*** Update - 5th March and still no working telephone*** Sorry this will be a long post. Before I start I should also say that all the people I have spoken to in the customer service centres have been very apologetic and very helpful, but also powerless to sort anything out. I used to be on a business contract but having closed my business I decided to change to a domestic contract once the business contract ended. My landline is very important to me - I volunteer for a charity which provides emergency services to the NHS and my landline is a backup for my mobile in case hospitals cannot contact me. When I rang to change my service to domestic I stressed the importance of keeping my current landline number and asked for plenty of notice if I could not do that, so I could change the number and inform the NHS. I was told that I would be given this notice. On 24th January my new contract started and my phone had been renumbered with no notice. I rang the service centre and was told, with apologies, that my old phone number would be restored within a few hours, and this was confirmed by email. This did not happen. After hours of phone calls, false commitments to call me back, automated emails from BT to say the change had been done (it hadn't), calls from a BT business manager who initially told me I couldn't change a business number to a domestic one (its the system......!) and then told that there was a 50% chance that I could but it would take ages, and repeated orders opened and then cancelled by BT, I finally got through to someone who said very clearly that stopped business numbers are put into quarantine for 2 weeks before they can be used. Why wasn't I told this before - it would have let me plan for the change!!! So my old number should be available on 7th February although the order says 10th. Happy with this I gave the NHS my temporary number. I checked yesterday (4th Feb) to find my number had now been changed to my old number but would not receive any incoming calls. Went onto online chat who told me that I would be able to receive incoming calls on Monday 7th. Now I have no backup at all for the whole weekend which can be the busiest time for emergency calls. When I said this on chat I was cut off. I raised a complaint, was told someone would ring me on 4th, so far noone has rung me. I really do not know what to do to put this right. It is, however, clear to me that there is incompetence at all levels, false emails are sent out automatically although nothing has been done, and BT have no regard at all for people trying to deliver life saving services Apparently I am going to receive a phone call about this 'soon'. ... The only good thing about all this is that at least, so far, the broadband appears to be working.
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