This topic

Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:12:20 GMT

Our neighbour is a frail and elderly lady. On Tuesday the storm brought down the line that supplies her landline and internet. The Openreach engineer who tidied up the fallen cable told her that it would be repaired within a couple of days. Nothing has happened. She has no other means of communicating. I've spent hours trying to contact BT online, by text and by voice - which seems to boil down to a voice menu, a text and a hangup. I actually manged to speak to a human being at Openreach but they said it wasn't their problem. And hung up. Can anyone suggest a way of contacting BT (I don't have our neighbour's account details)?

Re: Emergency Welfare

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:26:40 GMT

@idw1

This is just a customer to customer help forum, everyone here, including myself, are just customers.

The only BT Employees are the forum moderators.

Normal repair time for a phone fault is three working days unless she is registered with BT as a priority customer.

Have you tried the phone fault reporting number of 0800 800 151?

Re: Emergency Welfare

imjolly — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:26:54 GMT

I have asked a forum mod who are BT employees to see if they can help they will post here only problem may be you are not account holder

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:37:05 GMT

I have tried that number and a variety of others. That is the one that asks to to respond by text, cuts the call - and after an exchange of texts cancels the message because my phone number doesn't match the one I am calling about. (Sorry if I sound a little short - it has been a long and trying day.)

Re: Emergency Welfare

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:41:54 GMT

Have you tried calling it from a mobile, as it would not be able to associate that with the phone number you are reporting?

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:51:17 GMT

That is exactly what I have been doing. Because the phone number I'm trying to report is dead. This can't be the first time someone has used another phone to report a faulty one.

Re: Emergency Welfare

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:55:06 GMT

Are you sure she gets her phone service from BT Retail, and not a different provider?

Re: Emergency Welfare

licquorice — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:55:18 GMT

Its a long time since I reported a fault, but I thought that that was the first question. Are you calling from the line you wish to report?

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:56:14 GMT

you would think

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 14:56:50 GMT

She says she is BT Retail

Re: Emergency Welfare

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:01:14 GMT

The clue would be if she has a BT Home Hub connected to her line for broadband?

You should be able to report another person`s phone line.

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:03:12 GMT

She has tried. Her daughter has tried. I have tried.

Re: Emergency Welfare

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:10:28 GMT

Are you texting HELP to 61998?

This may raise it as a broadband fault, but you may get a better response.

Re: Emergency Welfare

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:15:09 GMT

I just dialled 151 from my landline, selected a couple of options & was then prompted for a number to test, then a number for contact.

Re: Emergency Welfare

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:18:18 GMT

And that should be the same for 0800 800 151.

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:40:16 GMT

Did that some hours ago. Just reset itself and starting requesting the same info again.

Re: Emergency Welfare

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:48:50 GMT

So she definitely has a BT Home Hub connected to her line?

Its not uncommon for people to think their line is a BT line, but they have their broadband from another company. I am just double checking to make sure that its not the reason for the report being rejected.

What are the first six digits of her phone number? Please do not post the full number.

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:57:03 GMT

018693.

Thank you for taking an interest

Re: Emergency Welfare

idw1 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:59:03 GMT

I'm pretty sure she's BT for both phone and internet because she gave me the original contact number off her BT bill.

Re: Emergency Welfare

RobbieMac — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 16:01:40 GMT

Hi @idw1

Welcome to the BT Community!

I am sorry that your neighbour's service has developed a fault due to the recent bad weather we've seen. I appreciate that she is elderly and how important it is that the service is repaired as soon as possible.

Have you tried the helpdesk number on 0330 1234 150? You'll get the option to enter your neighbour's telephone number and then it's option 2 to talk to our repair team.

Post back and let me know how you get on with this, please.

Thanks,

Robbie