Feeling wrung out: modern life!

Is it a new VOIP system? I'm hanging onto our copper landline as long as possible. It's the only thing that worked when we had a four day powercut a few years ago after Storm Arwen! All the mobile phone signals were down as well. Although if you drove 8 miles up the road you could pick up a signal and charge the phone from the car battery.

The only nice bit about it was having an older style radio that could pick up the odd programme on long wave so we had some sound!

I m having a real run round with an Asda card I put some money on when I last went overseas I probably won’t go again and decided to close it and get the bit of money back well I tried in the shops little money kiosk he told me I was better off buying my stuff with it as the exchange rate was really poor so I went to use it for my groceries but hadn’t got the code number in my head as it had been a long time since I used it, they told me to go to the customer counter so I did but they said it was nothing to do with them So I went home and rang the Asda card number up I gave my code names my memorable info but stumbled over my phone number which I have to say in a certain way, so the phone man who was very sweet but had a strong accent told me he would send me an email instead He did and I answered it with all the info asked for Only to get a return email thanking me for getting in touch and saying a case would now be opened !!!!!!!
I only want my £25 back as they ve started to take money off me for not using it !!!
I feel so fed up with such a simple thing being made so complicated

Nothing is straightforward these days. We have finally given in and had a Smart Meter. We rang up to book and answered dozens of questions then were given a date and time.

Few days later i took a call from ScotPower again and was asked all the same questions again. I told them we had done all this already but was told there was no record of it. I took a third call after another few days and he started asking same questions. I said “do you want my blood group?” He asked what I meant so I told him about the other two times I had done this and there couldn’t possibly be anything else they needed to know. He apologised and said he could now see I had already done this.

The day came, I got texts to say he was on his way and I could track his progress. Literally as I started that he knocked on the door. I couldn’t see a vehicle and later discovered he had parked around the corner and blocked somebody’s drive. One of their questions had been “Is there ample parking at the property? “ to which I replied “yes” !!!

Stuff like this drives me crazy.

Our business VOIP isn't very good either.
Also I was disappointed that we'd need another (expensive) handset for it to work with my bluetooth hearing aids. With it being via internet I naively thought that it might be bluetooth-compatible anyway. After all there are 12.3 million people in this country with bilateral hearing loss, or so Mr Google says.

loopylindy

The actual landline will still exist - it's just the transmission method. No more copper cables. We've still got ours BUT what you will have to do is use the full number when dialling i.e. 01456-7893

but the quality of the new system is dreadful. As listed above we constantly have calls cut off mid-call, sometimes cannot ring out and we can no longer use our phone anywhere in the house despite having a Mesh system extender.

We have very little problem with scam calls, and haven't had so for years. The occasional one now and again, and none on our mobiles.

Sounds awful ferry23
I'm actually glad this new package is set up (at least I hope that's it). Just the electricity company to deal with next.
I foresee another hour out of my life dealing with that. It's lucky I'm retired and have time for all this.

BT customer service is appalling. And given a lot of their work is carried out by Open Reach - which have no customer service for the public - the whole thing is a shambles.

I'll not go into the sorry story, but when I moved last year the disaster that was BT & Open Reach was unbelievable. They broke personal possessions in my home, left me with builder's rubble to clear up and kept me waiting months for basic services.

After hours and hours of calls to BT I finally got the compensation to which I was entitled (which I had to work out myself as it seems BT staff are incapable of making of simple calculations even with a calculator)- almost £500, as they had constantly reneged on promises made and left me for so long without the services I signed up for.

The only people who ever called our landline were sales scammers. Always from a foreign call centre but with strangely British names. I'm glad to get rid of the land line.
Interestingly, the young man looked at my history with BT and we were both amazed that my 324 years as a BT customer had been noted!

Sympathy… We have had to renew our BT contract recently. Got a much better deal with EE - the annoying thing is BT and EE are the same company… We went into an EE/BT shop to do this in order to speak to people in person!

Landline has been changed to Pay as You Go. Broadband speed lowered but still good and bill now half what it was…
(£70 down to £35)
Have you got an EE/BT shop near you?

The actual landline will still exist - it's just the transmission method. No more copper cables. We've still got ours BUT what you will have to do is use the full number when dialling i.e. 01456-7893

All tele comunications are ending copper wire to the house telephones - the standard landline. Its replacement is the VOIP (Voice over internet prtotocol) that runs the equivalent of the old landline through your home internet.

BT tell you how wonderful this is, how it is so much better than a landline. You cannot stop them doing the changeover, what you do not need to do is believe all the bullsh*t about how much better VOIP is, because it isn't.

DH and I prefer to keep our mobile phones for personal and emergency medical calls and do our 'business' through the landline, now VOIP. Only this morning, a call was cut off half way through, this happens to at least a third of our calls. Some calls will get cut off several times and have to be redialled.

We had a week when we could not make external calls, although we could receive calls. The solution turned out to require us to turn our router off and turn it back on again.

We have not restored our ansaphone, nor several other services we had on our phones because they are so complicated to set up - and also complicated to access.

Plus, of course, if your internet goes down, so does your phone.

I can cope with the complications. I cannot cope with all those telling me that I am getting an improved service - we aren't.

I do agree that a lot of modern life is indeed stressful! I don’t know how families where both parents work FT manage to get any house admin done. It’s a heart-sink when you know you have to phone someone, negotiate their opening blurb, press buttons, answer security questions and then get thrown out anyway. 😩

If only it was so simple. It actually had to be done but seemed such a stressful process somehow.

You can cancel within 14 days, as I understand it. Also, does your phone not have an ‘end’ button? ‘Oops, the signal dropped and now I’ve accidentally-on-purpose blocked your number!’

Landline is part of my broadband and TV package. It's being discontinued. No choice but to change. Mobile phone now part of the package. Modern life. Time consuming though.

Ah marketing and sales! They have their quotas and you are their captive customer
We have all been there

What I do? State clearly and politely that all I want is to cancel my landline and not interested in anything else thank you

Repeat as needed.

If needed, warn the person you will hang up if your wishes are ignored and escalate your call to the manager

BT consistently. used to be the worst company in the Country for something or other.
Dont know if they still are.
It used to be that one arm of them was not allowed to talk with the other part of them.

You have my sympathies.

All that was patiently explained to me. No point in cancelling it all now. As I said it's probably fine but so stressful somehow.

Myself and friends have experienced similar things OP. You’re not feeble at all.Life feels increasingly complicated these days. . I would contact customer service. I think you should have a cooling off period.