BT line ceased - reconnection charge...

Feisty_Imp

Hi
We have had the same problem - we've just moved into a new house. The previous owner was connected to virgin but has both cable and BT sockets all over the house. When we spoke to BT they said the line was ceased and they'd have to send an engineer (though there is no indication there is anything wrong with the existing sockets or wiring).

One BT advisor told us it would be £125 if they didn't have to fix it but free if they had some work to do on it. Another BT advisor told us it would be £125 regardless.

I'm also not clear on why they can't just turn it on and we can check if it works BEFORE sending an engineer - i'm sure that naivety on my part.

Any answers gratefully accepted.

Bufflowbill

They tend to quote the full connection rate to be on the safe side,until they are able to establish the master socket, wiring etc are still in place and are in working order.

u123935

I too want to change, and am confused as to the next step. Our home is still physically wired to BT. I contacted BT twice recently; first contact just said there would be the standard reconnection charge; tried another BT dept. which said try your phone in the BT socket, and if you get a dial tone, they can reconnect imediately with no charge. Did so, but no dial tone. I assume BT did this after we moved to NTL (now Virgin Media) 10 years or so ago. I want to move to TalkTalk for the savings made, but a £129 reconnection charge blows a hole in it. So, what next?

Heinz

u123935 wrote: »

I want to move to TalkTalk for the savings made, but a £129 reconnection charge blows a hole in it. So, what next?

Welcome to the MSE forums u123935.

The logical thing to do would be to ask Talk Talk to connect the line. They are a line provider and they can issue a work order to Openreach like any of the others. Don't bother though. They (Talk Talk) won't do it - they insist that potential subscribers have to have a working BT line before they can take them on (it's a lie of course, but it saves them having to spend money).

Perhaps someone is trying to tell you something ......?

u123935

Thanks, but who won't do what? TalkTalk won't issue the work order , or Openreach won't act upon it?

utilitybroker

Talk Talk are not interested in providing new lines,nor are they interested in moving customers. They just wanted to Cherry Pick BT Customers.

No doubt the reason why BT recently changed min term on a landline from 3 months to 12.

The last few posts in this thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=345488&page=16
might be an indication of what you can expect from them.

telephone_man

Openreach have now made it compulsory for a charge if the line is ceased due to call out and labour costs.

topherxp

£125 is a fiqure everybody should get use to, as it will get charged a lot from now on