Free BT installation deal discussion

aamuk

It also looks like they have put you on a monthly payment plan, where they will take money for calls each month whether you use it or not. You may want to request monthly whole bill direct debit instead, where they only charge you for the line rental and any chargeable calls you have made.

Heinz is correct about the calls being inclusive or chargeable, so I would ignore anything else you have been told.

Finally, personally I wouldn't pay any extra for the evening and weekend plan and would stick to the UWP (unlimited weekend plan).

Lookout

Thanks very much, Heinz and aamuk - I'm going to finish my cuppa and give 'em what for! I'll let you know the outcome...

SionedWJ

Just spoken to BT now, they don't know nothing about this offer. They are charging me £122.50 to for the install the line.:mad: And I was told by the customer service team that I wasn't going be paying that, and that I would be credited it on my account.:mad:. bloody nightmare!!

Lookout

Result! In brief - I rang & told them that I'd been sold something inappropriate for my requirements, and that I actually wanted just the free installation with free weekend calls. I was told that the free connection offer was only available with the additional evenings & weekends package, so I pointed out that this was wrong, & offered to give them the link to the relevant web page. This was accepted without question, and I now have the deal I originally wanted, albeit with a later - and as yet unknown - connection date. I did ask whether the engineer who had already been booked for tomorrow could still turn up as planned, but it seems that because my original order was cancelled & a new order placed, I have to wait for a new appointment, annoyingly.

So my advice is - persistence pays off, and if you do your research, you'll be well prepared for any attempts to sell you more than you need! And add MSE to your favourites!

meinnit

SionedWJ wrote: »

Just spoken to BT now, they don't know nothing about this offer. They are charging me £122.50 to for the install the line.:mad: And I was told by the customer service team that I wasn't going be paying that, and that I would be credited it on my account.:mad:. bloody nightmare!!

So did you get the free installation offer?

Try calling 0800 100 444 if you didn't get an advisor that was aware of the deal.

BT_company_representative

SionedWJ,

I wonder if you've made any progress with your issue? Drop me a PM with your details and I can check it out for you.

Cheers,
Stephanie
BT Support

sunnyd47

I recently moved into a park home, residential, due to my partners ill health and not being able to manage stairs etc.
We called the BT offer line and arranged for them to call out to fit a new "Free" line on the 10th of June. On the 4th of June they rang to say an engineer from "Openreach" would call to assess the installation.

The phone cables are all in the ground, ours is about 2 meters from the the front of the park home on our land. The engineer made all of the normal "ooohs" and "arhhhgs" then siad "It is going to cost you as we have to place a piece of 2 meter pipe from the junction box (yes, they would have to dig a shallow trench) to the home. He said BT would notswallow the cost and it likely to be a couple of hundred pounds and that BT would call back later with the exact price.

BT did ring back the day after, £500.00 was their quote to which they were politely told to "get stuffed" as we applied under their free installation offer.They squirmed and said that the property did not allow for free installation.

In our opinion, its either free installation or not, where are the writen rules and criteria for this offer exactly to read any small print or is it supposed to be accross the board?
We understand that if their were no line/junction available withinin the immediate locality this would incurr some charge but as it is only 2 meters from the property we feel totally led up the garden path.Being on a very low income, we thought for us, this offer would be our salvation from very expensive mobile calls and allow us to get onto a decent internet service also, shame on BT, for us, this "Free" line installation offer is obviously a totally false, very misleading offer. What about the offer we actually applied for is free?

iceburn

arent the whole point of everyone paying just over £100 to connect a line even if it just involve pressing a button if the line is already present in the property is to stop ppl like sunny have to pay £500? ie the majority pay more so the minority do have to pay £1000's to get a line install if they live in the middle of the nowhere?

WhoKilledBambi?

It's a possibility that the line installation isn't covered under the provision of BT's USO since "the £3,400 discount only applies to the first PSTN line provided at a site. Multi-tenanted premises are eligible to one discount per site." and any discount would be applied when the premises was originally wired up.
Sounds unusual, last time there was any figures published only 28 customers had to pay excess charges in a 12 month period.

Another possibility is it's a reasonably new premises and the line terminates in an external nte box which requires connecting to internal wiring at the end user's expense.

Third possibility, it's a mistake.

sunnyd47

WhoKilledBambi? wrote: »

It's a possibility that the line installation isn't covered under the provision of BT's USO since "the £3,400 discount only applies to the first PSTN line provided at a site. Multi-tenanted premises are eligible to one discount per site." and any discount would be applied when the premises was originally wired up.
Sounds unusual, last time there was any figures published only 28 customers had to pay excess charges in a 12 month period.

Another possibility is it's a reasonably new premises and the line terminates in an external nte box which requires connecting to internal wiring at the end user's expense.

Third possibility, it's a mistake.

The property is a seperate entity from any other, seperately rated for community charge etc and the land is rented from a landlord. Its detached.

Not sure what an nte box is but all park home plots (used or unused) have a BT covered manhole cover over the BT lines, not all are connected to properties, simply there to be added to as and when a tenant requires a BT line.

Lets hope its a mistake! I dont even mind digging the little trench myself if it came to it. I have been out and measured the actual distance from the buried BT line box to the properties perimeter, its actually only 1.5 meters lol. £500.00 required by BT and open reach is a total rip off IMO for whats required. They do not even have to drill through a house wall, any cable could be placed through the same inlet as the TV arial into the property. None of what they would need to do requires a full complement of brain cells or even breaking into much of a sweat.