Thanks BT - for cutting my phone wire down!

AKAJamesBond · 16 March 2019 at 8:33PM

I arrived home a few weeks ago to find BT had been out and about making changes in the street. I looked up and found my BT line that has been on the house since the 1960s had been "removed". I was a BT customer for many years before Internet was heard of and then with them for Broadband for years.
I changed over to Virginmedia and was only with them for about 18months.
After contacting BT, they sent me over to Openreach and the answer was, "you haven't been a BT customer for a while, so you don't need a BT line, we took it away". This was without permission to start putting ladders in the garden or coming on to property, no notice was given. They snipped the wire were it went through the wall near ground level and by the gutter. The bit between house and phone pole was removed.

The complaint resulted in a vile Openreach man knocking on the door demanding to know why I had complained as I was with Virginmedia, then a further visit to ask for the master socket back!
BT also called back a third time according to neighbours to take the remaining wire that was clipped along by the gutter and down the wall.
BT refuses to comment on this, Openreach employ the most abusive people I have met in Customer Service.
Openreach are claiming if a person is not a BT customer, they can call at any point and physically remove the phone wire from your property. I was in the process of switching to SKY, but have been told I will now have to pay a "new line installation fee" not just a "reconnection".
This seems like a money making scam to me, forcing people to pay for new line installations. It also means anti-competition Laws are broken as I am prevented changing to another supplier easily.
OFCOM has refused to comment or deal with the complaint, BT Openreach just keep sending idiots to the door to argue and BT say it has nothing to do with them.
I did contact Martyn Lewis about it and his researchers were not that interested - I bet they will be when others start complaining about the new BT Openreach practice.

pmduk · 16 March 2019 at 8:55PM

I'm not sure why you expect Openreach to maintain infrastructure that is not being used on the off-chance you may choose to use it again in the future?

You have no contractual relationship with BT or Openreach in order to make a complaint. Even, if you had, Ofcom would not have been the body to deal with it.

You can change suppliers as easily as ever. People regularly move to addresses without a phone line.

Roland_Sausage · 17 March 2019 at 8:12AM

If it had been on the house since the 1960s it would have been an obsolete cable anyway.

They’re not in the habit of just removing unused wires for the sake of it. It would have been for a reason like the pole was replaced or moved, or maybe the wire was hanging over the road below the minimum height.

Since these older obsolete wires can’t be retensioned, it’ll simply get cut down if not in use.

Neil_Jones · 17 March 2019 at 9:37AM

AKAJamesBond wrote: »

This seems like a money making scam to me, forcing people to pay for new line installations. It also means anti-competition Laws are broken as I am prevented changing to another supplier easily.

Rubbish. If you join a new provider for minimum term they'll often throw the installation costs in for a new line.

OFCOM has refused to comment or deal with the complaint, BT Openreach just keep sending idiots to the door to argue and BT say it has nothing to do with them.
I did contact Martyn Lewis about it and his researchers were not that interested - I bet they will be when others start complaining about the new BT Openreach practice.

This is not an Ofcom issue and I bet if your connection to the telegraph phone failed or blew down or something that left it dangerous, you'd be the first to complain that BT did nothing about it.

As for getting MSE involved, I suggest rather than arguing with people on the doorstep, put things in writing to BT and complain that way. MSE will not get involved in one off disputes you're having with a company that you don't even pay any money to.

pmduk · 17 March 2019 at 10:20AM

Neil_Jones wrote: »

I suggest rather than arguing with people on the doorstep, put things in writing to BT and complain that way.

The chances are pretty good that BT will not register a complaint from a non-customer - the OP has already complained to the responsible party, Openreach.

S/he should be investigating if there's any escalation possible in there complaints policy rather than using the current scattergun approach.

iniltous · 17 March 2019 at 10:46AM

I've never heard of OR proactively removing drop wires that are not currently in service, afterall there is a chance that at some future point service may be required to the property it serves, and it's a cost to the business with no benefit , but , if for example, the telegraph pole from where the drop cable originates is being replaced or resited , then erecting a new drop cable to the unserved property would seem pointless, and given that this type of work is quite often done by contractors on behalf of OR rather than by OR direct labour , then they are unlikely to undertake unneccesary work , they would want the job completed as quickly as possible so they get paid.
Apart from a technical 'trespass' , the OP has no case, if OR want to remove their (effectively redundant) property , then that's their choice, and the physical presence of the cable is irrelevant, if there was no stopped line tone on the dropwire, then as far as any new order, it would be counted as a 'new' line anyway, and the cost to the CP is the same , putting up a new dropwire or re using an existing dropwire doesn't affect the price the CP pays.

Thanks BT - for cutting my phone wire down!

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free