@BTCare - your data protection and customer service process are pitifully inadequate

Tonight I realised that CallerID had reappeared on one of our phone lines.  I had cancelled this as the line was rarely used, and generally took answerphone messages and therefore CallerID was largely useless, and BT (because I use another call provider) now charge £7.77 per quarter for the service.  This was support by an email I discovered from BT confirming the “request for a new service, and that it would cost £7.77 pq)

So I called the service and spoke to Sunil in Bangalore, India.

At which point he told me he could not talk to me about it because my name is not on the account.  This is despite the fact that my account is emailed to me, has been in my name since 2005, been paid for by me since then.  Clearly BT had, without any authority or request by me, changed my account details.

The situation took a Kafka-esque turn when “Because my name is not on the account” I could not be put through to a supervisor or manager to discuss the mistake BT had clearly made.

A series of entirely lunatic conversation elements took place.

Finally it appeared that there was a likely cause  - a few months ago my wife requested that BT actually put her business account in her name and not mine.  It seemed to me that it was likely BT had made a complete Horlicks of the request and not only changed my wife’s account – but also mine (a different BT account and a different phone number).

So she had to speak to them.  After a further series of discussions worthy of Kafka, and discussions with his supervisor, Sunil accepted that a mistake had been made and was gracious enough to talk to me.  At which point he accepted that a mistake had been made and would be corrected within 24 hours.  At which point I came to the CallerID issue.  Sunil now agreed he could discuss this with me and it was removed and I was assured that no charges would be made.  I requested an apology and compensation for the 45 minutes of my life that have been lost to this insane situation.

But a series of questions for BT.  If your policy is not to deal with anyone other than the named account holder

1. Why did you process her email request on an account that was not mentioned or identified in her email?
2. Why, when it was clear a mistake had been made do you refuse to let me escalate the complaint?
3. Why is there no consideration for the fact that if the surnames are the same, then it might be that there is a connection?
4. How is it that your premise is that BT cannot make a mistake therefore it cannot deal with a mistake?
5. How is it that despite your prodigious defence of Data Protection considerations when on the phone, you are able to process a change to 1 account by someone who is not the account holder, and then execute *without request* the same change on another account again by someone who is not the account holder?