Church and State blog: BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer): Request for 2nd Deadlock Letter for the Telecommunications Ombudsman (WITH UPDATE 19/6/2017)

Sunday, June 18, 2017

BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer): Request for 2nd Deadlock Letter for the Telecommunications Ombudsman (WITH UPDATE 19/6/2017)

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

From my earlier blog post's Update 19 June (8.05am):

"I have updated my blog post of 16 January with yesterday's 505th 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. 21 blocks last week; five blocks yesterday; no blocks since midnight today (as of 8.05am).

The War on Free Expression

Last Thursday we had to suspend work on our Church and State website; see my previous blog post, Internet cuts: We have had to suspend work on our Church and State website in our current battle to stay online (WITH UPDATE 18/6/2017 RE: 18th Internet cut since 26 May 2017). For the time being, Declan is moving around the site material I have already published and I am concentrating my research on Denmark. It is not inconceivable that we may even have to suspend work on Facebook in our current battle to stay online. Declan copied British Telecom Chairman Sir Michael Rake into this complaint to BT's Executive Level Complaints (Consumer) about their account of what happened during an engineer's visit the week before last to provide us with a new, securely fitted master socket to replace a badly fitting master socket that was line tested on 25 May and found to be functioning perfectly:

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

Shirley Mackie
Executive Level Complaints (Consumer)
British Telecom

Address removed for email

16 June 2017

Dear Ms Mackie,

This evening I spoke with an advisor in the Ombudsman Services: Communications. I have been told that I must request a second deadlock letter before writing to them because your deadlock letter below has instigated a new complaint.

I refer to your comment in which you state as follows: "An engineer attended on 7 June, but was unable to complete the necessary work. The engineer explained he was unable to repair the current master socket and offered to provide a new, securely fitted master socket on the same wall as the existing socket. But you advised you did not want this."

I do not accept your version of what happened during the engineer's visit on 7 June (hereinafter referred to as the "Complaint"). Firstly, your account is at variance with the attached ACR recording from my smartphone that informs you that the engineer only stated before leaving my home that the work needed to be carried out by my landlord Family Mosaic, not BT. I previously provided your colleague Miranda Bracey with this recording on 7 June.

Secondly, your account is at variance with the attached engineer note from 7 June, which states as follows: "This is a Fibre customer and will need a Fibre trained engineer to be allocated." Thirdly, as you have conceded below, it was a third engineer who visited my home on 12 June and securely fitted a brand new master socket to another location on the same wall. He also carried out a comprehensive line test and could not find a problem with my line.

I therefore hereby request a second deadlock letter that provides me with BT's full and final position on my Complaint and refers me to the ombudsman service.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey

Declan received this response on behalf of Sir Michael Rake:

Hello Mr Heavey,

Thank you for your email to Sir Michael.

I'm really sorry that you've had to come back to us regarding this matter.

I will ask our team to look at the deadlock for you and contact you no later than Tuesday.

Best wishes

Tracy

Tracy Reid
Executive Level Complaints (Consumer)

27 May: British Telecom: We lose our Internet connection for the second time in two days, having not previously been disconnected from the Internet since our contract with BT commenced on 28 May 2014 (WITH UPDATE 17/6/2017 RE: 18th Internet cut since 26 May 2017)

UPDATE 19 June (11.44am): Declan has just spoken with an advisor in the Ombudsman Services: Communications. He read to the advisor the email below that he received from BT Executive Level Complaints this morning and then provided the advisor with an overview of the complaint (as above). According to the advisor, the ombudsman service could not accept the complaint because they can't tell BT "how to word their deadlock letters". Declan was told his only "next option" is to take BT to court!

Hello Mr Heavey,

We're sending you this email as you've got back in touch with us, after we've reached deadlock.

I know you're not happy and I'm truly sorry we haven't been able to agree a way forward. As we've already taken all of the steps we could to investigate your complaint, there's nothing more we can say. We'll keep adding notes to your account of anything you'd like to say to us, so as your complaint record is up to date, but we won't respond again.

How to get in touch...
find out more at www.ombudsman-services.org
Email them at osenquiries@os-communications.org
Phone them on 0330 440 1614
Fax them on 0330 440 1615
Textphone them on 0330 440 1600
Write to them at Ombudsman Services: Communications, PO Box 730, Warrington, WA4 6WU.

I'm really sorry that we can't talk about this anymore.

Best wishes,
Shirley

Shirley Mackie
Executive Level Complaints; BT Consumer

From My Picks:

9 June: Ministry of Justice: Complaint to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice against the County Court at Central London, Royal Courts of Justice (WITH UPDATE - Day 10 18/6/2017)

'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

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

Church and State blog

Sunday, June 18, 2017

BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer): Request for 2nd Deadlock Letter for the Telecommunications Ombudsman (WITH UPDATE 19/6/2017)

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