Thanks

Check out: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/iMacg4/imacg4takeapart.html
The site also includes a drive compatibility database you can search to make sure your drive will work. I've done it and it's not too hard, but you'll need a Torx wrench and some thermal paste. If those two items freak you out, then it's a task better left to a shop. If not, have at it!

EE and BT to join forces

I am very disappointed to hear that EE is to be sold (out) to BT.BT are the most vile company i have ever had the misfortune to deal with.Their customer service is appalling; incorrect and over billing; forced to pay reconnection fees after being disconnected by them in error and having months of a fight to get the money back; told my account was closed and paid off then receiving bills that had nothing to do with me and again months of fighting with them to clear it up; no records of previous phone calls to customer services about issues so having to continuously go over and over and over the problems with very rude, uninterested and very incompetent customer services agents who couldn't care less if your problem is resolved or not.BT being as disgusting as BT is with their monopoly on telecoms in this country will hike contract prices and cut services..I have been with Orange /EE for about 20 years now but I can say with certainty i will not be remaining with whatever is left of EE after BT get their filthy stinking money grabbing hands on it...

I agree entirely with somon_mc... BT are vile and I will do anything I can to avoid dealing with them, because of location and other circumstances I'm still forced to have a landline with them and am to this day peeved that I have to pay an extra charge on my bill because I refuse to take out a direct debit on the basis that I want to see my bill before I hand over my hard earned. I recently switched from Vodafone to EE because of the vastly superior coverage and Vodafone's continued failure to live up to their promises for 3G coverage, let alone 4G. I specifically avoided O2, mainly because of their historical connections to BT but also because how, as a company, they tried to poach my account from Vodafone after they aquired my airtime provider many years ago (and causing me for the only time ever to change my mobile number, no this wasn't the change to the 07 prefix either). As to 3... well, their network leaves a LOT to be desired. I've been happy with my short time using EE and planned for my switch to be long term but it BT do get regulatory approval I will be seriously looking at the alternatives, including returning to Vodafone who might just have a usable 4G network by that time. This will also effect my decision regarding my son's phone upgrade which will be happening in comming weeks. If I can avoid a 2 year contract I will. If I can avoid giving money to BT I will. Sorry but that's the way it is and I suspect from conversations with friends that that's how a lot of EE/Orange/T-Mobile customers feel. I really do hope this doesn't go ahead.

Verizon email blocked from England and Italy.

Earlier this month, while in England for two days and Italy for a week, I was unable to log into my verizon.net email account. I spent an hour on the chat function from Rome one evening with a Verizon tech trying to straighten out the mysterious problem. It would not work with Thunderbird, my usual email program, or work by logging directly in the Verizon site. The tech had me change my password several times, and although he himself was able to log into the Verizon site using my username from his end, I was unable to do this from Italy.
When I returned to the US, I got on the phone with a Verizon tech who had me change my password and--bingo--it worked, both in Thunderbird and in the Verizon site. When I told him that I was unable to log in from England or Italy, he told me that Verizon email accounts were recently subject to hacks from sites outside the US, and for that reason Verizon had blocked access to email from abroad. He said that they were working on a solution.
Astonishing.
Verizon sent me no messages that this would happen, and I didn't see any notice on the Verizon site. This meant that while I was in Italy I was unable to send email or retrieve messages from the very people whom I had traveled so far and spent so much money to see. They were waiting there to hear from me, and for many of them I did not have a phone number with which to contact them.
What is more amazing is that the tech with whom I was communicating from Rome did not tell me this. If he did not know that Verizon email in the US was blocked from access while abroad, he was wasting my time by changing all those passwords, and was incompetent to boot. If he did know this, he was in effect lying to me and still wasting my time.
Will someone from Verizon please explain this?
Edit: After posting this, I noticed the locked post above from britany_VZ (dated 2014!) regarding overseas access to Verizon email. Since I have never read this forum before, this was my only notification of this. An account holder should not be required to read a discussion forum to learn something like this.
I will point out that it still has little to do with my experience. Nothing I did, and nothing that the Verizon tech did, would get me into my email account, and it remains that the tech with whom I discussed this a few days ago said that access to accounts was blocked--period.
Question: when I return to Italy in May, will I be able to access my email account?

And further down the topics I just noticed the long thread on this very topic. And I noticed how old it is, with no fix in sight.
Looks as if forwarding email is the only workaround--short of closing the account.

BT are totally incompetent & do know the meaning o...

Has anyone else experienced the **bleep** that I am going through with BT, broadband issues and their total lack of customer care? For 4.5 weeks my broadband (and therefore TV) has been down and from day 1 it has been an absolute nightmare. To cut a very long story short, every Call Centre agent has been totally rude and technically incompetent and despite 3 engineer visits + the server/account apparently being rebuilt, they still cannot even identify the fault and what they need to do to fix it. I am expected to wait in the house 5 hours for a 4th engineer visit so that they can look at it again. I actually was supposed to get this visit on Tuesday but the engineer did not call or turn up. I now have to waste my Saturday and I have no confidence at all that this will get me anywhere nearer a solution. 2 weeks ago I escalated the case to a senior Customer Service Manager who it has to be said, has been fairly good in keeping in contact with me in that he has phoned me however being told that it is still not fixed funnily enough starts to get extremely annoying and frustrating after about the 10th time. So, 4.5 weeks on, approiximately 12 hours on the phone and 3.5 wasted days at home, I'm nowhere. Further escalations have been refused, I have waited for higher manager's call backs that have never materialised (I wonder why they are always so busy to be put through) and there is no-one else I can talk to or email (oh yes, I'm spending most of my free time in a local cafe so I can get online). My only option apparently is to write a letter to their MD... BT are living in prehistoric times, they do not give 2 hoots about their customers, all they are interested in is collecting money. To add insult to injury I have been offered 3 months free broadband as compensation - an absolute joke when you look at the whole saga, the amount of time and money I have wasted + the fact that new customers are being offered 3 months free + a £25 John Lewis voucher. As soon as I have it confirmed that the actual phone line is ok then I will be moving to another service provider asap. There are several alternative names that BT can be given right now but I'm taking a leaf out of their book, I couldn't be bothered to try. If anyone knows any way to get things moving or improved, please let me and the rest of the world know, I am sure I am not the only unhappy customer.

Hi Talktothewall,
I'm sorry you're having problems getting the service up and running. I can check what's going on if you wish. Drop me an email with the order details and a link to this thread for reference. You'll find my address in my profile.
Cheers
David
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
We are sorry but we are unable to deal with service/account queries via the private message(PM) function so please don't PM your account info, we need to deal with this via our email account :-)

Elderly Parents Slammed by BT & inaccurate record ...

Where do I start apart from expressing that I am at the end of my tether and fed up with having to re-tell my story to everyone I've spoken with at BT Customer Services because nobody seems willing to accept ownership of my parent's problem/complaint. My mother & father are in their mid-70s and English is their second language, Italian being their mother tongue. I have conducted most of their business affairs such as cheque writing, bill paying etc since I was at junior school, I am now 45 yrs of age. On my instructions my parents never do business with any tele-sales callers & their stock answer is " Send me any offers in writing and I'll let my son deal with it ". My parents have been with BT ( or the GPO as it used to be called ) since they first had a telephone in the 1960s. The BT contract is in my father's name. My parents also have a contract with Onetel with whom they make their international calls.
On 17th November 2010 my parents were called on their home number by a BT Sales person. The tele-sales person spoke with my mother & it would appear was offering her a new & different contract from that which they were on. My mother's command of English is such that she cannot even recall what was being offered though she did tell the caller to send any offers in writing from her son to deal with. About a month later my parents received a BT Bill for £106.54 which was significantly higher than the usual amount that they were used to paying. It was also at this time my mother found she was no longer able to make outgoing international calls on her Onetel account. I ascertained that the Onetel account had been terminated at the request of BT who had contacted Onetel without my parents’ consent. On 17th December 2010 my wife contacted BT customer services in order to query the size of the BT Bill and the Onetel issue. The initial overseas call operative with whom she spoke would not discuss the issue other than to state that the bill was correct and that my parents owed the money, she would not discuss the slamming issue. My wife asked to speak with a supervisor, she was then informed by that supervisor that BT were aware of the issue and knew which tele-sales person was to blame. The supervisor went on to state that they would return my parents contract back to what it had been before 17th November 2010. This supervisor even went as far as to recalculate the bill and advised my wife that my parents need only pay a sum of £76.01. This sum was paid at the post office by my parents on 21/12/2010 ( I have the receipt ). That we thought was the end of it.
On the week commencing 14th March 2011 my mother contacted me in a panic stating that someone from BT had called her and threatened to cut the BT line unless they gave their bank details over the phone there and then. Needless to say she declined and had called me. I then contacted BT and immediately and asked to speak with a supervisor, the BT operative initially declined but when I explained it was in relation to an on-going issue he reluctantly agreed. I was left on hold for quite some time and then a supervisor spoke on the line, I had difficulty understanding his accent and he spoke very quickly and my initial impression was that he was upset at having been taken away from his desk to speak with me. I explained my parents’ problem with the slamming and my wife’s call on 17th December. This supervisor spoke to me like I was something unpleasant that he had just stepped in. He informed me that the only record of my wife’s call was that she had stated that BT took advantage of the elderly and that they had requested time to pay because they couldn’t afford the bill. There was no mention of the slamming, no mention of agreement to put them back on their old contract, no mention of the revised sum of £76.01. I asked why on earth anyone would come up with a figure of £76.01 to pay unless it was given to them, he was having none of it. I then stated I wanted to complain about the obvious lies told to my wife and the slamming issues. This was greeted by an absolute tirade of abuse with the supervisor stating that “if your parents couldn’t afford the contract why did they agree to it” and that, and I promise this is the absolute truth, “if I was a good son then I would pay my parent’s bill for them because they can’t afford it.”
Enraged by this comment I asked for the supervisor's details so that I could complain about him, his answer to this was that he had told me at the beginning of the call and that I should listen more carefully. I reminded him that the call was probably being recorded and that he had an obligation to identify himself. After much further dialogue he finally provided me with his name though I had to ask him to spell it phonetically as he rattled it off extremely quickly. He also refused to identify where the call centre was saying what difference did that make, well n my opinion it would have helped with identifying with whom I had spoken with!!!! I then asked to speak with his supervisor and was informed he was as high as it gets and he was right I was wrong etc etc etc.
I ended the call, rang BT again where I spoke with another operative and asked for a supervisor, this was declined unless I explained why, I explained everything from start to finish. The operative then said he would get a supervisor, I was kept on hold for about 10 minutes before the same operative came back onto the line and said he couldn’t find any supervisors and that he had marked up my parents account for a supervisor to call me on my contact number by 11am on the following day. Needless to say I never received that call though my parents did get another call threatening to cut them off again.
I then read a number of BT Complaint forums and decided to send an e-mail of complaint direct to the CEO of BT, No reply to date.
I then managed to speak with someone at BT in an onshore call centre by the name of Adrian Greeves, this was by selecting the wanting to leave BT option, although he was in a broadband call centre he still listened to my entire story and appeared genuinely shocked by the experiences I had. He took my details and true to his word called me back later that day stating that all of the details I’d given and my complaint was being looked at. I also asked that all contact be made through me and that the threatening calls to my parents cease. He stated that it would take a few days for the calls to all be listened to but that he or someone else would contact me. I was left with the impression that this was not an uncommon problem. On Friday 18th March, despite my request that all contact be via myself, my parents got yet another threatening call so once again I contacted BT. The operative informed me that my parents account had a note on it stating that Adrian Greeves would be calling me after 5pm on that day. I did not receive that call.
On Friday 25th March 2011 I discovered that my parents’ phone line had been disabled and that they were no longer able to make any outgoing calls so I rang BT again speaking with an onshore call centre operative who stated that he knew “Aidee” Adrian Greeves. I had to explain the whole story again and the chap I spoke with was extremely compassionate and looked through the notes on my parents account and stated that my complaint was marked up as resolved by a supervisor stating that a voicemail had been left on my contact number. I explained that this couldn’t possibly be true as I do not have the voicemail facility activated on my mobile so yet again someone at BT has lied within the notes. This operative then began to delve deeper into my notes and I was kept on the line for about 45 mins whilst he went backwards and forwards with account supervisors. All of a sudden a foreign accented voice came onto the line, this person had no idea who I was, what my call was about or who I had been speaking to. They confirmed that they were in India so not even in the same country as the person with who I had been speaking. I asked to be put back in touch with the last person with whom I had been speaking to. I was informed that there was no way of finding this out. I went on to explain that I am a serving detective sergeant with 26 years service, I work in the intelligence unit and I KNOW that a footprint is left on the account every time someone so much as looks at it! This fell on deaf ears so I once again I terminated the call.
I then contacted BT using the option stating I wanted to leave BT, this was spookily enough directed to a UK call centre. Once again I had to recount the entire story from start to finish, I was informed I couldn’t speak with a supervisor there and then but that the complaint would be raised and that I would receive a call within 3 to 5 working days. 3 days are no up but I’m not convinced that I will ever be contacted and am getting to the point where I envisage having to raise the matter with OFCAM via the mediation service.
I am gobsmacked by the lack of customer care at BT and the fact that nobody seems able to take ownership of this complaint or to act upon the requests within it.
I was given a reference number re my last complaint and wondered whether one of the moderators could confirm that it is genuine as my experiences thus far have made me very sceptical.
The reference I was given by a Mr William Casey was VOL0*************
To date I estimate that I have spent some 6 hours on the telephone to BT and do not appear to have made any headway in getting to the bottom of all of this.
I await salvation
Franco

Hi Franco
Sorry about the delay, just had a look at our inbox and your email is right at the top so we'll get you an anwswer out by tomorrow.
@julesupnorth I'll be happy to help you out too and get this fixed for you.
Could you drop me in an email as well please with your BT account and telephone number along with a link back to this thread.
Just use the 'contact us' form in my profile under the 'about me' section and mark FAO Craig please.
Thx
Craig
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
We are sorry but we are unable to deal with service/account queries via the private message(PM) function so please don't PM your account info, we need to deal with this via our email account :-)”
td-p/30">Ratings star on the left-hand side of the post.
If someone answers your question correctly please let other members know by clicking on ’Mark as Accepted Solution’.

Incompetent Nokia S60 devices support

I continue to not understamd why my Nokia 5630 have 128MB of ram and after booting the phone i have only 55MB of free ram. Why Nokia doesn't unlock more free ram? A device of the latest 3rd edition phones with everything including a 600Mhz processor with almost all social network, inckuding Youtube, with WLAN support. I simply don't understand. Nokia has a politic of support and marketing incompetent.

@Froschy
Absolutely right.
Nokia's main problem is that they have not developed a processor with the speed to handle everything, they coupled the weak processor with an outdated OS and too little ram/rom.
In my humble opinion the last phone from Nokia that was made and released so that it could be said to be released in it's time is the nokia N95. This phone when it was released was afaik the first with GPS (Or among the first) and it was very feature packed for it's time.
The phones nokia are releasing today would not even turn heads if they had been released 1-2 years ago.
The N97 is a good example....Not enough processor, a very old OS and a bad press-screen.
If they had made the N97 with a capable processor, enough ram and a capacitive touch screen i bet it would have been a much bigger hit than it is today.
As i have stated before.....Nokia has slept thru the last 3 years and CLEARLY shifted their attention from development to manufacturing and forgotten that in a world where a brand new phone will be obsolete in 2-3 years you cannot just lean back and assume that people will buy whatever you offer by default.
What's even worse is that the phones that they release today that is not in any way innovative but behind the competitors still have this "beta-product" about it for 6-12 months after it leaves the factory.
In the old days i could forgive Nokia that they used 6-12 months to get everything working smoothly because they were market leaders and it would be expected that new technology would be a little beta at first.
Now when they release the N97 which does not have one single innovative feature that every other manufacturer has put in some of their phones, they still release it with buggy firmware.
I swear, if i had a dollar for every time i have seen a "I have a problem with my N97" in a forum i would be VERY rich..And most is software related.
Xsatquest

MS Virus message "Victim of Counterfeiting" appears

I bought a Toshiba Satellite notebook about 18 months ago, new, from a major store in Munich, though I live in the UK.
It has an MS hologram Certificate of Authenticity on the back. It suddenly comes up with messages saying I am a "Victim of Counterfeiting" and the Windows XP is not genuine.
I cannot use the recovery CD ROM, because that will undo the fixes I have been downloading from the Toshiba site to get the hardware working properly (DVD, Screen Driver and Power management have been issues).
How do I stop this annoying MS Virus?

Hi Alex,
Normally the OS supplied with a new notebook has an OEM licence which means that you do not need to register the product with Microsoft. However, it is possible that the supplied OS is still counterfeit so I would recommend that you check your system at the Microsoft validation site on http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/default.mspx?displaylang=en
Interestingly, the OEM licence only allows the reseller to provide Windows XP in the national language of the country in which the notebook is sold, so your system should be installed in German. If you have an English language installation then it is quite possible that this is indeed counterfeit, and the Microsoft Genuine Advantage software will identify this situation.
best of luck

BT Infinity 2 upgrade has left me without Internet...

After what was supposed to be a simple upgrade from ADSL to BT Infinity, I have now been without any broadband at for a week and have been subjected to undoubtedly the worst customer service imaginable…. Here goes.
Tuesday 6 June, an engineer arrived at my premises to perform a simple upgrade of my ADSL line to a faster fibre connection. After some time, the engineer claimed that it was all done and promptly left before I had a chance to check. I thought this was strange, but didn’t question him as I assumed there is no way a professional engineer would leave a job without properly signing it off.
How wrong I was, no connection whatsoever! Kicking myself for not insisting that we check before he left, I called him on his mobile, only to be told: “I dunno mate, I’m just the engineer”. Exactly my point, I thought – what an attitude to have! He then said he would call the help desk to find out if there was any reason for the lack of connection, and after some time called back to say that there was a problem in my area and everyone’s broadband was down – it should be back up in a matter of hours. OK, I thought – why would he lie?
A number of hours later – still nothing. So, I called an ‘advisor’. I was told that there was no record of a fault in my area - an outright lie from the engineer, to get rid of me no doubt (it was gone five after all!). The ‘advisor’ told me that the connection would not be live until midnight on the day of install. I thought this to be strange as this was the first I’d heard of this, seemingly crucial, slice of information.
Surely he wouldn’t lie to me as well? I awoke the next morning with high hopes of a working broadband service. Not likely.
Another call to an ‘advisor’ at 6.30am and I was told to expect a call back before midday with a solution. 1pm, still nothing, so I once again I manned the phone. An amazing, and very wasteful, 1 hour and 30 minutes later I had been sent around the proverbial houses, but was still no closer to a solution.
I think I must have been asked to “turn it off and turn it back on again” at least five times. Ever felt like smashing your head into a wall?
I tried to explain time and time again that, rather than treat this as a fault, it would make more sense to simply resend an engineer to complete the job the incompetent one could not… this was like getting blood from a stone. “But Sir, if we can just do a couple more tests”. At this point I had no interest in talking anymore, just send me an engineer.
By the end of the day (Wednesday 7th) I finally got a very reluctant ‘advisor’ to arrange me an engineer for Friday 9th June.
Friday arrives, as does the engineer. A far more competent chap than last time, who spent almost five hours trying to fix the line, but with no joy. I still find it absolutely baffling that this has all arisen from an upgrade.
After a valiant effort, the engineer gave up and said he would report it to the ‘tier 2’ team who would contact me, and he would also call back to confirm this.
Fast forward to Monday 10 June, and still not a peep from either the engineer or the ‘tier 2 team.’ I have no idea what BT think they are doing here, but leaving a customer in ‘limbo’ like this is ridiculous. Both my flatmate and I need an Internet connection for work and have been massively inconvenienced by this whole episode, soured further by BT’s seeming disinterest to get the problem fixed with any kind of haste or professionalism.
I understand there must be huge business benefits from moving call centres overseas, but sometimes it would be nice, particularly after going through all this, to speak to a UK based operator who would deal with my issue subjectively, as opposed to what sounds like reading from a screen - with ‘progress’ limited to whatever boxes one manages to get ‘ticked’. And, it will come as no surprise that as soon as I threated to cancel, I was switched immediately to a UK call centre, who although very helpful and apologetic, did nothing to help and transferred me back to, what I assume is, India. My head and the wall were getting quite friendly at this point.
After nearly a week without any Internet and numerous (very expensive) phone calls, I am at a complete loss as to what to do next, no one seems to be able to help me or offer a logical solution. Perhaps an engineer could come and reconnect my old line… maybe I am just not meant to have a fibre connection.
I do, however, feel that I should be compensated for the stress, hassle and phone bills. Not to mention the 6-days-and-counting that I’ve been without any BT service. What do you think?

Yet another "victim" of BT's incompetent Indian call centre,
I think more a victim of BT's totally incompetent internal systems; and probably initially of Openreach's outsourcing to installation to companies that often provide untrained and lazy installers.
The mods should get things sorted. at: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact_email/c/4951 . But be aware they take 3 working days to reply: sometimes more if busy. That is pretty poor in your situation. They have a good record of getting things solved once they are on the case.
Good luck.

Cisco Active Advisor Upgrade Wednesday Morning, April 23rd, at 6:30am CDT

Hello Cisco Active Advisor Users,
Cisco Active Advisor will be upgraded Wednesday morning, April 23rd, at 6:30am CDT.
During this process, a downtime of up to 5-10 minutes may be experienced in which the service may not be available. Please try to log in a few minutes later, should this happen.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
As always, please send your thoughts and comments about the service to [email protected]
Thank you,
The CAA Team
www.ciscoactiveadvisor.com

Yet another "victim" of BT's incompetent Indian call centre,
I think more a victim of BT's totally incompetent internal systems; and probably initially of Openreach's outsourcing to installation to companies that often provide untrained and lazy installers.
The mods should get things sorted. at: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact_email/c/4951 . But be aware they take 3 working days to reply: sometimes more if busy. That is pretty poor in your situation. They have a good record of getting things solved once they are on the case.
Good luck.

Cisco Active Advisor Upgrade on Thursday June 5th, at 6:30am CDT

Hello Cisco Active Advisor Users,
Cisco Active Advisor will be upgraded on Thursday June 5th, at 6:30am CDT.
During this process, a downtime of up to 5-10 minutes may be experienced in which the service may not be available. Please try to log in a few minutes later, should this happen.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
As always, please send your thoughts and comments about the service to [email protected]
Thank you,
The Cisco Active Advisor Team
www.ciscoactiveadvisor.com

Yet another "victim" of BT's incompetent Indian call centre,
I think more a victim of BT's totally incompetent internal systems; and probably initially of Openreach's outsourcing to installation to companies that often provide untrained and lazy installers.
The mods should get things sorted. at: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact_email/c/4951 . But be aware they take 3 working days to reply: sometimes more if busy. That is pretty poor in your situation. They have a good record of getting things solved once they are on the case.
Good luck.

My account was hacked in September -- Still no action from Verizon. Please help!

My account was hacked in September, someone added an additional line and ordered an iPhone, adding more than $600 to my account. Verizon quickly identified this as fraud and assured me that my account would be cleaned up. Almost three months later, I still have hundreds of dollars billed to my account that no customer service rep has been able to explain. My service is now pending disconnection, even though I have continued to make my regular payments, but I have refused to pay the additional charges incurred by the hacking of my account. I've spent more than two work days on the phone with Verizon, speaking to about three dozen agents and supervisors, explaining my situation all over again, taking valuable time off work and away from the family. They all promised to help, but nobody actually fixes this mess that I did not cause. Ten days ago, I wrote a letter to customer service which I will post below. I have not heard back from Verizon. No one has called to apologize or offered help in restoring my account. As a cellular customer of 16 years, I have never experienced something like that. I simply don't know who to talk to anymore to get this straightened out. No customer deserves to be treated like this. Please help me find out who I can contact with the authority to clean this up for me! Many thanks in advance.
Here is the letter sent to Verizon with signature confirmation Monday a week ago. I does not detail today's trouble, when I spent another 90 minutes on the phone with three different agents and one supervisor, but I got disconnected every time.
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
I am writing this as a customer complaint. My family has been a loyal Verizon Wireless customer since August 2011, after making the change from T-Mobile. We currently have the 15GB Everything Plan with five lines, all of which are used by family members. Since July, we are also customers with Verizon FIOS for our home internet and cable, which means we pay Verizon an average of $5,600 annually.
My wife is the primary account holder and I have an EDGE plan for my own line. In September, I ordered a new iPhone through my local Verizon store in XXXXX., which is, as far as I know, an independent store with a Verizon license/franchise. When I picked up my phone, the agent at the store noticed that my account was in “chaotic standing.” First, he said that we had been advised badly by Verizon when we initially signed up in 2011, resulting in much higher monthly fees than we could have had under the 10 or 15 GB Everything Plan, and he suggested that we switch to this plan immediately.
It was frustrating to learn this, because in my two years of communicating with Verizon agents by phone, no one ever bothered to inform us that we paid more for our account than we had to and that there was a more compact plan available which would have decreased our monthly bill. My daughter exceeded her data allowance on an almost monthly basis, which we could have avoided under the plan that we currently have but didn’t know about.
Then I also learned that my current bill had suddenly skyrocketed to over $900 because a sixth line had been added to our account and someone had ordered a phone and charged it to our account. The local agent was extremely helpful, he immediately suggested that this was fraudulent activity and he called Verizon to restore my EDGE eligibility which I had lost due to these fraudulent charges that I had not caused and not paid. He did talk to the Verizon fraud department and reported the incident, and I was told that the additional charges would be taken off my account and my good credit – and EDGE eligibility – would be restored. In good faith that Verizon would take care of this, I left the store as a slightly worried, but satisfied customer.
About a week later, I called Verizon to check on my account status because I wanted to EDGE up my teenage son’s line XXXXXX and get him a new iPhone 6 for his birthday. The agent I spoke to told me that the fraud situation was still showing on my account and that my EDGE eligibility had not been restored yet, but he assured me that this would be taken care off by the following week, when my son’s line would be eligible for an EDGE upgrade under his plan’s timeline.
When I called back the following week, I was saddened to learn that contrary to the previous assurance, our EDGE eligibility had not been restored and the fraudulent charges to our account were still showing on our bill, which was quite confusing because it was impossible to figure out my actual charges. What followed was several weeks of phone correspondence with Verizon agents who apologized again and again and assured me that my EDGE eligibility would be restored so I could order my son’s phone and my the additional charges would be dropped from my account.
However, this didn’t happen. I am not going to list the entire call log, because I know that you can easily access these records. But for several weeks in October, I spent many, many hours on the phone with Verizon, explaining the entire situation regarding the fraud again and again. I listened to assurances, promises, apologies, and I was transferred multiple times to different departments to get my EDGE eligibility restored. After an incredibly frustrating and time consuming experience I was eventually able to order my son’s phone. But several days later, when I checked the order status, I noticed that the order had been canceled because – I’m sure you can guess it by now – my EDGE eligibility had still not been restored. This forced me to go through the whole process again and I spent an entire afternoon on the phone with several different agents and managers until in the early evening I was finally assured that my account standing had been restored and that I could order my son’s phone. That day alone, I had to leave work five hours early to get on the phone (from about 2 p.m. until 7 p.m.) and work this situation out so my son could get his phone, which he eventually received on Oct. 31.
I work as a newspaper reporter and I have an incredibly busy schedule. Yet the inability and unwillingness by Verizon to help me straighten out my account took much of my work time, which I had to make up for at a later time in order to get paid. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to take out much of my highly valued family time to talk to Verizon, which increased my frustration with your company, as you surely can understand.
As a loyal customer, I can’t stress enough how incredibly frustrating this experience was. I was forced to spend many hours away from work and family just to deal with the same situation over and over again. I lost track of the hours, but I am sure that one look at your call log will confirm that adding up these hours it was more than two full work days that I had to spend on the phone to work out a situation that I did not cause to begin with. Adding to these already incredibly upsetting circumstances were at least a couple of calls where it took me 15 minutes to get an agent on the line who then promised me to transfer me to the right person to help me, only, after more waiting time on hold, to be disconnected and start the process all over again. How I was able to maintain my composure and continue to be polite and respectful to the agents, I don’t know. I’m sure they are used to much harsher treatment from other unsatisfied customer for much lesser reasons.
It is bad enough that a company like Verizon cannot protect their customers from getting their accounts hacked and hundreds of dollars being charged to their account. But what is even worse is that I have to spend hours and hours of valuable time and energy to mitigate a situation and fix a damage that I have not caused in the first place and had no control over, and Verizon has not offered me anything to reward my patience and loyalty other than brief apologies from stressed out agents that obviously were not qualified to handle such situation, resulting in their own frustration with this issue.
What adds to this extremely frustrating and highly disappointing experience is that because of the hacking and the fraudulent charges that polluted my account for many weeks, it has become impossible for me to understand what I am being charged for and what I actually owe for the services that I did order and did receive. This frustration once again peaked on Saturday last week, when an agent told me that my past-due charges are more than $600, with a total of more than $900 total due within three weeks, ( that is about the same what Verizon charged me after my account had been hacked and an additional line and phone had been ordered by the perpetrator) in spite of my continuing “blind” payments towards my balance since this all began in September.
I talked to two agents on Saturday, one from Customer Service; the other from the billing department, and neither was able to explain – or even seemed to understand themselves – how these charges occurred. In good faith, and in order to avoid a disruption of service, I still made a $170 payment, which is about half of what my total monthly payment should be under my current plan with five lines, and I vowed to pay another $170 by the end of next week in the hope that by then, someone with authority and complete and full understanding of these circumstances will have contacted me to explain my account and issue a sincere, well meant apology for what has happened to this loyal customer.
Believe me, I rarely reach out to a company and complain like this. I have a busy and hectic schedule, but the time it took me to write even this long letter to Verizon was just a fraction of the time and energy that I wasted to restore my account and get my son his new iPhone on time for his birthday, which he was looking forward to very much.
But after my experience with Verizon, I feel that Verizon should know that no loyal customer deserves this type of treatment and should ever have to go through what my family and I had to endure because of Verizon’s inability to protect the privacy and integrity of our account, and to restore it to its original standing.
I left T-Mobile in 2011 after a total of 13 years as a loyal customer, because I was unhappy with their increasingly bad customer service. I came to Verizon in the hope that my family would have a better experience here, and we were ready to stay with the company for many years to come. But at the moment, we are regretting and reconsidering our choice. Our final decision will certainly depend on the final outcome of this incredibly frustrating situation.
Believe me, I absolutely understand that fraud and the breach of customer account information occur even in the best and most professional companies. But I also believe that if this happens, the integrity and professionalism of a business must be judged based on their handling of such instances and how they treat customers who fall victim to such criminal practices without any wrong doing on their part.
A company should do their best to not only fix the damage and try to make sure that this will not happen again, but also guide and support their loyal customers affected by this and provide them with enough information to understand what is going on. Most importantly, it should be Verizon, not the customer, who should carry the burden and the responsibility of such fraud. But unfortunately, Verizon Wireless has fallen short in this regard, as we were completely left alone and forced to fight for the full restoration of our account and to this day are confused about our bill and these sky-high charges that no one can explain to us.
On top of that, I am tired of having to explain this situation dozens of times to different people with your company over and over again. No one should have to go through that, and I believe that your personnel has enough pressing business to deal with than to waste their and their customers time.
Please understand that I am not complaining about the services by the more than a dozen individual agents that I talked to in order to sort out this mess. The vast majority of them have been polite and a couple honestly tried to go out of their way to help me. It is rather the way that your customer service is set up in total that reeks of failure to support and help a customer whose account had been hacked and scrambled beyond recognition.
That’s why it is my hope that my reaching out to you will raise a red flag at the right places within your company to identify the failures in your service, work the problem and fix it so other loyal customers like me will be spared such hassle in the future. I think it wouldn’t be too far fetched to assume that we are not the only ones and last ones to fall victim to hacking and failing customer protection and service as a result.
Of course I also sincerely hope that my complaint will finally set the wheels in motion to remedy the problems in our own case. We believe that the very least that Verizon could do as a sign of good will and to honor our customer loyalty to is sweep clean our account and allow us to start from scratch so we can track and understand our future monthly charges and continue to make reliable payments to our account as we have done for more than two years until the hacking of our account and Verizon’s unprofessional and helpless handling of the situation has changed everything.
I hope that someone within your company will take this complaint seriously and resolve this very unfortunate and frustrating situation in a manner that shows that we are valued and respected as the loyal customers that we (still) consider ourselves and that will help us restore our faith and trust in Verizon.
I am looking forward to your timely response.

I'm confident that if you have spoken with our Fraud Team directly, that there are the proper wheels in motion to resolve all of the concerns that occured as a result of the fraudulant order on your account. It may take up to 2 bill cycles for all the adjustments to be applied and the changes made to your account to bring the dates and eligibility back to normal, so you should definitely be nearing the end of your wait. Based on your description, it may have been a while since you spoke with them directly instead of the customer service team, so I encourage you to give them a call at your earliest convenience to put your worries at ease. If you need to make arrangements for the charges that appear on your account, our Financial Services Team at 866-266-1445 will also be able to help possibly place a hold on the account regarding the disputed charges so there's no accidental inturruption in your service due to this unfortunate situation.
JenniferH_VZW
Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/vzwsupport

Victim of slamming and BT incompetance

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