BT and telephone problems

Our landline and broadband went down on Christmas Day. DH jumped up and down when the phone company said they would not send an engineer as they couldn't find a fault on the line. In the end they agreed and we got an engineer five days later. "How long have you been waiting?" he asked. When we told him, he said "Oh you were lucky then; people are having to wait up to three weeks for an engineer, there are so many faults. They have a backlog due to the flooding". The tussle with the service provider took all the talk time on DH's mobile and cost him £17 in additional call charges. We are still waiting for the bill to see whether they have charged us for the engineer's visit.

They won't refund the cost of the mobile phone calls, though...

When my phone line had a problem they said 7/10days and I negotiated a refund on the rental for the following month,keep a check on how many days its out of action.

My sister arrived, from her other home on 28th December, to find the phoneline was dead. Rang BT from mobile and they said they couldn't do anything until 3rd January. My sister and BIL have waited in for three days and noone has shown up, rang again and was told it would probably be Monday at 5pm. Not good enough, 10 days without a landline. She has to ring abroad frequently and it is prohibitive on a mobile when you are a pensioner.

Our landline was accidentally ploughed up by a neighbouring farmer two years ago and we were off for three weeks while BT struggled to locate and fix the fault. They re-imbursed us with a quarter's standing charge which was deducted from the next bill.

When I switched phone provider last year I was without a phone for a week; thankfully my broadband connection worked. The worst part was not knowing when it was going to work again and then BT blamed Talk Talk and Talk Talk blamed BT [I think it was actually BT's fault as they didn't release the line or something]. If I was given the choice I think it was preferable to have an internet connection but no phone [I feel lost without my pooter] but the first few days were difficult when my family didn't realise my phone wasn't working [when someone rang it sounded as if it was ringing and I wasn't answering whereas it didn't ring here]. As Mishap says I'd keep a log of what happened when, and who said what. I keep getting power cuts that no one seems to be able to sort out; received several torches as Christmas presents from thoughful family members . Technology. Hmph....

Thanks for that advice Mishap, a good idea!

Be warned - if it is not an easy fault to mend it will take ages, mainly because there is a BT policy that engineers do not pass on information about what they have done to the next engineer - mad!!

I do agree that you should not have to pay for a service that you are not receiving - when it comes back on, why don't you send BT a bill for the rental for that period and also the difference between the cost of BT landline use and the mobile calls you have made? - it would be interesting to see what comes of that!!

At least you are able to use a mobile when the line is down - we have no reception here.