Telewest - faults

pinkonion

My elderly Mothers Telewest phone (potentially a lifeline) has been faulty for most of the day. It has been working for a few brief periods during the evening but it seems that it shall be at least the morning before it works again (fingers crossed).

Would it be unreasonable for her to expect say £10 compensation from Telewest. She pays £25.50 a month for unlimited calls which includes line rental. Due to the faults she's relied on her PAYG mobile to make calls and receive calls, costing her and the people that call her more.

She also pays £1 a month for caller display which hasn't been working at all today.

Heinz

pinkonion wrote:

She pays £25.50 a month for unlimited calls which includes line rental.

No she isn't.

I bet calls to 084x/087x/07x/09x numbers aren't included - so she's actually paying £13 more than basic BT line rental would cost (£10.50) for those allegedly 'unlimited calls' - for which, using 18866 from a BT line, I could make 650 calls to UK 01/02 numbers.

Does she really make more than 20 calls a day, every day?

bbb_uk

I'm not sure of how telewest work. I know BT would divert any incoming calls to the house line to a number of your choice inc a mobile whilst the BT line is down. No charge is made for this.

Personally though, I don't think its unreasonable. Just ask them. If they say no and providing your mother is outside her minimum term contract then threaten to move to BT because they provide compensation and would have diverted to calls to her mobile for free, etc.

Also, ensure that the fault is with the line and not the internal wiring within your mums house as generally these are not covered by them and a no-fault call-out charge may apply.

The best way to to do this is to find the main master socket that Telewest use and (if your upto it) unscrew the two small screws in the middle and carefully take the smaller cover off. Doing this should reveal another telephone point and plug the telephone into this. This then bypasses all extensions within the house (in case thats where the fault is) and is connected directly to the the telewest line. If it is still faulty then try another phone (in case its the phone) and if it is still faulty after that then the fault is within the network or the first master socket.

I believe the way BT, etc work is that they are responsible for all wiring coming into the house and the main master socket inside the house. All other extensions and telephone points within the house are not their responsibility unless BT/Telewest installed all the other extensions within the house.

If no extensions are used anyhow and providing the phone isn't faulty then you should be ok to call them out without being charged the no-fault found fee of £75.

pinkonion

I'm getting her to change to BT anyway (as soon as can get an extension from the BT line upstairs) so she can use 18866 properly.

She contacted Telewest via the net and they insulted her by asking if there was another phone she could plug in to test the line. As we found out most Telewest customers in this area had the same fault I can only suspect they're going to attempt a fob-off. I shall not let them of course