Help with a friends faulty line

[Oldtimer1]

Hi, I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction to get some assistance with getting a fault sorted.

My friend's widow has been having trouble with her phone line for over 6 weeks now and despite BT claiming to have cleared the fault twice, her line and also broadband is very variable, with no service most of the time.

She's reported it several times and has been fobbed off with various excuses, such as:

The outer wires of the copper cable corrode and protect the inner ones.

Fibre-optic cable only lasts 10 years and hers could be old.

There's a faulty cable at the other end of the village (which I know has no connection to her line).

Every engineer in the area is out working.

She is still trying to deal with her husbands estate and in order to communicate with solicitors, has to drive half a mile to the top of a hill to get a mobile signal. Living half a mile outside the village without a phone and internet is causing her lots of stress and are worried about her.

Any suggestions on how to progress this issue would be gratefully appreciated.

Thank you.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Oldtimer1 

I have asked a moderator to help.

[PaddyB]

Hi @Oldtimer1,

Thank you for posting. I'm sorry if your Friend hasn't been able to get their service repaired. If you send me the details, I'll be able to take a look at this for you and help you get the service repaired. 

I have sent you a private message with instructions on how to contact the team.  You can access your messages via the envelope icon at the top right of the screen, or click on this link, Private messages

Thanks,

Paddy

[Oldtimer1]

Thank you both for your replies and intervention.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we now see some positive response.

Cheers.

[Oldtimer1]

I am delighted to report that an openreach engineer visited my friend's property today and located a fault on a buried armoured cable feeding it. They have got her line working as a temporary measure and are investigating a replacement cable.

Thank you so much for assisting in getting this sorry saga sorted. She is really relieved, knowing that she don't have to wait for the "major outage" to be sorted on the 3rd of December, which the engineers have confirmed has nothing whatsoever to do with her line.

Kind regards,

Brian H.

[DavidM]

Thanks for getting back to let us know your friend is able to use her phone again @Oldtimer1 . That's really great news. We're here if you  need any further help. 

Cheers

David

[Oldtimer1]

Happily, my friend's phone line is still working.

However, she's now received her bill and they have charged her the full amount for the time (well over a month) that her line was out of service.

When she originally asked about compensation she was told she wasn't entitled to any as they considered her fault within a "major outage".

It was proven (once the engineer attended) that her line was not within the outage area, and it would appear that BT don't even consider that her line was faulty.

She would like to make a complaint for the way she was treated, and given that she never got the promised replies from her queries, she would like to send an email; but to whom?

Any further assistance would be gratefully appreciated.

Kind regards,

Brian H.

[RobbieMac]

Hi @Oldtimer1 

Thank you for posting back!

I'm sorry you have had to get back in touch regarding the line fault on your Friend's line.  I understand that her bill includes the full rental for the month.

As there was a complete loss of service she should be entitled to Automatic Compensation.  You can read more about it here >> Automatic Compensation info <<

Is your Friend able to call our helpdesk on 0800 800 150?  We deal with cases strictly in turn as we receive them so there would be a delay in us picking this up.  Ringing the helpdesk and explaining that she was not compensated for the late repair would be the quickest way to get this sorted.

If she is unable to call or runs into any bother please post back and we'll take her details to sort it out.

Thanks,

Robbie

[Paul608085]

@Oldtimer1 

"Fibre-optic cable only lasts 10 years"

I have never heard this before - where did you get this information from?

If true, then surely Openreach's fibre rollout programme is going to be akin to "painting the Forth Bridge" as the saying goes*

Surely this cannot be true?

(*Once finished, go back to the beginning and start again!)

[Tom20001]

The ten year thing was one of the excuses for a faulty service.