Problems with Talk Talk and engineers charges

Jenks199

Hi there. Hopefully someone will have a sugestion as to what i can do next with a problem that i have with Talk talk (although im guess im not on my own with that). Apologies if its long winded.

The story so far-

August of last year (2010) we had a problem with our broadband not working. A number of phone calls to talk talk (India, Ireland, England, India again then finally Ireland again) and a number of "tests" from their end led to the need for an engineer to visit us to try and fix the problem. Befor going ahead with the engineer i was informed by talk talk that if the fault was with my eqimpent on my property or that the engineer couldnt find there to be a fault then i would be liable for a £99.99 charge, however if the fault was outside of my property then i wouldnt be charged. I agreed to this and the engineer was booked in.

The engineer from BT openworld turned up and came inside to check the line from the master socket in our house and diagnosed that the broadband was infact not working. He then went to the telephone exchange to check if the problem was occuring there. On his return he then checked the line to my house from the telegraph pole in the street. On speaking to the engineer he informed me that the problem was being caused by a component in the box at the top of the telegraph pole. He changed said component and came inside to check that it had fixed the problem (which it had, horay!). Whist doing this he did also point out that we had an old master socket (not the new style with the test plug in the back) and that whilst this wasnt the fault of the problem and it was still working it would be better to swap this for a new on with a test socket. I asked him if i would get charged for this and he said that i wouldnt. So he went ahead and changed it.

Happy with the service we went on using our broadband and telephone.

Then at the start of December we recieved our monthly telecoms bill with an engineers charge for £99.99. Being a bit miffed at this i rang talk talk and spoke to one of their "advisors". The first call i made went to India and this resulted at the start in the person on the other end of the phone informing me that the charges were valid as the fault was on my property. Unfortunatly i dont own the land that the telegraph pole resides on so i thought that this was unfair and told the reprasentative so. They said they would send the charges off to the engineers department for "investigation" and that i would hear back from them in 7 days time. 7 days came and went without a call.

My second call to talk talk took me to cape town where after being told that the charges were ligitimate i asked to speak to a manager. Around 2 and a half hours later i had finally spoken to a manager and they assured me that they would send the matter off for investigation then personally contact me by the end of that week. As the money was due to be taken via direct debit from my account the following day the manager did advise me that i could ring up my bank and ask for an indemnity claim and that they could take the money back from talk talk. After the call i rang my bank and they performed the indemnity claim and the money was put back into my account. The end of the week came and again no call.

I rang up the billing phone line for talk talk and again spoke to cape town where again the operator had told me that they had performed an investigation and that they had found the charges to be legitimate. I asked what their grounds for this was and she told me that the information that they had was that the engineer had visited my house found a problem with the master socket, replaced it and re syncornised it, and that had fixed the problem which is why i was being charged for the engineer. Again i was a bit miffed about this as this is not what had happend and i explained to the lady my version of events. She said that she could put it an appeal agaisnt the charges but this would be their last investigation into what happened and that i would hear back within (you guessed it) 7 days. This was now in the week befor christmas and i didnt hold out much hope for a return call. With their usual consistancy i recievd no call back from talk talk.

Were now into 2011.

We recieved our monthly bill from talk talk on Jan 6th (the day that we were due to be debited) for our monthly amount + last months ammount (as i had taken back the direct debit) and the engineers charge on top.

Again i rang talk talk this time i was put through to the Philippines where as per usual the operator on the end of the phone informed me that an investigation had been carried out and that the charges were deemed to be ligitimate. Again i asked what evidence this was based on and she read out the engineers report saying that the master socket was the cause of the fault with no mention of any outside infastructure problems. I explained my version of the story and she noted that and sent it off for investigation with the promise that i would be called back with the findings within a week.

And now to my question. Can anybody offer any advise as to what to do now? I seem to just be going round and round in circles beating my head against a brick wall. To this date i have probably logged over 4 hours just on the phone to talk talk billing helpline and they just keep comming back with the same answer based on the same piece of false evidence.

Any help or advise would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Jenks

DVardysShadow

You need to write a letter to them. On paper, and keep a copy. Place the account in dispute and ask for their response in writing. Otherwise they will just continue to muck you around

sofa-spud

Jenks199 wrote: »

Again i asked what evidence this was based on and she read out the engineers report saying that the master socket was the cause of the fault

Well, as this is the demarcation point for the network it's not your liability. IIRC this is considered to be a network fault & is not the liability of the suscriber.

spike7451

Basically,even if the BT Openreach engineer does not raise a charge,in all likelyhood BT Openreach has charged Talk Talk who are in turn passing the charge on to you.

Do I have to pay for a fault repair?

We can repair many line faults at the exchange or on the network. Others require a visit by a BT engineer. There is no charge for these repairs. We will only charge you when one of our engineers visits your property and finds that the fault could have been fixed by you. For example, if your phone is broken or has been left unplugged.

https://www2.bt.com/static/i/microsite/help_and_tips/faults/faq/faults_faq2.html

I was able to help 'skintlass' get her charges reversed using that argument;

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2855286

terribleape

The master socket is owned by BT, and is there equipment. Anything from the master socket onwards is your responsibility (rj11 cable etc)

Mark_In_Hampshire

Jenks199 wrote: »

I asked what their grounds for this was and she told me that the information that they had was that the engineer had visited my house found a problem with the master socket, replaced it and re syncornised it, and that had fixed the problem which is why i was being charged for the engineer.

What has happened is this:

The engineer located the fault which was outside your premises and fixed it.

Then he or she noticed your old style socket and offered to replace it. Very nice of them, but not necessary.

This was either because the engineer was being diligent and nice, or because the engineer was told to try and wring every penny out of people and by performing some unneeded work in your house believed that they could then bill for that.

Or, the engineer was completely above board, but a Manager reviewing their timesheet saw the internal work and changed the job to chargeable.

There's a fair body of evidence that Openreach will try and get away with whatever they can. It's a natural monopoly with no accountability to the end customer.

This has been compounded by the idiocy of Talk Talk. On receipt of your complaint and after the findings of their "investigation" (ringing up Openreach and asking to see the job details) they themselves should have realised that this job could not be chargeable.

Unless, of course, the engineer's notes were manipulated, something along the lines of "master socket faulty caused by customer, replaced to fix fault".

So I highlighted the bit above because the moron at Talk Talk should very well know that Openreach are responsible for the network to and including the master socket, and instead of fobbing you off, should have shot back an invoice dispute to Openreach and struck the charge off your bill. It's up to them to argue amongst themselves.

You need to put your post in writing stating the bits I've put above, everything in this thread indicates you should not be charged. You expect the charge removed from your account. Send it recorded delivery, alternatively, by email, and keep a copy.