orange can't provide me with a landline for another 3 weeks

jasonwatkins

just wondering where I stand? I've moved to a new property and I advised orange 2 weeks ago that the new place, rather bizarrely, didn't have a phone socket.

they ran a test on the property and told me it did have an active BT line but also told me to "really really" look for the phone socket!

I said to the person on the phone "why do you think I'm telling you there's no phone socket?"

So I've just rung them up to advise them I've completed my move and they've told me the earliest they can come out and fit a socket is the 20th of April!!!

Leaving me with no landline (and consequently no Internet) for nearly 3 more weeks.

is this grounds enough to cancel ?

obviously I would need to find out if any potential new landline provider could install a socket sooner, but I'm just hugely !!!!ed off with the situation since i told them a couple of weeks ago what the problem was.

Heinz

It won't do you any good to cancel because the only people allowed to work on the PSTN are Openreach and, whoever you go to for your landline, will have to use OR.

Hence, if you cancel Orange, you'll move to the back of the list (which is clearly about 3 weeks in your area) of those awaiting connection.

jasonwatkins

just been on the phone to orange for the last 40 minutes and the upshot of it is that I'm now in a no-win situation.

I was told that I WILL be charged £125 quid for a new phone socket. considering how much debt I'm in over this move I could barely afford to pay £1.25, let alone £125.

I would consequently be charged an early termination fee if I cancelled, likely around £200 quid as I'm only about 2 months in to the deal.

They said that if I could pay the £125 quid up front to BT, they'd refund me the money but it's just absolutely impossible. The only person I could potentially borrow any money from has already lent me a grand to make this move happen, and that's going to take me at least 5 years to pay back.

it basically leaves me with no other choice but to default on the contract because I'm certainly not prepared to pay for a service I'm not getting.

so if anyone has any other ideas I'd be grateful

Mark_In_Hampshire

I am afraid 3 weeks is normal. Indeed 3 month delays have been reported recently. In your situation this could have been expedited, perhaps, since you made it clear a new line would be needed. Yet, the same delays are reported here whether a socket exists or not.

The "really look for the socket" isn't actually as daft as it sounds. Yes, it sounds incredibly patronising. However once a month a thread appears on here where the poster couldn't find the socket e.g. it's somewhere daft like behind a radiator.

Unless you can get a cable service, no matter who you go with, they have to use Openreach who, as a monopoly in non cabled areas and without accountability to the end customer, can do what they like.

There's no stipulation enshrined anywhere as to what the lead time for the install "ought to be". Just opinion, but a week or two doesn't sound unreasonable, three weeks is borderline. Having had phone lines installed four times in the last decade, about 4 to 6 weeks has been my normal experience allowing for one or more no-shows by the Openreach engineer.

macman

What's your issue with a 3 week wait?-that is perfectly normal, some people have reported five weeks or more. No other provider will be any quicker, because they still have to go with whatever date OR gives them.
If Orange are insistent that the property already has an active line then they are probably correct, have you tried tracing the cable in from the street to an NTE5 socket?
Cancelling your DD will simply result in Orange trashing your credit record.
If you really wanted to save money you could have used the current BT install offer for £30.

brewerdave

If its a new property - the socket may be an external NTE - look on the outside walls of the property for a grey box.If it exists but there is no internal wiring you will have to pay to have the wiring installed - MUCH cheaper to get a private contractor than BT OR.

jasonwatkins

macman wrote: »

What's your issue with a 3 week wait?

I no longer have an issue with the wait time. I made my initial OP in a foul mood ..

macman wrote: »

Cancelling your DD will simply result in Orange trashing your credit record.

I really don't have a choice where that's concerned.

macman wrote: »

If you really wanted to save money you could have used the current BT install offer for £30.

I wasn't aware of such an offer, but I'll certainly look in to it.

Heinz

jasonwatkins wrote: »

I wasn't aware of such an offer, but I'll certainly look in to it.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=25497#installation

£30 Connection Offer. Customers who require a new line will benefit from a £100 discount on the standard line connection charge of £130. Customers who are benefiting from this offer are not eligible for Line Rental Saver and must agree to an 18 month contract (applies to the Unlimited Weekend Plan or the Unlimited Anytime Plan). Minimum call commitment also applies – you must make at least 10 chargeable or inclusive calls per month (30 calls per quarter). You'll need to pay a charge of £5.15 for every month (if you are billed monthly) or £15.45 for every quarter (if you're billed quarterly) in which you don't make these calls, as compensation for not making the minimum number of calls required. These charges are not subject to VAT and will appear in the one-off charges section of your bill.

jasonwatkins

thanks for that but it appears I can't do anything with it as I would have to agree a landline contract with BT and I doubt they'd give me one while I still had a contract with orange and CERTAINLY wouldn't give me one if I default on the orange deal.

i'm getting frustrated that so many people assume I could just click my fingers and borrow £125 quid just like that as well.

Will have to ring orange back today and see if I can move up the chain of command and plead my case I guess.

macman

I fail to see on what grounds you expect Orange to allow you to cancel, unless whn you signed up you stated that the service must be provided within x days?
You'd be better off trackng down the NTE5.

Mark_In_Hampshire

With regard to the £125 fee, reading between the lines, is the cause of your frustration that

- You advised Orange about the move
- They appeared to have placed the order and sorted it out for you
- You reminded them about the socket
- At which point the £125 was mentioned for the first time

And you're understandably annoyed that having given them the information (no socket) this charge has suddenly been introduced later on?

The charge for a new line [socket] is £0 o £150 depending on who you go with. For example BE = 85.00, PlusNet = usually about 49.00 I think. You can get it free if you take a long contract sometimes.

However you could have said "No, actually, I don't want a home move. I'll cancel" and could then have picked someone else with a lower startup cost.

But you didn't know what the cost was going to be.

I can understand why that's annoying.

On the other hand, if you were still in a contracted period with Orange, presumably there would have been fees to cancel as well.

You're the one that moved home (I sympathise with the circumstances) so if you had not, then this wouldn't apply. I think you probably have to accept that bit.

The fee of £125 seems steep (compared with a cable install, which is up to 3 services for about a quarter of the money) but that's what Orange have decided on.

If the socket is not an external NTE (good tip above) then it might be that your place got redecorated and the socket was taken out and not put back. It could also be that BT OR's records were wrong and stated that there was a line there, so Orange went on that data. We can't know.

In any event, this is normal. It's just annoying and expensive. Sorry.