BT Infinity Delay ... something smells fishy

A question about : BT Infinity Delay ... something smells fishy

In the first week of Jan I signed up to change ISP for a great BT Infinity package (rural so its a new service for us), scheduled for connection by the end of the month. Yay.

Then the problems started ... a couple of weeks later I got an email saying I'd cancelled my order & to return the kit, I contacted customer care & was told this was spam, to ignore it & everything was fine. Being a sceptic I started calling BT, kept on getting a call centre where nobody seemed to know anything, I had to guide them through each time, then they would reassure me all was OK. Each time I was left with uneasy feeling like I was being fobbed off. Then the emails asking for the kit back kept coming so I kept calling trying to get some reliable information.

Finally on Thursday 5th Feb (day after final date for installation and day my MAC code expired) someone rang me to say Superfast Broadband is not available in my area. It turns out they had cancelled my order a couple of weeks before but nobody had told me. They offered me an ADSL package instead but without the great deal they sold me in January.

I know our local exchange has been upgraded & saw the engineer doing our junction box at the end of our road (it was a bit of a big deal in our little village) which now has a sticker advertising the fact. BTs own site & salesmen then sold me the superfast package. Now, since I've complained, BT's site says Fibre is not available however the OpenReach site says it is available but in high demand & subject to delays. BT say fibre broadband should be ready by March. Should I believe them?

Anyone else had a similar experience? Should I report then to someone for being totally useless (or maybe mis-selling/mis-advertising?)

Best answers:

• Your exchange may well be enabled for FTTC, but for you to get it requires the street cab serving your property to be upgraded also. That may take months, years, or never happen, depending on demand. In my case it took two years from exchange upgrade to street cab upgrade, with many delays.
  The BT number checker should have told you from the outset what services were available on that number,no need to resort to BT's clueless script readers.
• It sounds like the cabinet has run out of capacity. Sold out basically.
  They will likely add more capacity to it but these things do not happen overnight.
• Thanks, that makes sense. I did place the order online and it's only in the last week that it says Infinity not available on our road (rest of the village it is still ok).
  Decided to get in touch with the ASA and they were interested. Seems BT was in trouble for this sort of mis-selling last year too.
• We have FTTC, but the wifes friend who lives up the road cannot get it. Her box has not been upgraded yet.
  Strange as i would have thought it would have been just as easy to do them both. They both supply quite a few properties.