Here's a classic that happened to me last year, It started with me spending an hour on the phone to try and get BT to believe that they have cut off one of my phone lines.

Actually, they had wired one of two lines together. So when I rang and told them that one wasn't working, they told me it was, because their computer was telling them it was! Although when they rang me back it didn't work.

Why do you always have to convince them it's a problem, rather them accepting at the offset they might be in the wrong?

It was easy enough for them to point out that if they had to send out an engineer and it was 'our' fault, it would cost me - but it doesn't seem to work the other way round?

Anyway, it was clearly something to do with the BT van sat down the road near our house working on the telephone box at the time. I asked BT to contact them to let them know that when I picked up one phone in the house it connected to my other house phone - a coincidence? I think not!

Would they believe me? No.

Can they speak to the engineer? No.

Why not? 'Well they are not all BT engineers'. 'Well it's got BT written on the side of the van?' I say. Apparently that doesn't mean anything, as some contractors are using old BT vans? Do I care? No.

So what do I do? Their suggestion, 'you could try running down the road and speaking to him yourself, as we've got no way of communicating with him'!. I thought they were a telecommunications company?

Anyway, I do and he's polite and I tell him what he's done. But of course, he's on another job (for BT!) and he can't fix my fault, so he tells me to go back and log the fault - I say they don't believe there is one, can you tell them? No.

So I have to book an engineer to come and see for themselves? Crazy.

That takes four days for them to visit and confirm what I've already told them, still under the threat of me paying, if I'm wrong! Then they log the fault.

What can I say?

Idiots.