Further to recent stories in Rye News regarding the failure of BT to provide working phone and broadband lines at Valley Park in Rye, the issue of compensation has compounded my misery. Despite the fact that it took BT four and a half months to provide the said lines, they deem £50 valid compensation. The cost to me has been many times that.
A complaint was raised with Ombudsman Services, the sector’s “impartial” overseer, two and a half months ago, but they have sided with BT. In fact they quoted BT word for word. They say the fact that BT Consumer has lied continually for four and a half months is not their fault. It is the fault of BT Openreach who has lied to BT Consumer. When it is pointed out to Ombudsman Services that they are both part of the same group their response is that they are different companies, it is irrelevant that they are the same group. They only regulate BT Consumer and not BT Openreach. BT Openreach refuses to sign up to or be governed by Ombudsman Services and therefore are able to tell lie after lie and there is no comeback.
BT Consumer, the only part of BT we the customer are allowed to speak to, can sit back and blame another member of the BT Group with total immunity, and are free to tell us any porkies they wish. In addition, when it was pointed out to BT Consumer that BT Openreach were lying as the facts were easily established, they can just ignore our emails and phone calls and hide behind the excuse that they are not able to question BT Openreach.
This has been a massive farce and it leaves lots of questions about how the industry operates. BT Openreach operates an unregulated monopoly and can basically do and say what it wants with no recourse. Ombudsman Services are not as impartial as they pretend to be and are completely helpless against the power of the BT Group. It appears as though they are afraid to challenge BT.
One would question why so much of our taxes is going to fund an organisation that is as useless as Ombudsman Services. Surely those tens of millions of pounds would be better spent on the Health Service?
Damien Martin
Rye