Seller told us there was a phone line

Owain_Moneysaver

The £130 connection fee is standard for the first line at a residential premises and includes £3400 (exc VAT) of excess charges. BT can charge for excess charges over £3400.

The question to ask BT is why they are refusing to supply a connection at £130 under their universal service obligation.

But also ask the neighbours whether they have had any difficulties getting a phone connection. It is possible that the builders didn't wire the whole development and so the excess charges are arising. Usually the developers should put all the ducting in so BT can just draw their cables in.

Dukesy

You need to get on to them much harder. If next door has a phone line, then I can't see why you should be paying for such a huge length of cabling - it must be present somewhere close by. There may even be a line serving the property that you don't know about. My parents had a similar situation when they bought their house (albeit 25 odd years ago). BT were convinced that there was no line serving the property. My dads response? "I'm speaking to you on it right now".

You need to communicate with them in words of one syllable.

dotdash79

satellite broadband is becomming cheaper and cheaper, also wifi max might be in your area.

Or wireless services can be provided by the likes of metronet. A bit of reasearch should give you options that would be more cost effective than 3g.

theartfullodger

firsttimeforeverything wrote: »

VM simply said they couldn't serve us, as they only do fibre optic and there was no underground cable.

Were it me I'd...

a) Take legal action against cheating lyin' seller &

b) Order Virgin fibre broadband (my tenant's one goes up to 50Mb this summer) then use Skype or some other internet-phone service (you can get a 'phone number..) or give everyone your mobile for incoming calls. Virgin's high-speed broadband is fibre into your home & thus instrinsically (usually) faster than BT

As I can't stand beardie Branson (remind me how much British tax he used to & now pays??) & all his works this recommendation pains me but the v=fibre b/b is a good service (and TV available also, probably cheaper than Sky..)

In 10/20 years time (or sooner) it will be the norm not to have an old-fashioned copper-wire 'phone line.

Cheers!

Dan-Dan

Rupert Murdoch or Richard Branson , it`s like asking which you prefer , death br drowning or being set on fire

duchy

If your neighbours are connected it sounds far more likely there is some kind of typo in the OR system rather than the charge is correct.

I'd try another provider ...like Sky -and see if they are prepared to investigate further. BT are about the worst for "the computer says no" especially if you're dealing with an off-shore call centre.

firsttimeforeverything_2

Unfortunately we can't get fibre optic BB either- same problem, different cable.

Dotdash, we did do our research- the plan is to wait until we can get 4G unlimited download deals and go for one of those. It should still be reasonable as we won't need the phone line.

Gordon Hose, I spoke to the neighbour after speaking to VM, I should call them again. They have such terrible customer service!

Poppie68

if the property is only 8 years old surely a phone line was put in at the time?
Why would the vendors claim they had a phone line if they didn't?
Would anyone actually live for 8 years without a phone line?
If your neighbours have VM then fibro optic cable is already on place and can be connected to provide you with services?
I don't know how many homes or businesses are in your vicinty but i'm certain the majority if not all would have phone lines in place for which you too can share or already share the same cables etc for your phone line (or however it works).

duchy

This may sound daft but are you SURE there's no phone line ever connected-eg no phone point on the premises, no landline listed with estate agent etc ?

teneighty

Do not necessarily believe what BT/Open Reach tell you.

My son had a very similar problem. They kept telling him the property was not connected and they would need to dig up the road and it would cost thousands.

Even though he could see the new phone line terminal box in the basement it took 3 months and he had to almost physically drag the BT engineer into the basement before they admitted that they had made a mistake. It still took them a couple of weeks to sort it out after that. They are totally useless.