So guess what the inevitable happened. LLP (in case you have forgotten, I am never likely to, Large Land Line Provider That Should Be Better at This) duly cut off my broadband and landline later that day. Despite everyone I had spoken to earlier assuring me that even though my vendor had been cut off I would not be.

I immediately got on my mobile and after dialling the original department- whose staff speak English without so heavy an accent that I have to repeat everything back to them to make sure I have understood- and being informed that I would be charged for the call at an undetermined rate- set by my mobile provider and so clearly not LLP’s fault- I spoke to a lady.

Let’s call her Charlotte because that was her name and I am now beyond protecting anonymity. She was actually apologetic which was refreshing. But still I needed to speak to the Order Management Department. I refused. Flatly.

She offered to speak to them on my behalf. I listened to some more Vivaldi, I would like to say it had progressed to Summer, it hadn’t, Spring seemed to be on some sort of continuous, mind numbing loop. Eventually Charlotte came back to say she had spoken to the Order Management Department but now needed to speak to someone else. Cognizant of my rapidly escalating mobile phone bill and my increasing intolerance of a piece of music I had previously loved so much it featured in my wedding day, I asked her to call me back. She said she would be ten minutes.

I used the next half an hour to put the kids to bed so I could give whatever LLP had to throw at me next my full attention.

Charlotte rang back. Apparently when I moved my home move order date the original order was still around in the background. And busy little imaginary beavers, and maybe some actual engineers, had been keeping their jobs by enacting that order. I think I could have guessed as much…

She had arranged to have the line reinstated. This could take up to 24 hours. I was not to call back until that time had elapsed. Someone from Order Mis-Management would call me during the day to check on progress. I remained sceptical.

So precisely 24 hours later-after making sure the kids were ready for bed- I got back on my mobile. I asked to speak to Charlotte. Stacy didn’t know who Charlotte was. I spoke to Stacy. What I needed by now was the whole sorry tale on some sort of tape that I could merely play down the phone. Stacy was at a complete loss, she called the OMD (I, by now, was so familiar with the internal workings of LLP’s ‘help’ lines that I didn’t even need her to explain the acronym) more classical music.

She came back,

“Well”, she opined “they weren’t much help!”

I could only agree. Wholeheartedly. Still at a loss she decide to speak to the Faults Department, she came back, they would not speak to her so with more than a little reluctance I agreed to be put through.

That tape would have been handy again. And an interpreter. Anyway suffice to say I got nowhere. I asked (well actually by this point I was really beyond asking, ordering with menaces was more like it) to speak to a supervisor, a manger, anyone who may have a clue how to help. She went away. I silently screamed down the phone.

She had spoken to her supervisor, who said I needed to speak to the dedicated Sales team.

I went through to the Sales team. I explained the situation. Again. She checked the computer and could not find a record of either home move order. I went into more than mild panic. The lady, who was clearly bored, needed to take advice, during this interlude I put the kids to bed.

She came back- she was not sure why I had been put through to her- neither was I. She wanted to put me back through to the OM-MD. On no account was I going back there, ever, more music, she then put me through to someone called Alex.

Alex had not been given even the gist of my issues by mystery sales woman so, yet again, I went through the story.

By this point I had been on the phone for an hour. Alex (whose surname I extracted for future reference but who didn’t know the phone number for his department- the Customer Options team- as he only ever took internal calls- he suggested I find him again by calling 150 and saying “Cancellations”- it was really very, very tempting) was quite helpful. He even suggested he call me back. By this point I was so addled I had forgotten that earlier on Charlotte had called me back, but anyway my arm needed a rest so I gratefully agreed.

He called me back. It wasn’t really his department’s area. But he could see from the notes that I had already spoken to several advisors (the mother of all misnomers) so he felt he ought to take some ownership of the issue. I metaphorically fell off my chair- I would have been sat on a chair but the only place in my house with decent mobile reception doesn’t have a chair. And if I wander off to get a chair I loose reception and the call and I was pretty sure I would never navigate my way back to Alex even if I left breadcrumbs or string.

Alex discussed my issue. He did something on the line and told me he thought it likely it was my buyer’s fault. Despite all evidence to the contrary, that is that my vendor had been cut off on the same day and that I had booked this home move for this exact date. Of course by now I was starting to doubt my own sanity. Alex asserted that if my buyer had taken over the line I would not be able to have it back at all. There were two more weeks before the move. In desperation my husband left to drive to the buyer’s current house to see if he could find out.

Meanwhile Alex suggested he talk to his supervisor, I asked to talk to his supervisor, he thought it best if he did it. I listened to more music- actually this was some sort of modern lift type music which at least gave the orchestra a break- but that too was becoming tedious after 15 minutes.

He came back. He needed to speak to the OM-MD which conveniently was now shut. I wished him all the luck in the world. He promised to call me back between 11 and 11.30 the next day. I explained I would be on a football pitch but would do my best to pick up. I asked him to persevere if he didn’t get me immediately. He offered to e mail me if he couldn’t get through. I explained that that would be problematic as I had no broadband.

“Well don’t you have an android phone?”- Well yes I do but I am 45, slightly long sighted, have patchy 3G and find reading e mails on it less than easy, never mind typing replies (this blog entry has so far taken two hours and I am only doing it in the hope that if it gets shared enough on social media LLP might be shamed into action). And anyway I would be grateful for an actual call.

Meanwhile husband had failed to raise our buyers.

Saturday morning dawned. I called my agent, who called my buyers, who- unsurprisingly- confirmed they had not instructed any phone line change.

By noon I was still waiting for Alex. For divine intervention. For a miracle.

I decided to risk following those breadcrumbs. I called 150. Was told- twice- that I would be charged for the call, said cancellations really quite emphatically at the correct juncture and spoke to a lady. She confirmed that I was indeed in the Customer Options Department- which was tea splutteringly funny, my options appearing somewhat limited. I asked to speak to Alex, she didn’t know who he was, there apparently being many Customer Options Teams spread around the country, she sounded like she was north of the border and very likely wishing she had voted yes in the referendum. Could she help? Not really I had neither the will nor the strength to go through it again.

She went away, came back, said she had e mailed Alex (thank goodness I had had the foresight to take that surname) but he was on his lunch break and would call me at 12.45p.m.

I went on my lunch break, from my full time job dealing with LLP. He did in fact call, provided me with more lift music, came back, told me he had the OM-MD mis-advisor on the line and I needed to hear what he had to say. I asked Alex how I would get back to him, he said I wouldn’t need to, clearly he had passed over his all too brief ownership of my problem.

So back to the OM-MD I went. This mis-advisor told me (I think) that in my case they could only restore my landline. What about my broadband I asked. Well that is your suppliers problem. You are my supplier I retorted. No we are not. I asked him to explain to me in words of one syllable who my providers were. My landline supplier is apparently Open Reach and my broadband supplier is the ‘wholesale team’. Well are these two suppliers not part of LLP then? Well yes but we only supply the land line. It was a good job there were no sharp implements lying around.

This mis-advisor said he was going to contact the Resolutions Team as my case was now classed as specialist (awkward). And someone would call back before 6p.m. I asked if I could stay on the line whilst he spoke to the Resolutions Team but apparently he needed to e mail them and was unwilling or unable to provide me with their number if for any ‘slim’ chance they did not call me back, or were on their lunch breaks and didn’t get my mobile number correctly etc etc.

I hung up. And shouted profanities.

Husband decide to try Twitter and got as far as filling in an on line form to plead for assistance.

It is now 6p.m. on the following day (Sunday for those who have lost track) and neither the Resolutions Team or @BTCare have had the courtesy to call.

So dear readers as we are at a total and complete loss as to how to proceed we are hoping the power of social media may help get us some action. I applaud you for getting this far. I’d like to say I feel better for getting it all down but my index finger just aches from typing this on my mobile phone.

If you feel able to share please do.

So everyone knows moving house is stressful. I think it ranks third or fourth in the most stressful things to do. It is partly why I have resisted for so long.

Some days it feels like wading through treacle, whilst juggling three eggs and balancing a priceless Ming jar on my head…

And the process is made so much worse by having to deal with the ‘service’ companies. Of which there are seemingly hundreds. All with their different timescales, procedures, requirements and levels of awkwardness.

Like most people who are in a chain the date of our completion has slipped. I cannot believe this is an unusual event in the world of house moving. I knew it would cause problems.

One particularly helpful service company, lets call them ‘Large Landline Provider Who Really Should Be Better at This’ (LLP) stipulate that you must give four weeks notice of a house move. I duly did, I called the ‘Home Mover Centre’ and spoke to a really quite knowledgeable lady who booked my move and gave me a reference number. I discussed with her at length the notice requirements for changing the date of the move. I wrote down the last day I could possibly move the date, what number to call and hung up feeling remarkably optimistic.

Our date moved. I called LLP three days before my deadline. I spoke to someone who seemed really quite knowledgeable who moved the date. I got confirmation by text and e mail with a new reference number. This reference number actually worked on the LLP on line tracking system so I could see for myself on the t’internet that the dates were correct. I relaxed.

At no point should I have given in to optimism or relaxed. One should never relax. Ever.

On the original move date I got a call from my estate agent to say that my vendor had called. LLP had deactivated her landline a full 2 weeks before our new scheduled completion. I swore, apologised, asked him to apologise to her and promised I would call LLP to investigate.

I called the number I called to change the date. I spoke to a lady who seemed much less knowledgeable than the last two, maybe that was disappointment colouring my judgement, I am not sure. It didn’t help that she did not understand me. Or if I am honest me her. She took my reference number and merely kept repeating that ‘everything looked fine from her end’. She was presumably in the same system that I could access from the comfort of my study and so, I agreed, everything looked fine. But clearly wasn’t. As my vendor had been cut off. This seemed to confuse her.

By this point I had started to become increasingly concerned about the likelihood of my phone line actually moving on the actual correct date. Despite what it said at their end. She repeated her new mantra that ‘everything at their end looked fine’. I asked was she sure that my phone line, broadband and number would move successfully over at the correct juncture, she hesitated and said ‘Yes’, I asserted that she did not sound that sure. She re-iterated her affirmation. She then suggested I talk to the Faults Department.

I spoke to another confused lady in the Faults Department. This one seemed even less knowledgeable. Except that she was very certain she could not talk to me as it was not actually my phone line that had been de-activated. Despite the fact that it was my home move order that seemed to have gone awry. I guess all this could have been an amazing co-incidence with an engineer randomly cutting my vendor off for fun on the exact date I had originally booked for. Stranger things have happened.

I called the Agent back and explained that as far as LLP were concerned the move was scheduled for the correct day and I could not discuss with them the problems my vendor was having as it wasn’t my account. Interestingly the vendor had already tried to talk to LLP to get her phone re-instated but they would not talk to her either as according to ‘their’ records I now owned the line.

So new strategy. I called the number I called right at the start of the process when I spoke to someone who I understood and had filled me with confidence, however false. I dialled and got a lady, I think it was even the same woman. She could see the order had been changed. And it all looked ‘fine from her end’.  At this point I started searching LLP’s impenetrable web site for their complaints procedure. She needed to put me through to the ‘Order Management Department’. This sounded promising.  A department with a name, surely staffed by competents with better IT systems and more, well, knowledge.

I ended up in the same call centre I had spoken to first thing in the morning, this time a man, but still not easy to understand or make myself understood to. I imagine it somewhere in the tropics, the line, ironically, sounded bad enough. That mantra again, clearly it is on a list of  ‘responses to awkward customer questions’. He went away to see what else he could dig up, probably a cup of tea.

I like the Four Seasons as much as the next person, I think it was Spring at the time, I passed the few minutes ascertaining from the impenetrable web site that in order to complain I would need to call  the exact same number I was currently holding on with. He came back and stated that he needed to put me through to the Faults Department. Which he duly did. After a few more bars of soaring strings  I decided to hang up not relishing another round of ‘we cannot talk to you as it is not your phone line’.

The phone then rang. It was the ‘helpful’ chap I had hung up on. He noticed I had hung up and was concerned there was a problem. Well clearly there were several, not least of which was too much Vivaldi. This seemed to pass him by and he put my through again, after mentioning the long queue that would await me. I waited until I was firmly in that queue before hanging up.

Meanwhile the vendor had had more success, goodness knows how, and was hoping to have her line reinstated by the next day. The Agent said she could see the funny side, thankfully, I remained mortified at the inconvenience she had been put through.

I decided to give up and put my faith in the fact that it all ‘looks fine from their end’… I will probably be without phone line and internet for weeks…at least, dear reader, you will be spared my rant about it…