Bt fault on line 20 September 2017 at 5:52PM in Phones & TV 11 replies 1.5K views

paul2louise

We were visiting my husbands mum at the weekend for her 85th birthday. She lives on her own about 50 miles from us. She has a few medical conditions. She told us that she thought her cordless phone had broken. We discovered that it wasnt the phones but a fault on her bt line. No dialing tone. She was still able to recieve calls but couldnt call out. She said it had been like that for a week.
As i couldnt phone bt on her phone i contacted bt via their online fault reporting and arrange a engineer to call this tuesday for a pm appointment. I phoned her to ask her if phone was fixed and she told me she had waited in all day and noone came. I phoned bt last night to find out why noone had come and they said the 'creation of the job hadnt been made live' so openreach never knew about it. They couldnt do anything as the system was down amd to phone back in the morning. I phoned again this morning and explained the serious nature and finally got a new appointment for tomorrow pm.

Sorry for all the details but i needed to explain it all. I am not happy that an elderly lady on her own should have to deal with this. I am sorry i hadnt known sooner and got something done.
BT tell me that the fault is at the exchange. Can they not see these problems without the need for customers needing to contact them
I know how lost i am without my mobile phone but she had no way contacting anyone.

Should i make this complaint go further.

Sorry if i am ranting. Thank you

IAmWales

No, they can't see a fault at the local exchange. It's (very roughly) like a fuse blowing, nobody knows unless you try to use it.

You can complain about them failing to call out today, they'll say sorry. More importantly you can register mum in law as a vulnerable customer so she gets a same day call out (once the fault is reported).

Has she not seen anybody for a week? I'd be focusing more on that. Is there a nearby befriending service, or could you pay for a carer to check in on her occasionally?

paul2louise

IAmWales wrote: »

No, they can't see a fault at the local exchange. It's (very roughly) like a fuse blowing, nobody knows unless you try to use it.

You can complain about them failing to call out today, they'll say sorry. More importantly you can register mum in law as a vulnerable customer so she gets a same day call out (once the fault is reported).

Has she not seen anybody for a week? I'd be focusing more on that. Is there a nearby befriending service, or could you pay for a carer to check in on her occasionally?

She can get out, and has a car, she has neighbours that she sees and my niece visited her yesterday. I can ring her and i have been doing so since we visited her at weekend.
I did ask for a appointment today as she was a vunerable customer but they said they couldnt book anthing today and they would try there best to see if open reach could squeeze her in. i spoke to several people today and they were telling me different things, especially difficult when i spoke to staff at the international call centre as i couldnt understand them.

I will call them in the morning and make sure that they definitely are coming.

IAmWales

You need to register for the vulnerable customers register, not just tell them at the time (lots of people claim to be vulnerable when they want an engineer out immediately! . If you're on the register and they've no normal slots available then it will be given to the on call engineer.

Encourage her to tell someone next time!

paul2louise

IAmWales wrote: »

You need to register for the vulnerable customers register, not just tell them at the time (lots of people claim to be vulnerable when they want an engineer out immediately! . If you're on the register and they've no normal slots available then it will be given to the on call engineer.

Encourage her to tell someone next time!

I will sort that. I didn't know. Yes she does need that on her account. Thank you

baza52

buy her a cheap PAYG mobile in case of an emergency. You can pick them up from supermarkets.

paul2louise

Bt have been, they told her that both of her phones are broken due to a storm. They said she needs to buy new phones. I dont understand how a storm can break 2 phones and her old pulse phone can receieve calls but she cant make them.

phillw

paul2louise wrote: »

They said she needs to buy new phones. I dont understand how a storm can break 2 phones and her old pulse phone can receieve calls but she cant make them.

I don't have a pulse dial phone anymore so I can't check, does pulse dialing still work? Even if it doesn't then I'd still expect a dialing tone, but it might be that the damaged phones were blocking the line somehow.

If a storm can break one phone, it can break two. Newer phones are going to be more fragile.

Before reporting a fault it's always worth taking the cover off the master socket and plugging a known working phone into the test socket. However it's not something I'd expect everyone to be able to do themselves.

IAmWales

paul2louise wrote: »

Bt have been, they told her that both of her phones are broken due to a storm. They said she needs to buy new phones. I dont understand how a storm can break 2 phones and her old pulse phone can receieve calls but she cant make them.

A power surge can cause this.

DUTR

paul2louise wrote: »

We were visiting my husbands mum at the weekend for her 85th birthday. She lives on her own about 50 miles from us. She has a few medical conditions. She told us that she thought her cordless phone had broken. We discovered that it wasnt the phones but a fault on her bt line. No dialing tone. She was still able to recieve calls but couldnt call out. She said it had been like that for a week.
As i couldnt phone bt on her phone i contacted bt via their online fault reporting and arrange a engineer to call this tuesday for a pm appointment. I phoned her to ask her if phone was fixed and she told me she had waited in all day and noone came. I phoned bt last night to find out why noone had come and they said the 'creation of the job hadnt been made live' so openreach never knew about it. They couldnt do anything as the system was down amd to phone back in the morning. I phoned again this morning and explained the serious nature and finally got a new appointment for tomorrow pm.

Sorry for all the details but i needed to explain it all. I am not happy that an elderly lady on her own should have to deal with this. I am sorry i hadnt known sooner and got something done.
BT tell me that the fault is at the exchange. Can they not see these problems without the need for customers needing to contact them
I know how lost i am without my mobile phone but she had no way contacting anyone.

Should i make this complaint go further.

Sorry if i am ranting. Thank you

What is it you wish to complain about though?
Your post gets a bit lost with the play on emotions bit, complaining isn't going to get the issue resolved anymore quickly, yet you seem to be concentrating on 'what if' rather than the discovered symptoms of no dial tone.
When the fault was reported the line would have had a test and of course you may have been advised of a possible callout charge if the fault proves off the network, as others have mentioned you can disconnect the other phones and extensions and see if the fault remains from the master socket.
But 1st things 1st, get the issue of no dial tone resolved then you can continue with the drama if you wish.

mr_mf

DECT phones are very delicate and can easily be fried by an lightning strike - they are actually part of the problem as they are connected to the mains they allow the strike to flow to earth.

The older phone obviously got wounded as well but still allows incoming calls.

If the fault is down to her equipment then I would brace yourself as she is likely to get billed £130 for Openreach attending and determining that the fault was with her equipment.

In future if you have a fault you need to disconnect all wiring from the master socket and prove the fault still exists with a known good corded phone.