BT charging my mum £128 for call out !!

callas

I had excatly the same problem with BT. Crackling on the line hearing neighbours conversations etc. I dealt with it through BT and got nowhere. I posted on here and got lots of help and advice.

The reason they kept giving me for the charge, was that I had accepted them in a telephone conversation with their faults department. I asked them to listen to call they said they did and that I had been heard to have accepted them.

After filling in a form sent via a link on here I was contacted by BT who said they had listened to the call and I had not accepted the charges and therefore they would credit my bill the £130.

Like your mother I paid the outstanding amount on the bill I felt I owed.

I think you are quite right to worry that this has gone to a debt collecting service but nothing that can't be dealt with. The important thing is that your mother does not suffer any more stress, nor you.

My suggestion for what its worth is to cut and paste your post and send it to the chairman at BT. ian.livingston@bt.com, this is the email that was given to me when I put a posting up. My post was entitled "BT charged £130 and they won't listen" (sorry don't know how to link it)

Don't give up, BT are doing themselves a disservice behaving like this. There are so many helpful people on MSE, and already you have been given some great advice.

I know its impossible but try not to get stressed you are certainly not alone.

lilly82

spike7451 wrote: »

Clearly this shows that the problem is on BT's network & therefore beyond your control.
Another forum member,skintlass,was able to get the charge reversed after I did some digging for her so you might find her thread useful.It contains information FROM BT that you can use to defeat their srguments.

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



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

Thank you spike thats very interesting I will read that now sounds like the same problem

lilly82

callas wrote: »

I had excatly the same problem with BT. Crackling on the line hearing neighbours conversations etc. I dealt with it through BT and got nowhere. I posted on here and got lots of help and advice.

The reason they kept giving me for the charge, was that I had accepted them in a telephone conversation with their faults department. I asked them to listen to call they said they did and that I had been heard to have accepted them.

After filling in a form sent via a link on here I was contacted by BT who said they had listened to the call and I had not accepted the charges and therefore they would credit my bill the £130.

Like your mother I paid the outstanding amount on the bill I felt I owed.

I think you are quite right to worry that this has gone to a debt collecting service but nothing that can't be dealt with. The important thing is that your mother does not suffer any more stress, nor you.

My suggestion for what its worth is to cut and paste your post and send it to the chairman at BT. [EMAIL="ian.livingston@bt.com"]ian.livingston@bt.com[/EMAIL], this is the email that was given to me when I put a posting up. My post was entitled "BT charged £130 and they won't listen" (sorry don't know how to link it)

Don't give up, BT are doing themselves a disservice behaving like this. There are so many helpful people on MSE, and already you have been given some great advice.

I know its impossible but try not to get stressed you are certainly not alone.

Thank you for your very kind reply we really do want to resolve this problem it just feels like BT are being so unhelpful and we had hit a brick wall.
After posing on here though I feel I have lots of helpful ideas on
how to go forward.
I am just going to read your post now Callas its very interesting to
know that you had the same problem.
Thanks too for the idea of emailing Mr Livingston I think I will do that on my mums behalf and see if it gets us anywhere I hope so Thanks Again Moneysavers

BT_company_representative

Hi lilly82,

If you'd like me to look into this for you feel free to send us an email and I'll see what we can do to help.

You can get our "Contact Us" link by clicking on my username.

Thanks,

Stephanie

Sublime_2

Please, whatever you do, contact Ofcom, as they can often get stuff like this resolved.

asbokid

When it comes to noisy lines, it's imperative to rule out consumer wiring before calling BT. If the fault is intermittent and is not detectable when the engineer calls, BT will blame the consumer's equipment and will bill the householder for the callout.

To determine whether the fault is on the consumer's side of the wiring, all telephone extensions around the home should be disconnected. To achieve this, the front of the master socket can be unscrewed and the lower half of the face plate pulls forward and can be removed. This disables all telephone extensions. Revealed behind the lower half of the face plate is a single BT telephone socket.

To test the line, a wired telephone that is know to be good, is plugged into this socket hidden behind the face plate.

There is an exchange facility for OpenReach engineers called the 'Quiet Line Test'. This is performed by dialling 17070 from the telephone. The test is chosen from a voice menu. Listen through the telephone earpiece to see if there is line noise. If noise is still present, there are good grounds for blaming BT's equipment!

lilly82

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi lilly82,

If you'd like me to look into this for you feel free to send us an email and I'll see what we can do to help.

You can get our "Contact Us" link by clicking on my username.

Thanks,

Stephanie

Hi,
Thanks I found this link on another similar thread so already sent a message to BT through that I think its the same one. I included my mums mobile number so she could be contacted a link to my post on MSE to explain the background to the case and what we would like the outcome to be.
Thanks Again

lilly82

asbokid wrote: »

When it comes to noisy lines, it's imperative to rule out consumer wiring before calling BT. If the fault is intermittent and is not detectable when the engineer calls, BT will blame the consumer's equipment and will bill the householder for the callout.

To determine whether the fault is on the consumer's side of the wiring, all telephone extensions around the home should be disconnected. To achieve this, the front of the master socket can be unscrewed and the lower half of the face plate pulls forward and can be removed. This disables all telephone extensions. Revealed behind the lower half of the face plate is a single BT telephone socket.

To test the line, a wired telephone that is know to be good, is plugged into this socket hidden behind the face plate.

There is an exchange facility for OpenReach engineers called the 'Quiet Line Test'. This is performed by dialling 17070 from the telephone. The test is chosen from a voice menu. Listen through the telephone earpiece to see if there is line noise. If noise is still present, there are good grounds for blaming BT's equipment!

Thanks asbokid that is very usefull information to have for the future its a shame we didnt know this before it might stop some people having to pay for the fault.
Unfortunatly my mum has been cut off now so we cant try this but im sure it will be handy for anyone in the same boat.
Many Thanks for your post

DVardysShadow

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi lilly82,

If you'd like me to look into this for you feel free to send us an email and I'll see what we can do to help.

You can get our "Contact Us" link by clicking on my username.

Thanks,

Stephanie

Note you are only invited to feel free, you will be billed another £128 for BT to read your email, no doubt.

macman

lilly82 wrote: »

Thanks asbokid that is very usefull information to have for the future its a shame we didnt know this before it might stop some people having to pay for the fault.
Unfortunatly my mum has been cut off now so we cant try this but im sure it will be handy for anyone in the same boat.
Many Thanks for your post

When you first reported the fault, BT should have taken you through this stage to establish where the fault was. What tests did they ask you to carry out?
You should also have tested with a corded handset to esnure it's not an issue with a cordless DECT handset.
In five minutes these checks will tell you if the fault is internal or on BT's side of the master socket.