BT scared my mum to death (advice please)

silkyuk9

Bit of a long drawn out story but please bear with it.

It all started several weeks ago when my father passed away. I was at my mums house trying to sort out all the financial things for her, anyway, I had to use the phone for communications, and i could hardy hear who i was talking to for the crackling noise the phone was giving off. I said to my mum that this is a line fault and needed to be reported to BT so they could repair it. Anyway, i asked my mum how long the crackling noise had been there and she said several years. She said my dad had reported the fault but the operator had said to my dad that if the falut was not BT's then they would be liable for a bill of £99 plus £30 per hour for an engineer to repair it. Well, my parents said they did not want the fault repairing then as they could not afford a bill if it was not BT's fault.

Anyway, my mum was a bit scared that i decided to report the fault as if she got a bill she could not afford to pay it. Anyway..............

I reported the fault which was a long drawn out process, was on hold to talk to someone it was horrendous to finally get to speak to a person, no wander old people give up on things. Anyway i spoke to an opperator who was Indian had an aweful time of getting her to understand me. After a while of explaining she said it would cost £130 plus £30 per hour if bt could not find a fault, it sounded to me she was trying to scare me away from going ahead and getting an engineer to investigate. Anyway, I decided to first buy a new phone incase the problem was 'our' fault, this cost over £20, the crackling was still there.

anyway, i reported the fault again to which someone in India again said the had run 'tests' and could not find any problems even though we could hardly hear each other for the interferance which was occuring.

So, i was asked to take the phone box on the wall to bits, I was on my mobile getting instructions on how to take the cover off and check the insides and and take out the phone plug and put it into another slot!! this was getting on my nerves.............

So an engineer was booked..........

When he came out, he said the wall box was obsilete, and needed changing anyway, he said it was over 20 years old and BT did not use them anymore, he said not to worry and swapped the wall socket and said there would be no cost to pay..........

anyway, initially the crackling stopped for about 1 hour. but my mum said leave it at that as she was worried if further investigations would find nothing she would get a hefty bill....

Her phone bill came yesterday and it was for over £230! she was going to pay for it and we thought with my dad dieing earlier it was for all the phone calls that we had done to family and buisnesses. But, ichecked it anyway, BT had charged my mum £99 for the wall socket!!

Again on the phone for over a hour trying to get to talk to someone, initally they were adiment that my mum was liable for the cost of the wall socket, But they backed down after a while and told my mum not to pay it. We were fuming and the crackling noise is still there we had problems communicating.

At the end of the day my mum has been scared into not reporting the fault and they had tried to charge her for the initial wall socket which is BT's property and my mum rents it from them.

Its very difficult to talk to someone who is English, trying to get them to understand the problems my mum is having.

Anyway, is there an email address I can report this who situation to, I want this fault that has been going on for seveal years to be fixed, its not fair all this. and i want to complain about the £99 they had charged my mum for the wall socket.

I hope ive got it all in. Thanks for reading.

Browntoa

The number for BT'S High Level Escalation team is 0808 100 4488 (freephone) or fax 01332 577488.Or you can email

[EMAIL="hleteam@bt.com"]hleteam@bt.com[/EMAIL]

macman

They certainly should not have charged you if what they changed is the master socket, which as you correctly say is BT's property. If you plug your phone into the BT test socket (same procedure as you did before with the original box) and the line noise is still present, then it's clearly a fault on the BT side of the network, and they must fix it themselves.
Escalate your complain as advised above and do not pay the £99 charge.

silkyuk9

ive emailed BT and await a reply.

iniltous

It sounds as if it wasnt the Openreach engineer who raised the charge but OR's back office, as they review the closure notes on the fault report and if they think a charge is appropriate they raise it,
Generally the master socket and everthing back to the exchange is OR's responsibilty but they do charge for what they consider not to be fair wear and tear, an example is if you have a overhead wire to your property that passes through the branches of a tree on your land and the wire is damaged by the tree this is no longer a free repair, scandalous but true. OR would claim you should 'lop' the branches to keep them clear of the wire
OR shouldnt be raising charges just because they changed the master socket this should be done as a matter of course as a new NTE5a type master socket has the cabability to split the end user wiring/equipment from the line so its easier to tell where a fault is, so the engineer must have put in his notes that either the fault was located on the end users wiring or equipment,unlikely considering what you say he said ,so I think you may have been charged for a 'right when tested' fault clear.....if the line was clear when the engineer tried it with his tester/phone but changed the socket as a
matter of course then his clear may well have been 'RWT' socket changed,this may be a chargable clear this would also explain why the fault wasnt fixed.
OR do charge people who say the lines not working but is ok when engineer attends,which is in some cases reasonable
(say a flty Sky box was causing a problem, it gets unplugged, problem fixed but no one contacts OR to stop the visit)
If BT (retail) are your service provider email/contact the chairmans office and complain to them, I believe you will get the charge refunded, also if the line is still faulty tell them that as well , this all asumes the engineer didnt find something faulty in the house that he disconnected ,but was subsequently re connected by yourselves

1carminestocky

This sort of incident does make me wonder whether BT staff have been told to try and eke out as much income from their loyal customers as possible. It wouldn't surrise me if this was the case (maybe bolstered by a threat of dire consequences if things don't improve). You only have to look at the latest set of accounts and the performance of the shares to come to the conclusion that this is a company in dire straits.

ukcarper

There is no way BT would instruct it's staff to eke out as much income from it's loyal customers and BTs home business is very strong.

1carminestocky

ukcarper wrote: »

There is no way BT would instruct it's staff to eke out as much income from it's loyal customers and BTs home business is very strong.

It was only a suspicion, I have no proof. And the home business can be as robust as it can get, but it doesn't mask the fact that, overall, the company is in big trouble. They keep paying the dividends as if we are still in the middle of the 'tech bubble' but the question is: where is the money going to actually come from to fund the much-needed infrastructure improvements? If it aint going to come from the shareholders, that sort of leaves one other option.

This would appear to provide proof for my 'conspiracy theory' (forget the headline-grabbing free 0845/0870 calls, this particular small print represents a 72% INCREASE!)...

http://online.btbroadbandteam.com/service/FUP_1B_Option_1.html


Hence my suspicion.....

gairlochgal

I had something similar when my line kept dropping and the BT call centre ran the test and assured me there was no problem with their equipment and must be something in the house. I requested a visit and they rang me 2-3 times just as the OP described warning me about the cost I would incur if the fault was on my side. I felt I had to take it on the chin so I stuck with it and booked the engineer's visit. When they came out, it turned out to be that the overhead line from the pole to the house had degraded and it was replaced free at no charge. The engineers told me it was a fault that wouldn't be detected by the standard test they run over the phone, and the call centre are told to try and discourage home visits. I can kind of understand why as we all have many devices in the house now that cause problems, but nonetheless, they need to improve their approach.

OP, I take it you've tried plugging in a different handset?

Debt_Free_Chick

This is very spooky as mum 77 yo mum has been through EXACTLY this in the past week.

The problem is that BT is now trying to diagnose the likely problem over the phone to eke out those that are not BT problems and - where it is likely to be a BT problem - to send an engineer out with some indication of the likely problem.

I have no issue with the charge if it's not BT's fault, but the diagnosis process is not something that everyone will be confident to undertake.

My mum's situation was laughable as the line was completely dead and she had to phone from a neighbour's line ....

BT: Is the phone ringing at the house?
Mum: If the line is dead, how would I know if someone is trying to get through?

BT: Can you take the front off the box please?
Mum: Not from here - my phone doesn't work and I'm calling from a neighbour's

etc etc .....

In the end she told them that as 77 yo widow she was simply not able to tackle this.

I'll suggest she checks her bill very carefully, when it arrives!

ukcarper

I don't think BT would find it easy to fund bringing the infrastructure up to date but nobody else will so we are doomed to slow internet connections unless your lucky enough to live in a virgin cable area or someone else puts up the money