Bereavement

[Highlandcrofter]

In reporting my recent bereavement of my elderly father and trying to close his account as Executor, BT have made a huge mess and disconnected OUR Landline 600 miles away. We are in middle of arranging funeral, a farm so need phone in case of emergency, do not have mobile signal and no one my daughter has spoke to on our behalf knows how to put this mess right immediately. Added to that they have been into OUR on line account and made a complete mess of everything, it was fine when my husband logged on last Thursday to report what we thought was a line fault as a result of the storms. BT are causing total stress to this family. My father's land line was disconnected when I first requested it in October whilst he was in hospital and it was clear he wasn't coming home. I contacted bereavement team to simply get final invoice sent to me to close account and they seem to have linked my father's name to our Landline somehow and disconnected. I have the following reference number from them xxxxxxxxxxx everything was OK until I contacted them. We have tried fault reporting but as our line no longer exists they can't help and my husband has raised two complaints and we haven't had a response to either and this is now urgent as funeral is on Thursday. If I don't get it reinstated by Monday I am going to local media here in Inverness with this as I don't think headline Grieving pensioner phone line disconnected in error whilst arranging funeral  will look good. Thankfully we have a satellite broadband service with a brilliant company otherwise we would be totally isolated. 

[-Richie-]

I'm sorry for your loss, I have asked a moderator to help, they are really busy but are the only BT employees on this forum.

[Highlandcrofter]

Thank you. Life without the Landline on a farm is bad enough but during a pandemic and trying to arrange a funeral 600 miles away that I can't attend why does no one at BT know how to fix this mess they have created and put it right straight away.

[JohnC2]

Hi @Highlandcrofter welcome to the forum and very sorry that the bereavement team have disconnected your service in error and at such a difficult time.

Was it a telephone line only or did you also have broadband? 
Have you called in to 0800 800 150 so a new order can be raised to reconnect your line?

It's just I know you want to get connected as soon as possible and we would take a few days to get to you as we are very busy at the moment.

cheers

John

[Highlandcrofter]

Moderator thank you. Yes it is Landline only service and yes my daughter reported it from her landline to the fault reporting line Thursday evening twice (they cut her off the first time when they put her on hold). 

[Highlandcrofter]

No not requested a new line as we want our old line and number reconnected. This is their mistake and we are not paying for a new line.         As a farm a lot of people we deal with have our number. 

[Highlandcrofter]

Moderator my husband has just checked our bank as monthly DD due to go and appears BT have now cancelled our DD as well. This is going from bad to worse. 

[Highlandcrofter]

The exchange is at the end of our farm lane (was built on the farm) surely just needs someone to go and reconnect as our line goes directly into exchange building and has its own switch as sometimes it get knocked when they are working in there and we have to go through the whole report process to get someone to switch it back on so they put a sign on it. So not sure why reconnection should take days. I don't have days I have a funeral on Thursday and family members to contact still about details many elderly with no email or Internet.

[-Richie-]

@Highlandcrofter 

Do you have confirmation your line was ceased ? either a 'sorry to see you leave' or 'stopping due to bereavement' ?

I'm trying to confirm this was a cease and not a fault, I then have other questions so I can point you in the right direction.

[Highlandcrofter]

Thank you, no not as yet but I have had a final paper bill sent to our address for my father's Landline account showing zero balance which is correct as I disputed a fee for closing the account as it was a bereavement, I wish now I had just paid it and put up with it as it was contacting the bereavement team that started all this as I thought to close his account properly I needed to do it even though his line was already disconnected. Oddly I can still log in to his on line account and everything is there where as ours has clearly been messed with by BT staff.