BT Charge £130 For Fault Caused By Their Own Equipment

spike7451

ktothema wrote: »

Is there a problem with the system then, as we've twice ended up with an engineer out recently looking for a fault that wasnt the actual fault we had (if that makes sense)? I.e looking for a crackling line rather than a noise ratio issue and recently we had a guy out who thought our faceplate was faulty, and when I explained the issue was dialling in, he tried from his phone and said "yeah, that's not the fault down here".

Obviously I don't want their or my time wasted, let alone be charged in those circumstances!

No problem with the systems they use apart from Eco (Off-Net) which is a PITA to use & constantly crashes on you.Problem is with the BT end,as they rarely send out the correct engineer,To a tee,each time I called a customer after an engineer visit,the customer told me the wrong engineer turned up.

ktothema

spike7451 wrote: »

No problem with the systems they use apart from Eco (Off-Net) which is a PITA to use & constantly crashes on you.Problem is with the BT end,as they rarely send out the correct engineer,To a tee,each time I called a customer after an engineer visit,the customer told me the wrong engineer turned up.

Thanks. It does make me wonder how many non savvy or non sceptical (like ourselves :rotfl: ) get charged under these circumstances.

spike7451

ktothema wrote: »

Thanks. It does make me wonder how many non savvy or non sceptical (like ourselves :rotfl: ) get charged under these circumstances.

I had a fault on my phoneline so after much grumbling by BT,they sent an engineer out,he ended up using my linesmans test phone as he didn't have one & they didn't try to charge me thankfully,as I informed them I was a telecomms engineer & had done all the troubleshooting & the fault lay from my NTE back to the exchange.

mrfrisbee

My charge has now been refunded. They say this is due to a slight error in me being told what I could be charged for.

With regards to the wrong engineer - whilst I am not an expert, I had had a problem with the line for about 3 years and for the last 18 months I had been asking for a lift and shift (card change) which I even said when I reported the call. This is the final piece of equipment/cable that had not been changed already.

Of course, the engineer that came could not do that part of the job so it was a waste of time anyway.

dshart

I am very surprised at some of the responses to the OP defending BT's charge for the engineers call out.

At the end of the day no matter how BT are split up into broadband/Telephone/lines etc they still advertise a complete package of service and you get one bill. If you have a problem how are you to know where the fault lies?

You phone their help line and go through their checks (some of them which are quite frankly ridiculous, I was once asked to plug the router into the main socket and monitor it for 8 hours to see if it dropped out, this is despite the master socket being nowhere near a computer and was told in that case to watch the light on the router for 8 hours to see if it dropped out). If after their checks have not solved the problem you are advised they will escalate the problem to the engineering department who will get in touch within 24 to 48 hours. At this time you are also warned of the callout charge if the fault is traced to your equipment. Yet there is no way they can tell in advance if it is theirs or your equipment which is at fault, and as you are not a telecoms expert you cannot tell either. So what do you do if you are not happy with the callout charge? do you just give up then or do you accept the engineer coming out?

In the OP the fault was traced to equipment supplied by BT so why should there be a callout charge. People say "but it is a different part of BT" well as far as I am concerned I pay one bill to BT for a service so I treat it all as one supplier. They are the ones who divide it up to confuse the issue.

I had BT supplied router once that was faulty and caused my phone to drop out intermittently, I called up reporting an phone problem and while waiting for the engineers appointment I also noticed internet problems so I phoned up to report this too only to be told that as I already had an open issue they could not raise another one. I tried to explain that I suspected that the router may have been causing the phone problem but they were unwilling to listen unless I closed out the phone fault and raised a broadband fault.

Overall they provide a lousy customer service and they should not be allowed to charge when the fault lies with equipment they have supplied.

pawlala

Buzby wrote: »

As you were advised of the charge, it cannot be disputed now.

I disputed a £99 engineer charge earlier this year which I didn't believe was right, and I was advised at the time it would be raised. I kept escalating it until it was resolved and removed from my bill. As long as people are willing to stick to their guns and keep a log of exactly what is happening there's no reason why BT should continue to keep taking the p.iss with obscene charges like this

I'm still disappointed that BT didn't offer me a flake with my charge.