Kasia’s been moaning at me for spending too much time on the telephone to BT about broadband outages, but since a week has passed since my last such conversation I thought now might be a good time to update my loyal reader(s) on yet another telephone conversation I had last Friday afternoon.
Following Anthony’s suggestion I phoned up Ofcom at 16:40, and given my recent experiences with British Telecom I was pleased to discover that according to their automated operator I was first in the queue to speak to a real human being. Shortly thereafter I found myself speaking to Alex, who wanted to know if I wished to register a complaint. I told him that whilst I was certainly not exactly a happy bunny, at this juncture I was only seeking information and advice. Having briefly outlined the contents of this blog for him, Alex suggested that my next telephone call should be to the Ombudsman Services for Communications to find out more about something called the “Alternative Dispute Resolution Scheme” (or ADR for short”.
According to the Ofcom website:
Under Ofcom’s regulations, phone companies must be a member of a recognised Alternative Dispute Resolution Scheme.
The schemes provide an impartial alternative if you and your phone company can’t agree about a complaint.
It is free, and is open to residential customers as well as small businesses with up to 10 employees.
Here at The Dreamers we’re certainly a small business, and we most definitely have less than 10 employees, so maybe I’m getting somewhere useful at long last?
Also according to Ofcom:
If you haven’t reached an agreement with your provider after eight weeks – or earlier, if they agree you’re at a stalemate – you can then ask an ADR scheme to consider the case. The complaint must also be less than 9 months old.
It looks as though I still have plenty of time left to continue my fact finding mission before registering an official complaint, so I still haven’t got around to clicking the big blue button on the Ombudsman’s website:
How to make a complaint to the Communications Ombudsman