Give me strength!

Last month we extended our broadband contract with BT (very bad idea as it turns out). The confirmation was sent to Rent-a-Ranger (this is the business Niall and Anthea used to run back in the 80s and early 90s). A quick phone call changed it back to CJS.
End of the subject we thought. But oh no...
A week later Niall as Rent-a-Ranger got three confirmation of order letters, with provisional allocation of new phone numbers (ours!) sent here to the CJS office.
In their wisdom BT had changed the accounts for all three main phone lines into Rent-a-Ranger. Bear in mind Rent-a-Ranger never operated from this address, never had even an email address never mind broadband and we sent legal letters to BT changing the CJS details when Niall retired.
We phoned BT and surprisingly got straight through, they were totally confused and had no idea what had happened but promised we'd keep our lines, phone numbers and broadband whilst they investigated. A few days later we got a call from Complaints who were now handling the case, after patiently explaining again they sat in bemused silence. We'll look into it they said and get back to you. Which they duly did "we don't know why it happened, there seems to be a legal entity listing on the accounts" but to put it right "we will recreate the accounts, someone from local sales will contact you". And they did; however, to recreate the accounts we had to sign transfer documents (why didn't we need to do this first time round? Different departments have different protocols apparently). OK all information provided - again - and completed documentation signed in triplicate. In the mean time we got a refund of the outstanding balance on the accounts that had been closed (direct debit claimed two days after the 'transfer' had taken place). Next was receipt of confirmation of the new, new orders back to CJS (are you still with us?) followed by a call from Complaints checking everything was proceeding according to plan - theirs not ours - well if we're back to CJS yes that's OK and so far no break in service. Directory services called to check the listings for the new accounts for inclusion in the phone book.
THEN Niall got bills for Rent-a-Ranger at the CJS address for the installation of the new lines, line rental, calls made and also penalties for early cancellation totalling over £600. We called Complaints and said what's going on here then. "Ah, I had a feeling this might happen, don't worry we'll cancel those and send amended bills for the period between the cancellation and new account creation" What?? Oh for the 28 days of line rental between the refund and new account creation, OK then. Two days later bills arrived for between £6 and £11 pounds to be paid by cheque or card, I guess we have set up direct debits again but this morning the bill for the broadband arrived - it's still on a direct debit and as a new customer they want payment for two quarters up front, but they've refunded the remainder of the previous quarter before they chucked the toolbox in the works. Now if you're refunding a previous payment how can you, on the same piece of paper, claim the business as a new customer? No, we don't know either.
But now according to BT we're a new business, new account, new occupier and guess what? They've told the whole world. So now Yellow Pages, Business Directory, 118 et al all want to confirm our details for inclusion in their services and would we like to take out paid advertising whilst we're at it to catch all the people in our area....
We watch the post with bated breath to see what the next missive will be.

Back online...

For now! AW decided to go home, not much to do without broadband, and on route saw a BT van near where some new cables have recently been installed. She had a look at her computer and lo and behold it's back online. A quick call to the office to check on our status prompts an additional 'are you working yet?' stab at the keyboard and apparently we are too.
Right then, let's start to wade through the small heap of 'to dos'.

It's gone again...

AW phoned yesterday evening to say her internet connection had disappeared. We checked the office one - and guess what it's not working either. This is the third time in five weeks that our broadband connection has mysteriously gone awol. At least this time BT have the notes from last time and we haven't had to go through the rigmarole of line checking etc. They say we should hear from someone today, but we're not holding our breath. Anyway, here we are again back on steam driven dial up all internet and email working off a single laptop. As ever we'll carry on regardless and do our best not to let it affect CJS service to you. any and all news will be posted here to keep you up to date.

Well what a week!

CJS Monthly on Tuesday was published as normal and is fully available online and was collected by the posties as usual on Wednesday so it should be with most of you by now. BUT just as were finishing off the broadband connection disappeared (6.42pm precisely). We were tired and frazzled so it was left until morning. Wednesday morning still nothing, BT were their usual helpful selves on all three occasions when we phoned on Wednesday – turns out the whole village was out and we still don't know why. Thursday a repeat performance so a quick call to the local paper prompted a swift call from BT press office and lo and behold a couple of hours later the broadband is back! And so far that's the way it has stayed – but there are no guarantees that it will remain as BT seem unable to tell us what the exact fault was. So we wait for the next time. To add to the fun and games the electricity supply for one our homeworkers was also out on Thursday, although we did know about that one. Anyway despite all the obstacles we have managed to keep updating the website and have produced CJS Weekly as usual and it is currently printing, 11 sides containing 89 new vacancies 53 of which came to CJS direct.

We're live again.

Well, nearly 44 hours later and the computers started flashing lights at us, "we're connected to the outside world" they said in a whisper. So after hours of watching the little egg timer as dial-up slowly brought in emails and sent out web updates we're now working as fast as possible (watch those keyboards smoking) to catch up. Emails and online passwords should be sent as normal tonight but it might be tomorrow morning it depends how quickly we can chip away at the rather frighteningly huge heap of things requiring our attention.

No broadband - again

Once again BT has managed to cut our broadband but this time it's the whole of Goathland (the village in which CJS is based) that's several businesses including the Post Office all without broadband. So we're plunged back into the dark ages of dial up. Best guess is contact from BT within 24-48 hours of the original fault report...

Back online, phew

Everything came back online late yesterday. The little man from BT phoned to say he couldn't see any problem with the line but after double checking everything we'd done he said they would check again. Five minutes later red exclamation marks became green ticks and we were online once again. AW discovered that her broadband, which is with Tiscali but goes through the same BT exchange, had also been off for most of the day so it wasn't just us then. CJS Weekly will be uploaded later today as usual.

No Broadband....

eek - We came in this morning and turned on the machinery and were met with a barage of error messages and can't do it messages. Restarted everything, unplugged and replugged the tangle of electric spaghetti and still nothing. BT say it's an 'inexplicable problem' which when we asked for a translation means it's probably at their end rather than ours - phew. It's been passsed to engineers who will report back within four hours which being charitable means by 2pm today.
However, our only connection with cyberspace is now a laptop on a slow dial-up connection. Basic services are running but so much else has ground to halt. AW has just asked, "However, did we manage before the internet?" Oh, I remember those days, it was so much more leisurely and I'm sure we used less paper!