BT & Phone Rental

elaine12022

I am so cross with BT on behalf of my mother in law. She has been renting a phone from them since 2002. They already charged her £99 once for coming out and fixing it (a key had got stuck) and now the phone isn't working at all they are refusing to replace it as it's too new (or unless she pays £125 for someone to install it!). Or maybe they'll send a phone, if she buys it at twice the price she can get it from elsewhere.

This to me seems completely out of order - what is the point of paying line rental if you get scammed like this?!:mad:

Anyway, she is going to cancel paying for the phone, and we are going to buy her a new one..

Anyway, does anyone else have any experience of this,and is there anything we can do? I'm not sure if she has any paperwork regarding any kind of terms & conditions with the rental, is there any way of finding out what they are?

To treat vulnerable people like this is inexcusable in my opinion (oh, the bloke on the phone had the cheek to try & start talking about internet!).

macman

I don't get this-if she is renting it surely it is BT's responsibility to replace it if not working, unless they're alleging that she damaged it?

BT_company_representative

Hi elaine12022

I am not too sure exactly what’s been happening from your post. As far as I understand if you are renting a phone and it doesn’t work then we will replace, free of charge regardless of how long you have it.

I'll need to have a look at her account and see what’s up. Could you please drop me an email to btcare@bt.com with her BT account details and FAO Craig on it?

I'll get to the bottom of this.

Cheers

Craig
BT Support

elaine12022

Thank you for the offer Craig, I will try & get the details (probably later in the week as she's uncontactable by phone at the moment!).

My husband told me he spent half an hour on the phone today trying to sort things out for his mother.

elaine12022

More information just come my way - a replacement phone was offered but it could take up to 28 days to arrive. This was not acceptable as the phone is absolutely essential in case of needing to ring for medical attention.

macman

Can you not get her a cheap corded handset (cost less than tenner) until this can be sorted out?

Heinz

macman wrote: »

Can you not get her a cheap corded handset (cost less than tenner) until this can be sorted out?

Although not at cheap as they used to be, Argos has at least one for less than £4.50.

elaine12022

yes, she has chosen one from Argos and my husband will be getting it for her, and cancelling phone rental from BT, but it seems disgusting that BT can get away with charging an extortionate amount to come & fix a fault with their own phone. (what has she been paying rental for?!)

macman

I would query that charge while you are about it, sounds like they have issued a minimum callout charge for a fault on their own handset. Normally they wouldn't come out to something like that, they'd just replace it if it's rented, it's probably 4 times the value of the phone.

BTman

Why are you renting a phone?
I can see no benefit to renting these days when you can buy a really good phone cheaply.
I'm sure most people paying rent to BT for a phone have just forgotten to cancel it

iniltous

elaine12022 wrote: »

yes, she has chosen one from Argos and my husband will be getting it for her, and cancelling phone rental from BT, but it seems disgusting that BT can get away with charging an extortionate amount to come & fix a fault with their own phone. (what has she been paying rental for?!)

If your relative rents a phone from BT Retail and a fault develops, its normally easy to prove, by trying another phone in the socket or by taking the phone to another known working line (neighbour,or friends line) and trying it there, thus proving where the fault is.
If someone insists on an engineer visit (and BT stress that if you ask for a call out and its the equipment at fault, even if its rented, you will be charged) because its BT Openreach who visit, and if they consider they were called out in error (for faulty equipment) they bill the service provider (BT Retail) who pass the charge onto the end user..., If a rented phone is replaced (they send them out in the post) it takes a couple of days (tops) to be delivered, nothing like a month, a 24 hour response is more like the norm.
The 'value' of renting a phone against buying one if another matter but BT dont hold a gun against anyones head to make them rent, its the end users choice,
It may seem harsh but I dont see what BT have done wrong, apart from give an incorrect estimate of how long a replacement phone would take to be delivered, Its been a long time since the engineer came out and replaced the (rented) phone when it went wrong