BT charging query

di3004

Next door to me are having an extension, we live in a row of terraced houses, so I am one from the end.
My neighbours the ones's having the work done are on the end.

Well yesterday, just gone 2pm in the afternoon, I was talking to my mum on the phone when suddenly it went dead, and so did the internet.
I done the normal things by checking the phone connection adapter and all was fine.

A thought came to me about the workmen next door, so I called round to them and asked them to check their phone, they did and also said it was dead.
My hubby then had a word with the workmen, and asked them if they've cut a cable, they admitted they did.
Apparentely the main bell box for the full row of our 7 houses are connected up to that end house, so all of us were without connection.

So in this time we text my inlaw and explained to them the problem and to contact BT to let them know.
BT had got back to us on mobile and said to get this done we would have to pay £130!
We explained this wasn't our problem and the lady said well we have to pay to have the line connected up again.

Surely this should not be us paying for the fault of next doors workmen.
Next door even though they are private - they are having work done by care and repair, as arranged by the local council, so they use contractors to do the work.

Anyway, thankfully the enginneer came out today after 3 o clock and he had to go to each and every one of us of the 7 houses to get the connection up and running, as we all have BT lines.

We did explain to the other neighhours yesterday that we had reported the problem and it will be dealt with, but we are dreading it now in case we do get billed for it, yet it was done on someone elses property by their workmen who should never had attempted cutting it in the first place.
We had been told by the engineer as well that only 2 maybe 3 of us complained about this.

We received a text from BT later today to say "they have fixed our fault"
I just hope we don't get billed for a problem that was nothing to do with us in the first place.

Any help on this folks please, cheers.;)

Mark_In_Hampshire

There's a difference between being billed, and paying

Just keep an eye on your bills, and should an Engineer charge show up (which naturally, it should not) then put that amount into dispute (via email or post, not verbally) and only pay the rest.

macman

Damage upstream of the master socket is only chargeable if self inflicted. It's up to BT to recover it from the contractors. Clearly the call centre drone did not understand the circumstances-they always read you the mantra about a possible £130 charge regardless.