Greenbee phone line installation - £115 for nothing

ShelfStacker_3

Hi,

I recently moved into a rented flat - not newly built, previously occupied and with a phone socket. I had enquired about the existence of the socket when being shown around the place, and was shown it. When I'd got the keys, I tested it and found no dial tone, so called up Greenbee Telecoms to arrange a connection (after Virgin, rather annoyingly, claimed the flat didn't exist - that's been dealt with and they've released me from my contract, thankfully). They accepted my order, then got back to me the next day claiming I'd need to have a new line installed for the sum of £115, and asked me to arrange an engineer's appointment (this is important.) I agreed, and close the 26th of August between 8am and 1:30pm.

Fast forward to the 26th. I'm in between both of those times. Nobody turns up. I had been given a courtesy call on the 25th to remind me of the time of my engineer's appointment, which had remained the same. I waited a little bit past 1:30, and out of curiosity plugged in my phone again and picked up the receiver to find... a bloody dial tone! Greenbee/BT had made me wait in all bloody morning for an engineer who wasn't going to come, and worse charged me £115 for what was most likely just connecting a couple of wires at the exchange (which is 5 minutes down the road - I hadn't seen any BT Openreach or Greenbee vans go past whatsoever).

What I want to ask is; can Greenbee or BT legitimately charge me such a huge sum of money for virtually nothing? Would I have any recourse to ask for my money back under these circumstances, as I'm strapped enough as it is without having to fork out over £100 for sod all. :mad:

littleboo

Yes they (Greenbee) can. You asked Greenbee to deliver a service to you, they told you the price, they delivered it.

You could have asked BT to do it and got it for £29.99

Heinz

In any case, how do you know "virtually nothing" had to be done to get the line operational? Just because nobody needed to attend the flat doesn't mean there may not have been considerable work to be done either on the cabling between the flat and the exchange and/or at the exchange itself.