So finally the saga is over - the line is fixed and I have been credited a month's charge, a whole £20, and they have promised to take up the communication/management failure between O2 and BT OpenReach.
Taking up from the last blog, then. The engineers did arrive on 23rd as promised - a he and a she, where it appeared the she was being supervised. She knew what she was doing, and he was checking. Everything was alright in the house (of course), and they went off to the Exchange, leaving the pole to later if all else failed. They could do this because he was 'frame trained' and therefore allowed into the Exchange. They were back very promptly, it took 5 minutes to find my connection in the frame and remove a strand of wire that had fallen over it causing a short.
Aaaagh - this could have been done a week before if OpenReach had checked the Exchange then as their engineer (not frame trained) requested.
The engineers were good enough to hang around while I checked that I had a good internet connection, even though their responsibility ends at the test socket in the wall box. Good service from them.
So I called 800 230 0202 again, told them it was fixed, reinforced the point that we had lost a week for no good reason, and reminded them that they had promised to give me one month's credit. The young lady in Derry said she'd do that right away. Oh then later in the day I got another of those emails and texts telling me they are still working on our fault - this was after the text that said the fault should be fixed now - fills you with confidence, doesn't it.
I decided to wait a few days, not least to ensure the broadband was stable, before chasing the credit and entering my complaint about the whole saga. Frankly it was a relief to not think about O2 for a few days.
Then blow me on 29 Oct we are notified of the next bill and there is no credit applied at all. Time to immediately write a lengthy letter of complaint to complaintreviewservice@o2.com laying out the whole dreadful saga. They have a 7-day response commitment, so I duly noted it in my calendar for chasing.
Much to my surprise today, 01 Nov, I get a call from the complaintreviewservice which is apologetic, appears to genuinely understand my frustrations and the fact that errors must have been made between O2 and OpenReach, and immediately applies a £20 credit to my account (which I can see online, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this).
So will I still carry out my threat to remove broadband, home phone, mobile broadband and two mobiles from O2? We'll all just have to wait and see ...
