BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer): Declan complains to BT Chairman Sir Michael Rake to no avail? (WITH TREBLE UPDATE - Day 12 2/6/2017)

Re: Blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016

From my earlier blog post's Update 2 June (6.15pm):

"I have just updated my blog post of 16 January with this evening's 467th block on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016. The blog post also not only reveals a record-breaking 52 such blocks in one week at the end of April (an unprecedented escalation that kicked off with our focus on Denmark's cartoon crisis; 94 blocks last month), but it reveals the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site which continues to this day."

An unprecedented ten blocks in one day on 7 May with our publication of Atheist Ireland republishes 25 blasphemous quotes in solidarity with Stephen Fry. Nineteen blocks last week; thirteen blocks so far this week; one block today.

The War on Free Expression

We have a distinguished list of 121 Honorary Associates from around the world, including two Nobel Prize winners. Nonetheless (or perhaps as a result), we are now dealing not just with blocks on public access to our Church and State website and the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site, but Internet cuts as well. In My Picks I have added my blog post last Saturday titled We lose our Internet connection for the second time in two days, having not previously been disconnected from the Internet since our contract with British Telecom commenced on 28 May 2014 (WITH UPDATE 1/6/2017). We are deeply concerned that there may be many more of these cuts in the weeks ahead as we try to increase our connections across northern Europe, particularly in Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Since 25 May, we have been battling BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer) for a copy of their engineer's report from his visit on 24 May following Declan's request to investigate the intermittent TV reception we had been getting of late through our BT YouView box. This is Declan's email to BT Chairman Sir Michael Rake this afternoon for a copy of the report without the fee his Subject Access Request dated 25 May would likely incur:

Sir Michael Rake
Chairman
British Telecom

Address removed for email


1 June 2017

Dear Sir Michael,

I refer to my email below to BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer), to which I have not received a reply. Please could BT provide me with a copy of your engineer Alexander Boyce's report without the fee my Subject Access Request (SAR) dated 25 May would likely incur.

I have made numerous requests for Mr Boyce's report, to no avail; the first two written requests that I made for this report were not recorded by BT Consumer Care.

On 24 May Mr Boyce confirmed in a double-signed handwritten note that there would be no charge for his visit because he could not say that I had damaged any BT equipment or that the fault (viz. intermittent TV reception through my BT YouView box) was the result of my home wiring. Please see the attached copy of his handwritten note.

I can confirm that I am currently watching TV with a signal strength that remains stable at 92% and quality that remains stable at 100%. There is, therefore, evidently no case that could have reasonably been made by Mr Boyce that the fault was the result of my home wiring.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

"Let me recommend an important web site - churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out." - Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

24 May: British Telecom: Declan's complaint to the CEO of BT about the handling of the bad TV reception we have been accustomed to getting of late through our BT YouView box (WITH TREBLE UPDATE - Day 5 26/5/2017)

DAY 12 UPDATE 2 June (12.08pm): Yesterday Declan contacted the Telecommunications Ombudsman for the engineer's report he has been chasing since 24 May, after receiving the following reply from BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer) to his email to Sir Michael Rake above:

Hello Mr Heavey,

Thanks for your email, I have tried calling you with no reply.

Unfortunately I’m not able to get the report from the engineer, your next bill is due on 28/06/2017 and I will monitor and remove any engineer charges if applicable.

Best wishes
Miranda

Miranda Bracey
Executive Level Complaints
BT Consumer

UPDATE 2 June (continued): The Telecommunications Ombudsman told Declan that they would not be able to investigate for eight weeks BT's ongoing incomprehensible failure to provide him with the engineer's report, unless he could get a deadlock letter from them in the interim stating their full and final position on the matter. So yesterday evening Declan requested that Resolver pursue BT for this deadlock letter (Resolver Incident: 170601-016088). BT acknowledged receiving Resolver's submission at 7.01pm last night, but they have yet to respond to it. I will keep updating this blog post on a daily basis until we either have the engineer's report or BT have provided us with the deadlock letter we need for the Telecommunications Ombudsman to investigate their refusal to disclose this information. As I mentioned above yesterday, last Saturday this was my blog post: We lose our Internet connection for the second time in two days, having not previously been disconnected from the Internet since our contract with British Telecom commenced on 28 May 2014 (WITH UPDATE 1/6/2017). Nonetheless, I am still wondering what is apparently so special about Declan's straightforward request for a supposedly run-of-the-mill report by a regular BT engineer into intermittent TV reception through our BT YouView box that had absolutely nothing to do with our internet connection (the fault was restricted to free view TV channels that are not dependent on a connection to the internet). Perhaps we are supposed to think that there is some sort of nonsensical connection between our TV aerial socket and our phone socket when it comes to home wiring! All we do know is that the two Internet cuts below at the end of last week were the first two such cuts that have occurred since our contract with BT commenced on 28 May 2014.*



1st Internet cut: 26 May 2017
2nd Internet cut: 27 May 2017 (graphic above)

* I have filed these first two internet cuts since May 2014 in a folder I created called "BT Internet Cuts", with the date and time part of the graphic for each cut. We pay BT £65.53 per month (£786.36 per year) for BT Infinity fibre optic broadband.

DAY 12 UPDATE 2 June (4.24pm): BT Executive Level Complaints have just emailed Declan the content below, which we understand constitutes the entirety of the information contained in the engineer's report from his visit on 24 May. They say they will not provide us with a copy of the actual report without a SAR and a cheque for £10.00! Despite the engineer's handwritten note and our current 92% signal strength, he appears to be blaming the home wiring relating to our TV aerial socket as a possible cause of the intermittent TV reception we had been getting of late through our BT YouView box (the box is referred to in the report as "G4 stb" or "stb"). His report is inconclusive and entirely based on the fiction that at the time of his visit we were experiencing an intermittent signal whilst watching free view. He writes that he witnessed our signal "drop to 0%", which he most certainly did not. When he visited on 24 May, we were not experiencing any reception problems through our BT YouView box or through the property aerial. Declan not only confirmed this fact in an email earlier that afternoon to BT CEO Gavin Patterson, but we have never experienced any problem with the property aerial and the signal we get from it alone has always been better than any signal we have ever gotten through our BT YouView box. This email from BT Executive Level Complaints is more than a bit troubling on many fronts:

Hello Mr Heavey,

I’ve tried calling you with no reply, I’ve just received the information you have asked for from the engineers visit.

Visit Flags: FaultClearCode=ST02 Factory reset, EngineerFaultNotes=Customer using a G4 stb with a wired connection to working ok hh5 customer having an intimitant signal whilst watching the free view through the stb all home checks complete nff checked the signal via the stb which is leafy fluctuating & cud witness t :: Visit Information: EngineerNotes=Customer using a G4 stb with a wired connection to working ok hh5, customer having an intimitant signal whilst watching the free view, through the stb, all home checks complete nff, checked the signal via the stb which is clearly fluctuating & I did witness the signal drop to 0%, tried re terminating the rf connectors but still no change tried changing the areial cable, but again all the same, before replacing the stb tried a full factory resetting the stb then basically re installed it setting the settings re tuned the free view channels which upon checking the signal quality /strength all ok, customer agrees & happy & agrees to call back if any issues.

For Data Subject Access Requests

we need all requests in writing to
British Telecommunications PLC
Crawley TEC, Zone DSAR
Fleming Way,
Crawley,
West Sussex,
RH10 9JY

Send a cheque made payable to BT PLC for £10.00, it can take up to 40 days, please include
Account number
Phone number and address

Best wishes
Miranda

Miranda Bracey
Executive Level Complaints
BT Consumer

DAY 12 UPDATE 2 June (6.39pm): Earlier this evening Declan phoned BT Executive Level Complaints about Miranda Bracey's email above. He was unable to speak to her, and no one from BT Executive Level Complaints returned his call. So he has copied BT Chairman Sir Michael Rake into this reply under the subject title "BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer): Request for Deadlock Letter for the Telecommunications Ombudsman":

For the attention of Sir Michael Rake, Chairman, British Telecom

Miranda Bracey
Executive Level Complaints (Consumer)
British Telecom

Address removed for email


2 June 2017

Dear Ms Bracey,

Thank you for your email. I do not accept that the intermittent TV reception I had been experiencing through my BT YouView box may have been the result of my home wiring (hereinafter referred to as the "Complaint"). I therefore hereby request a letter of deadlock from BT that provides me with the company's full and final position on my Complaint and refers me to the ombudsman service.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey

Internet cut updates:

None since 27 May.



From My Picks:

20 February: The Central London County Court: District Judge Avent dismisses Declan's claim against the Greater London Authority-commissioned St Mungo's that alleged the falsification and fabrication of data against us (WITH UPDATE 16/3/2017)

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' - Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty