MK Master socket causes £130 bill

edwardmluk

We had our house rewired, and as part of that chose to get the master phone socket replaced with one which matched everything else. It was an MK master socket.

The electrician didn't warn of any issues and said as long as it was a master socket it would be fine. I didn't even know there could be an issue.

Everything was working fine initially. A couple of months later we lost the dial tone and the internet went abysmally slow. BT engineer came around, put in a new BT master socket and reset the line and everything worked again. The reason for the failure is the MK socket doesn't have some resistor in it which allows a specific ping signal to be returned to BT line tests. So BT flagged our line as dormant and disconnected us.

Just been charged £129.99 for the callout fee. Having read the BT website, I now see that the master socket is BT property, not mine and damaging it will cause the charge.

My question, have I got any rights whatsoever to try and get a refund for that charge from the electrician who (as an expert in this field) gave no warning or advice around this?

edwardmluk

I realise I should have probably posted this in the DIY forum. Mods, feel free to move it there...

[Deleted User]

edwardmluk wrote: »

I realise I should have probably posted this in the DIY forum. Mods, feel free to move it there...

Consumer Rights probably a better fit.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=173

esuhl

Essentially, it sounds like the electrician caused damage to BT property, so I imagine he/she should be liable to pay the BT charge to repair the connection. (But I'm not a lawyer...)

AndyPK

but if you insisted you wanted fancy chrome socket to match, then he did what he was told

The customer is always right