The Daily Novel

This blog will seem like a mad rant, to anyone happening upon it accidentally. But before dismissing it, they should pause. Because what I have been experiencing over the past few months, is experienced daily, by thousands, possibly millions, of other people, who do not complain via blogs.  Because they do not write blogs. And because they have not spent so much time as I have to find out how the world in which we live works.

This world is dominated by very large companies, who are more powerful than most governments. These companies are not elected by anyone, not accountable to anyone, but their shareholders, who do not have any effective way of influencing what the companies do, unless they have a majority vote.

Everyone knows this. But no-one does anything about it. Not politicians, because they want to get elected. Not journalists, because…. I am not sure why. Journalists ought to look into such things, but few do. Maybe because it takes so much time, and their employers, who are mostly giant companies, want them to do things which don’t take so much time.

After spending three weeks in my bungalow in Charmouth I have achieved normal service there. I even managed to get a BT engineer to come. And he replaced the wires that had been corroded by the many years those wires have served, right back to the days when BT was a public service monopoly, required to supply a decent service to its customers.

The preset BT is controlled by managers who earn vast salaries, but who still have on their books, decent engineers, who know the business. Which is supplying an efficient telephone service.

After spending three weeks in Dorset I have now managed to get things down there working OK. But today I had to come back to London, and by BT line here tells me that I have dialled ‘an incorrect number’.  Even when I dail the number of my mobile which is stored in the phone!

In London BT has no techicnal problems, because the flat I am in has a BT line, which was working quite OK for the previous tenant. But although BT cut off my line in my old house around the corner on the first of August, they have still not managed to connect me here.

As soon as I got connected to the internet in Dorset I wrote an email of complaint to BT. Received an automated response that they dealt with such letters within 48 hours. STILL NO REPLY NOW FROM A HUMAN BEING AT BT.

This is not just a rant about the terrible arrogance and neglect of customer complaints by BT. Because I was able to get through to Sky, who did respond to my telephone calls, so I did not have to spend five hours on the telephone, before I spoke to a human being. GOOD ON YOU SKY.

Except tht☼ tonight I found that Sky had deducted 47 pounds from my direct debit. On top of the 60 pounds they have already deducted, although I signed up for Sky in Dorset for a deal which was 29 pounds a month.

From my own personal experience I know that there is a serious problem here. Which is not being looked into by journalists.

BT is ignoring its customers. BUT NOT MAKING MUCH MONEY OUT OF ME. Sky is being courteous and responsive, but is taking my money. Sky is dependent on BT for the telephone, because BT still control the exchanges. 

The customer is suffering. Me and thousands of others.

But journalists are not complaining.

If they don’t, who will?