Criminal Call Out Fee £130

logmeinsucker

I had ADSL Broadband with Orange for 6 years. Never a problem. Average speed 1Mbps. 3 weeks ago it dropped to 72Kbps. BT conducted line tests and eventually sent out an Engineer. He arrived and couldnt find the problem. He, without sufficient justification, repalced the extension socket on the wall (not the main socket either). Slow ADSL broadband remained (and still remains today) so problem not resolved and certainly no evidence to prove the issue resides within the property.

Several hours spent trying to convince BT that the engineer report was farbricated as it states the problem was resolved. This is wholly incorrect. BT Customer Services will not begin to understand that its a false report.

Can someone tell me who I can escalate this to as I will happily fight this until the day I die. There is no way I am prepared to pay £130 for a fabrication of the truth.

Please help.

macman

Testing from the BT test socket behind the master socket split faceplate should quickly show where the fault is, but it's unlikely that Orange's clueless call centre staff would bother to ask you to do that. What result does that give?
You should not have let the OR engineer touch anything beyond the NTE5 master socket, if he did so then that would give them justification to charge, as that part of the network is your property and responsibility. Did he not ask your approval to do this chargeable work?

logmeinsucker

macman wrote: »

Did he not ask your approval to do this chargeable work?

No, he certainly didn't ask permission to change anything, he just went ahead and changed it. If he'd asked, I would have told him he was about to change the non-master socket!!!!!!

After he changed it the broadband issue remained which is why I'm so angry that they charged £130!!!

iniltous

TBH I dont think you were charged for the work on the extension, more likely that they considered they were called out on a non fault, in other words called out to something they are not responsible for...they (Openreach) charge the Communication Provider (CP) in these cases, who in most cases pass the charge on , are Orange also your Line Rental provider, did they raise a PSTN fault on the line, or your broadband ?, you should have been made aware of the potential for charges when you called your CP and reported the fault, if they didnt warn you, you may have a case to get the charge waived, in OR defence, if the broadband is still slow, then it may be your own router/filters/wiring thats the problem and if thats the case why wouldnt you be charged as you called out OR who dont supply those things

spike7451

Have you called Orange?....You may have been migrated over onto WBC network,you should have gotten an e-mail sent to your Orange e-mail.If the BT Engineer changed the extension socket,then that is more likely what you've been charged for.BT are only responsibly for anything up to & including the NTE Master or LJU Mini Master.Anything after that is the home owners problem.

macman

It's not impossible that the OR engineer found a minor fault on the extension that does not affect the broadband anyway. And therefore made it a chargeable call out, despite failing to fix the real fault.

duchy

Letter to Orange CS -if not resolved then take it to OFCOM

System

Who called BT out? you or Orange? If it was you then all you will get is a voice engineer and not a broadband engineer.

The voice engineer will only look at ensuring your voice calls will work. To get a broadband engineer then Orange need to escalate it up to BT after ensuring that you have done some simple tests first such as trying from the master socket with everything else disconnected.

wild666

duchy wrote: »

Letter to Orange CS -if not resolved then take it to OFCOM

IMO send the letter to head office, get the address from company's house, let head office pass it down to CUSTOMER SERVICES, possibly get a better result that way.

Orange_Company_Representative

Hi logmeinsucker

As some other users have suggested, if the BT engineer was arranged by Orange due to your broadband issues, you should contact our Customer Support team as soon as possible. They can then look into this with BT on your behalf. If you are not happy with the response you receive, you can then request to escalate your complaint further within Customer Support.

I hope this helps.

Darren from Orange Helpers