Disconnected phone line

amateal

Looking for advice

A relative of mine has been paying both Talk Talk and BT for their phone lime for a considerable number of years. I was surprised this had happened because surely both Talk Talk and BT can see they are suppling the phone line.

 We tried to get through to Talk Talk to cancel the line but after being on hold forever we hung up and cancelled the direct debit. 

In hindsight maybe this wasn't the best decision, but we did intended to call them to cancel at a later date. 

This was about 6 weeks ago. 

Since then my relative recieved a letter from Talk Talk for an unpaid bill. Less than 24hrs after receiving the letter, they tried to make a call out to discover Talk Talk had disconnected the line. 

They paid the bill and were reconnected, however they have disconnected the line again today. 

I have several issues with this that if anyone has advice on would be greatly appreciated-

1. They have never missed or defaulted on any payments, previous to the recent events. 

2. On both occasions they were trying to contact the doctors and the hospital for not emergency but quite urgent medical care.

3. The relatives in question are elderly and clearly vulnerable. This has been communicated to Talk Talk who asked what medical issues are present, which I dispute is nothing to do with them. 

4. The second time the line was disconnected without any notice. Talk Talk claimed they were unable to give notice as they don't have an email address or a mobile number for them, but yet the provide the landline so I'm pretty confident they would have that number!

5. The line has yet to be reconnected.

I would have thought that by law they have to allow a certain period of time to pass from advising that there is an unpaid bill to disconnecting the line. Also as stated above they are elderly and vulnerable, I hate to think what would have happened if they had an emergency and were unable to call someone for help. 

I am going to be putting in a complaint with them, but any thoughts or advice would be welcomed 

Devongardener

It shouldn’t be possible for 2 companies to charge for the same landline.  Have you actually seen the BT bill or talked to them to check exactly what they are charging for?   This should have been done before cancelling the TT DD.
Call TalkTalk again and hang on for as long as it takes, but make sure you are with the bill payer to confirm with TT that they have given their permission to speak to you. 

iniltous

Many years ago , companies like Talk Talk didn’t provide ‘ dialtone ‘ they used SMPF , shared metallic path facility,  where a different company, nearly always BT , provided dialtone ,and TT added their broadband on top of that , in TT case they also carried and billed for any calls made on BT dialtone  , by using access codes ( originally entered by the customer then an automated service added the code itself) to get any calls made off BT’s network and into TT network ( called carrier pre select ) …so basically the punter paid line rental to BT and everything else to the the other company, Talk  Talk in this case …,

After a few years , TT had the capability to provide dialtone themselves, so asked their SMPF customers to switch line rental from BT to TT ( this is called MPF , just metallic path facility, it’s not ‘shared’ anymore ) so ending any contractual relationship the customer had with BT  , most TT customers switched , some didn’t and remained on TT SMPF , continuing to pay BT for line rental .

Its impossible for BT to continue to bill TT MPF customers if the correct switch process was used by TT to migrate from BT/TT SMPF to TT MPF , but if the wrong process was used or the customer declined to move to TT MPF (staying on the legacy SMPF system)  , then a bill from TT and a bill from BT is correct ( but incredibly rare ) , and poor value, but that was the customer’s choice.


A big reason given by TT to switch was cost ,  if TT charged  ( for example ) £30 for MPF , and £20 for SMPF , the customer also also paying BT £20 makes no sense ( £10 more overall ) TT would say ‘why don’t you give us your telephone rental business , its cheaper than separate bills ‘ but  it’s still a choice the customer made , BT weren’t involved, its not up to BT to say ‘move completely to TT’ , as far as BT are concerned they are a telephony customer, if the request never came to stop supplying dialtone they continue to do it .


The other possibility is  TT did move the telephony to themselves without using the correct process , if BT were never told by TT , its perfectly correct  to continue bill the customer, in these cases ,  basically either the customer should notice ( obviously this never happened ) or TT should use the correct process to advise BT . 


I suppose the question now is what’s the important thing , getting service restored by TT , if that’s the case , obviously TT need to do that and the customer needs to enquire with BT , and cease whatever BT service is being charged for ,
if it’s compensation, then as BT were not advised by anyone TT or the customer , they are not liable , TT may offer a goodwill payment ( for not using the correct process if that proves to be the case ) or may say it’s your own fault for not noticing .

TBH , I doubt any compensation will be given by anyone, but possibly a goodwill payment by TT , obviously from BT’s point of view , what’s the incentive for BT to do anything at all  ? , your relative can hardly say ‘ well if you don’t refund us , we will leave your company’ , as they effectively did that years ago ….

TBH , it’s a bit like having a magazine subscription sent to your home , then moving house and not  cancelling the subscription or not advising them of the  new address , it’s not the magazine company fault for sending the magazine to an address you don’t live at anymore.

born_again

Is the payment to BT for line rental or another service they may supply?