I moved house a few weeks ago and I’ve finally unpacked all the boxes and spoken to the various companies I have something to do with to tell them my new address.  Although listening to automated touchtone messages again and again is never that pleasurable most companies (bank, mobile phone, utilities etc) managed to handle my move request with ease.  That was except for one... the dreaded broadband provider; they have been so utterly useless I feel compelled to tell the world!

I’ve had an account with Be (bethere.co.uk) for about a year, their service had been reliable but their quoted 24 meg download speed has been more like a 4 or 5 ever since we signed up.  I gave them a call to let them know I was moving and was surprised when they said they had no procedures in place for moving house… I mean come on; it’s hardly that unusual is it!  Instead I would have to close down my old account (at a cost of £50) and then re-open a brand new account (at a cost of £24) that’s £74 for an existing customer to simply move house, a little on the steep side I think!  On top of this there systems were unable to cope with me using the same email address to sign up for the new account so I’m forced to use my work email address…

Anyway after a week of waiting around I logged onto their website only to be told that there was a problem activating my line, I called the help desk (Bulgaria) and was told that there was no problem and that the website would be updated in a few hours.  The next day the website still showed an issue so I called again and was told there wasn’t a problem.  On the third day, still an issue was flagged so I called only to be told that they have now got a brand new moving house procedure and I was one of their guinea pigs, hurrah!  Then they told me it’s gone horribly wrong and so we will still have to cancel your account and place a new order.. Only you can’t place the new order yet as the line is now unavailable due to them trying to move it over…

Anyway to cut a long story short it’s been 2 weeks since I tried to get broadband at my new place, I’m now told my line should be active in the next 4 weeks, that’s 6 weeks and £74 just to move house… nice service Be!

Rant Over!