I have now published my Thumbshots plugin for WordPress which is available here.

Apparently their debut single went into the charts at number 2 last week, making them on par with Joe Mcelderry.
I’m a bit slow on the uptake here as this happened almost a week ago, but that may be because I don’t care much for the pop charts.
This of course also means that Rage Against The Machine are better than both Joe Mcelderry and Jedward.

I received a phone call this afternoon from Sandra at BT.
She informed me that they had investigated my complaint and found that I had indeed cancelled the order, however it had not been cancelled correctly on all their systems.
She also said that she would be issuing a credit to my account for the full amount and would be informing the collection agency that the debt had been cancelled.
She failed to mention how ‘early termination charges’ for a £30/month broadband account amounted to this obscene sum of money.

A fairly uninformative update, however nice to see that this is being dealt with properly.

Subject: FW: ****** ************* *** – Reference **/********/**
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 15:32:11 -0000
From: Sandra Toal
To: Phil Bayfield

Dear Mr Bayfield,

I am just sending you an email to confirm I am still investigating your complaint and will be in touch with you as soon as I can with my findings.

Regards
Sandra

Sandra Toal
BT Business Executive Level Complaints

There are plenty of ways to do it that you may wish to consider…

Jumping from a window…
Drug overdose…
Cutting yourself…

In fact there is even a Wikipedia page which you can read through:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_...

However the 1000′s of London commuters ask that you show them a little consideration and DON’T JUMP IN FRONT OF TRAINS (and the tube), especially during rush hour. It just leaves a bloody mess all over the tracks and some poor bastards have to pick up the pieces (of you) and it just holds everyone up. We get up really early and spend 3 hours a day travelling to and from work, these kind of hold ups are very frustrating for us. So if it’s the last thing you do, show some consideration for others.

Read this? Still feel like jumping in front of a train?

Yes I know your probably thinking the survival rate of 10% is pretty good odds however I have to ask… Please make sure it is not my train, feel free to contact me via the contact page of my website to find out which trains I will be travelling on and when.

I received a second email from BT, this time from someone in the ‘BT Business Executive Level Complaints’ department.

Subject: ****** ************** *** – Reference **/********/**
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 15:56:04 -0000
From: Sandra Toal
To: Phil Bayfield

Dear Mr Bayfield,

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of the email sent on 30th January to Mr Ian Livingston.

Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused to you in this matter. I will be investigating this complaint on behalf of Mr Livingston and will be in contact with you as soon as I have completed my investigation.

Regards
Sandra

Sandra Toal
BT Business Executive Level Complaints

First thing Monday morning and a response from a ‘High Level Escalation Specialist’.

Subject: FW: Fraudulent charges from BT (Ref **********)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 10:01:21 -0000
From: <cethle@bt.com>
To: Phil Bayfield

Dear Mr Bayfield

I work in the senior service team on behalf of Mr Livingston. Please accept my apologies for the difficulties you have had in this matter.

One of the team will be in contact with you shortly and will own your issue until resolution.

Should you wish to contact us please either reply to this e-mail or call 0800 672984 Mon-Fri 8am -6pm

Kind regards

Ann Hamilton
High Level Escalation Specialist

Just 2 minutes after sending my email, I get a short reply from Ian Livingston. It’s a real shame his business support staff aren’t this pro-active.

The email was CC’d to Ian Duerden who is apparently the ‘Director BT Billing’ according to his LinkedIn profile (and a generic support type email address).

Subject: RE: Fraudulent charges from BT (Ref WM 38078652)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:31:34 -0000
From: Ian Livingston
To: Phil Bayfield
CC: <sme.service.scotland@bt.com>, Ian Duerden

I am sorry about the problems you have had with this demand. I will ask one of our high level service team to look into it and contact you.

Ian Livingston

After half an hour on the phone to the BT peons and getting nowhere, it appeared more drastic action was required. Most companies follow a standard naming convention for staff emails and BT is no exception – it’s quite easy to figure out what Ian Livingston’s email address is.

Subject: Fraudulent charges from BT (Ref **********)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:29:07 +0000
From: Phil Bayfield
To: Ian Livingston

Dear Mr Livingston,

I am writing to you in regards to a letter I received this morning (Saturday January 30th) from a company called Wescot Credit Services Ltd, claiming that my company owes BT the sum of £1,699.09. The letter was marked as a ‘final notice’ however this was the first correspondence I have every received from anyone (including BT) regarding any outstanding balance, I suspect however that this may be a standard letter from this type of company intended to intimidate the recipient. I immediately connected Wescot to find out this was all about, initially thinking that it was some kind of identity theft, they were unable to provide me with any useful information and suggest I phoned BT, who they didn’t even have a number for. I then phoned 150 from my residential BT phone line and they were able to put me through to the business billing department. After a considerable amount of time left on hold I was eventually informed that these fees were for unpaid broadband usage and early termination charge, the customer services agent was unable to give me further information and apparently could not offer any further assistance as the matter was now with a debt collection agency. I asked to speak to a manager, however after waiting on hold for over half an hour I hung up the phone.

Sometime back in September I did contact BT requesting a new ADSL2 package for the phone number 01795 ******, it already had a business broadband line active in the name of another company at the time which was supposed to cease when the new package started. After a couple of weeks I then called again as I had heard nothing back from BT in regards to the new package, the sales team were unable to find the order on their system and placed the order for a second time. Several weeks went by, still no correspondence from BT so I assumed that the order had once again been ‘lost in the system’. As I was going to be moving within the next few weeks I decided not to pursue the order to avoid the hassle associated with moving both the phone lines and broadband (as I had previously been overcharged by £500 the last time I did this). Around 6 weeks after placing the order for the second time I suddenly started receiving emails from BT regarding the new account, I responded to the emails requesting cancellation and received responses back confirming the cancellation.

Here is part of the email confirming cancellation of the account on 2nd November 2009:

> Order number: 1135****
>
> Dear Mr Bayfield,
>
> This email is to confirm that your order for BT Business Total Broadband Option 2 ADSL2 Next Gen (up to 20Mb) on 01795****** has been cancelled.

As much as I would like an explanation of how it is possible that usage charges of a service which was never activated or used plus apparent early termination charges can equate to the equivalent of 4 1/2 YEARS of usage on this particular tariff, I would much rather this situation were rectified as soon as possible.

I look forward to receiving your reply.

Yours sincerely,
Phil Bayfield

This morning in the post I received the following letter, addressed to one of my businesses, after making a few calls I discovered it related to a BT Business broadband order I had placed in September last year and cancelled before it was activated in October!