Across the pond

Today, which is, unless I am going gaga, is 15 January,  I received a letter from a debt recovery service telling me that unless I paid them £327.58 in full before 3 January, they would start legal action, which, if successful would mean that I have to pay them £442.58.

What BT is asking me to pay for is for their ‘service’ in providing me with a telephone line in our rented flat.

Which they never did.

This is the telephone connection which never was.

And BT is taking me to the courts for not paying them for a service they have not provided. Even though, throughout this period, I have been paying by direct debit the cost of the BT line in my Dorset bungalow, which I bought on 1 August when I sold my house.

Which I told them on expensive calls on my mobile phone. And in the last two years I have, after going through all the automated options, got through to perfectly decent BT human beings, who agreed with me, that something should be done.

My last contact with a BT human being was in early December 2008, when the lady told me that I would receive a call from her manager within 24 hours. I never did.

I rang the debt collection service and the lady I spoke to listened to what I had to say very courteously. And asked me to put it in an email. Which I have done.

But whether this will make any difference to the way BT has harrassed me over the last year or so, I don’t know.

Because the plain fact is that BT people, although they tell the world, ‘ it is good to talk’ do not talk to each other.

And so they waste the shareholders’ money, and threaten the rain forests, by sending me bills on paper and threats of legal action, they do not acknowlege that they have FAILED to provide me with their promised service.

Several BT employees over the last two years have agreed with me on this score.

But the COMPANY, BT does not listen to its own employees.

It continues to harrass me to pay for a service they totally failed to provide.

So long as I am alive, I will resist this.

But, being a realist, I think it probable that BT will still be asking me for money after I have died.

And I don’t want to leave my wife and children with a legal action from BT to demand money for a service they have totally failed to provide.

So I want to settle this now.

Despite the fact, that if BT had checked, I was for many years a loyal customer of BT, who paid his bills by direct debit.

BT is currently branding me as a criminal  who does not honour his debts.

I want this to be sorted out before I die.

Because I don’t want my family to be harrassed by BT to pay for a service they totally failed to provide.