BT Connection Charges (merged threads)

joel10873

i have just signed up with the free installation so am now £122 better off

Hurrah!!

BT_company_representative

Sorry to hear of the line connection problems, PM me your details and I will look into this for you.

mortisha

i have just moved to a private rented property where the land lady assumed my bt phone was connected. it wasnt no line nothing. apparently there was never a line connected. so i rang bt and asked how much to connect me ? £122.50. i rang sky they do it for £105. i thought great i want to keep bieng a sky customer ill have them do it. when i had the money together to get it done i rung up sky to be told by someone else that they dont doit. so i explained that sky use a bt engineer to doit but sky doit cheaper its all what i was told by sky themselves. but no budgeing sky they deffnately dont doit. so i saved up more and rang bt back up to ask them to connect it up for me. heres the BUT!! IN ORDER FOR BT TO CONNECT ME UP I HAVE TO HAVE A 12 MONTH CONTRACT!! i refused . i dont want to sign up to be a bt contracted customer they are over priced bad service given company. i just want to have my line sorted. i was PUSHED to be a 12 month contract customer for bt or i wouldnt get my line sorted. im very cheesed off!!. surely there is competion rules now for phone companys??? bt do not have to right to push me in to a contract? anyway i got the line sorted had to have a new one connected up. time to sort out internet. yes i went to sky now because of where i am living i cant have your standard set up, i can have the sky £17 a month one that is down the phone line. worked out cheaper and better for me than other ones i looked in to. when i explained the trouble i had with getting my phone line sorted and how i wanted to be with sky and have the 3 package but cant. it turns out sky DO phone lines and the person from sky telling me they dont was out of order. ( A BIT BLINKING LATE NOW). SO what i am asking the clever people out there is i want to write a letter of complaint about bt and see if i can get out of this contract with them and who to write to? and what are the competion rules for bt and other phone companys as far as customers are treated? bt said it was £12.50 a month for the free weekend and evenings calls. it is not it is £15. something a month. and now they want ALL the bill 3 months up front!! not had my line up and running a week. so i need help please any info gratefully recieved. thankyou

Heinz

Welcome to the MSE forums mortisha.

Had Sky connected you (which, despite what you were told, like all other 'line providers' now in the market, they could have done by employing Openreach to undertake whatever work was necessary), that would have been a 12 month contract too.

BT always charge for line rental in advance and call charges (obviously) in arrears. You can change to monthly billing if you want.

syko29793

mortisha wrote: »

i have just moved to a private rented property where the land lady assumed my bt phone was connected. it wasnt no line nothing. apparently there was never a line connected. so i rang bt and asked how much to connect me ? £122.50. i rang sky they do it for £105. i thought great i want to keep bieng a sky customer ill have them do it. when i had the money together to get it done i rung up sky to be told by someone else that they dont doit. so i explained that sky use a bt engineer to doit but sky doit cheaper its all what i was told by sky themselves. but no budgeing sky they deffnately dont doit. so i saved up more and rang bt back up to ask them to connect it up for me. heres the BUT!! IN ORDER FOR BT TO CONNECT ME UP I HAVE TO HAVE A 12 MONTH CONTRACT!! i refused . i dont want to sign up to be a bt contracted customer they are over priced bad service given company. i just want to have my line sorted. i was PUSHED to be a 12 month contract customer for bt or i wouldnt get my line sorted. im very cheesed off!!. surely there is competion rules now for phone companys??? bt do not have to right to push me in to a contract? anyway i got the line sorted had to have a new one connected up. time to sort out internet. yes i went to sky now because of where i am living i cant have your standard set up, i can have the sky £17 a month one that is down the phone line. worked out cheaper and better for me than other ones i looked in to. when i explained the trouble i had with getting my phone line sorted and how i wanted to be with sky and have the 3 package but cant. it turns out sky DO phone lines and the person from sky telling me they dont was out of order. ( A BIT BLINKING LATE NOW). SO what i am asking the clever people out there is i want to write a letter of complaint about bt and see if i can get out of this contract with them and who to write to? and what are the competion rules for bt and other phone companys as far as customers are treated? bt said it was £12.50 a month for the free weekend and evenings calls. it is not it is £15. something a month. and now they want ALL the bill 3 months up front!! not had my line up and running a week. so i need help please any info gratefully recieved. thankyou

If you get BT to connect the line the its only fair to accept the terms. If you dont want to have BT then dont call them and place an order
. just call the company you want to do business with and get them to connect the line..
cant blame BT they are business and there to make money

Saeed

TWR88 wrote: »

I have just had an extremely bad experience with BT. Despite there being a BT landline, with a dialtone, and a 17070 check has given me the number of the line (although I cannot dial in or out) BT still want to charge me £125 for reconnection.

Their system shows no active line in the property, I spoke to the sales persons manager who told me the line is not connected to the exchange. It obviously is otherwise I wouldnt have been able to do a line check. After I did the 17070 check when he was on the phone he went away and then said the number it gave me is a business number and therefore he would still have to charge me to connect it to a residential service.

This is absolutely disgusting as there is an active line there, they just need to assign a new number to it.

I asked to escalate it from the manager but I then got cut off, wether this was intentional or not I dont know. What do I do next?! They seem to trust only their database saying no active line despite me being in the property with a phone and a dial tone.

The property will be vacant for the first 3 months so I cannot make the 10 monthly calls required for the free reconnection offer.

I have just had the same experience today, despite talking to 2 agents at BT, they told me it's £125 reconnection charge. My line is also active when I dial 17070 which I told them about. I also mentioned that it says that in these circumstances it's only £2 for them to 'reconnect' me according to some BT documents I saw a while ago (anyone know where? It was hidden amongst the BT Price List http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/Public/current/Exch_Lines_boo/1223_d0e240.htm#1223-d0e240). But I just got the "£125 unless you come back and sign up to a 18 month contract" statement again. The line is for my pensioner father who is eligible for BT Basic, who could not afford the standard line rental he was paying, approx £15/month, so had the line disconnected. But it appears that they don't want him on BT Basic so would not let me proceed!

syko29793

TWR88 wrote: »

I have just had an extremely bad experience with BT. Despite there being a BT landline, with a dialtone, and a 17070 check has given me the number of the line (although I cannot dial in or out) BT still want to charge me £125 for reconnection.

Their system shows no active line in the property, I spoke to the sales persons manager who told me the line is not connected to the exchange. It obviously is otherwise I wouldnt have been able to do a line check. After I did the 17070 check when he was on the phone he went away and then said the number it gave me is a business number and therefore he would still have to charge me to connect it to a residential service.

This is absolutely disgusting as there is an active line there, they just need to assign a new number to it.


I asked to escalate it from the manager but I then got cut off, wether this was intentional or not I dont know. What do I do next?! They seem to trust only their database saying no active line despite me being in the property with a phone and a dial tone.

The property will be vacant for the first 3 months so I cannot make the 10 monthly calls required for the free reconnection offer.

A dial tone no longer means a free reconnection as when a line is transferred to LLU and then stopped it still has a dial tone but full connection charges apply.
This is the price we pay for a competition in the market.
BT used to send out engineers for free to connect lines regardless of the state of the line. This cant be done for free anymore as all companies have to have equal rights to lines hence the creation of openreach. we are now seeing the downside to this.
The monthly bills might be cheaper but all the other costs are no longer absorbed so added as extra charges

Ypaymore

Saeed wrote: »

I have just had the same experience today, despite talking to 2 agents at BT, they told me it's £125 reconnection charge. My line is also active when I dial 17070 which I told them about. I also mentioned that it says that in these circumstances it's only £2 for them to 'reconnect' me according to some BT documents I saw a while ago (anyone know where? It was hidden amongst the BT Price List http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/Public/current/Exch_Lines_boo/1223_d0e240.htm#1223-d0e240). But I just got the "£125 unless you come back and sign up to a 18 month contract" statement again. The line is for my pensioner father who is eligible for BT Basic, who could not afford the standard line rental he was paying, approx £15/month, so had the line disconnected. But it appears that they don't want him on BT Basic so would not let me proceed!

Its normally free to connect in those circumstances

Connecting a new BT line costs £122.50 (incl. VAT). This charge only applies in some cases, but before we can confirm this we need to check your property. Most of our new customers find they don't need to pay this charge.
If your home has had a telephone service from BT in the recent past, and the wiring and socket is undamaged and the line still has dialling tone, it's likely you won't need to pay this charge. But where there's no suitable BT line available in your property, no dialling tone on the line, or if you have been disconnected for non-payment in the past, the standard connection charge will apply.

See: https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/btbusinessOrders/control/termsandconditions?docId=25017&pageTitle=%20New%20line%20connection%20charge

Saeed

Ypaymore wrote: »

Its normally free to connect in those circumstances

Connecting a new BT line costs £122.50 (incl. VAT). This charge only applies in some cases, but before we can confirm this we need to check your property. Most of our new customers find they don't need to pay this charge.
If your home has had a telephone service from BT in the recent past, and the wiring and socket is undamaged and the line still has dialling tone, it's likely you won't need to pay this charge. But where there's no suitable BT line available in your property, no dialling tone on the line, or if you have been disconnected for non-payment in the past, the standard connection charge will apply.

See: https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/btbusinessOrders/control/termsandconditions?docId=25017&pageTitle=%20New%20line%20connection%20charge

I phoned BT again, go the same response 'pay £122 because my computer says so and we don't care that your line is working' even though the above guidance from your link applies. Thanks for the link by the way, they do have a proper charge sheet hidden somewhere, where it actually states that it costs £2 to reconnect an 'active' line where the 17070 line test works. But it seems BT are pulling out all the stops to stop people signing up to BT Basic. They tried their hardest to sell me the standard BT tariff even though I told them my father was a pensioner who could not afford the £15/month BT line rental he was paying before and that's why he had the line disconnected. It is really disgusting and sickening that they are trying to extort extra money from vunerable people like this.

geek0

I thought i read somewhere on here that it was free to reconnect to BT until september, was i just dreaming or is that correct as i am not sure now after reading the last few posts