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Message 1 of 28

My Story

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Long Story short...

6th September - I have a house fire, Obviously causing BT to not be able to supply me with service.

16 September - call BT to ask for help - Told an engineer would be out within 3 days

- No Engineer.

22nd September - Still no engineer so call again - receive mini hub for 'allways connect' broadband - Engineer rebooked booked for 7th October

7th October - Engineers cancels visit 2 hour before appointment. New visit to be arranged

- No Engineer booked or visits.

22nd October - I check online to find out where my engineer is, to find out Problem marked as 'Fixed' and Mini Hub to be cancled.

22nd October call BT as obviously my problem is not fixed... There was a house fire! And no engineer has even been out to look! - Engineer booked for 'earliest visit' ... 7th November.

 

.... Now i obviously realise BT cant help with the fact my house had a fire but should it really take 52 days for an engineer to come out and see if the main socket is still good and if they can run a new cable from the main socket to somewhere else???

.... Still paying my £49.81 a month for BT while all im getting right now is a 4G mini hub ... I do hope the engineer does make it on the 7th Nov...

 

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Message 2 of 28

Re: My Story

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I will flag this up for a moderator to take a look at it for you. 

(If I have helped you in any way please click the thumbs up. Thank You)
If I have solved your Issue please click the "Mark as accepted solution" button.
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Message 3 of 28

Re: My Story

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I'm sorry if I'm missing something here but why do you need an engineer out to see if the main socket is still working or not? You can see for yourself, just plug a phone into it, if the phone works the socket is still working.

As regards an eextention cable from the main socket is your responsibility not Oprenreaches. You can either do it yourself or pay Openreach or anyone of your chioce to do it for you.

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Message 4 of 28

Re: My Story

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🙂 a very good question pippincp!

My original call to BT  after the fire was to call and cancel the service as it was unusable.. But I was told a BT engineer would come out and help us out as we're are able to still live on site (in static homes)

BT seemed very helpful and sure they would be able to help during 'these stressful times'

Its the fact that 'THEY' said they would help and haven't is my real complaint...

The main socket is still fine and a phone will work but like I told BT on day one, the power has been cut off to the main house so we could not run a router...

'no problem' they said 'we'll send an engineer to fix everything for you'

Now after 2 months of paying for a service I still can't use I am here complaining.

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Message 5 of 28

Re: My Story

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@anothercomplaint So sorry to hear about your home.

I presume that the static homes have electricity? If so, then you could run a telephone extension cable to them and use the router that way.

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Message 6 of 28

Re: My Story

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TBH , I think this is a misunderstanding with what ‘BT’ are assuming Openreach can and will do in what is a pretty unusual situation,

If the master phone socket ‘works’ , in other words if you plugged a standard corded telephone into it , and  you could make and receive calls , then as far as Openreach are concerned, there isn’t a fault , if the property doesn’t currently have electricity , so no point in connecting the router , is not your provider (BT) or OR’s ‘problem’ , if you made this clear to ‘BT’ , then BT raising a fault with Openreach was always  the incorrect approach , and OR cancelling the ‘fault’ visit is understandable, OR will remotely test the line and see it ‘tests’ OK , any ‘notes’ about house fires etc would not be acted upon.

A separate issue is , if your request to BT was to maintain broadband at the temporary accommodation during the power outage at the ‘main’ address , then offering the mini hub etc. ( assuming the alternative accommodation has power ) does  gets you back on line , you may feel that this is substandard and that paying ‘full price’ for less than a full service is wrong , but the alternative would be to ( as you may initially wanted to have done )  was to cancel you service completely, and if still within a minimum term contract paying early termination charges, until the property is habitable again , then reorder with a new minimum term contract etc.

FWIW , you probably should ( if you feel the cost is excessive for the service provided and there are no onerous penalty’s  ) is go back to BT and cancel , the details of the fire are probably only going to confuse the matter, simply say you want to cancel, send back the mini hub and any other equipment when requested,  and make other ‘temporary’ arrangements at the mobile home …when the house is habitable again , order new service with whoever you want to use.

If the existing setup , although not ideal,  is acceptable, continue as you are without expecting an OR visit to rearrange landline service from the house to mobile home , after all if they did move service to the mobile home ( assuming that’s even possible ) this would have to be reversed at some point in the future, so OR have the expense of this work , when it isn’t Openreach responsibility as it isn’t a fault in the recognised sense.

As already stated , if you have mains power at the temporary accommodation, you could either run a power extension to the house for the normal router , and hopefully pick up WiFi in the mobile home, or provide a phone extension lead from the phone socket in the house ,  into the mobile home and relocate the normal router to the mobile home getting you back on line using the ‘landline’ service, cancel the ‘fault’ and send back the 4g mini hub, doing either of these things is something you would need to organise yourself, this isn’t really something BT should be suggesting OR will do for you as part of a fault report  , because it isn’t, but as indicated, you could ask for an external extension to be provided from the house to mobile home  , a service you would be charged for by BT  , but it may be cheaper/quicker getting it organised independently 

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Message 7 of 28

Re: My Story

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Thank you @iniltous ,

A very detailed and helpful message!

I think you are right it seems to be confusion over what BT and OR can actually do to help, I wish your message was sent to me at the start and from your advice I could have sorted it myself or canceled and go a EE hub for a fraction of the cost.

Like I have said before my main complaint Is that BT told me they would help and sort it... But after reading your message I think I will just cancel the account. (I'll get an independent quote to run the line to the static first...)

Am I also right in thinking if OR send someone out and deem there is no 'fault' BT will try and charge me for the engineers visit?

 

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Message 8 of 28

Re: My Story

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Yes an Openreach visit in these circumstances is potentially chargable , it’s not guaranteed it depends on how the engineer books the job off , even if it were chargeable , it’s possible they would provide a temporary ‘connection’ into the mobile home , so you would get something for the charge , but they could simply walk away saying it’s not faulty at such.
Obviously depending on how close to the house the mobile home is could dictate if a temporary connection is possible, I think I would explore if it is possible to lay a temporary cable between the existing socket in the house to an extension socket in the mobile home and connect the router there, then when the house is habitable again simply remove the temporary cable , but it may not be that easy
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Message 9 of 28

Re: My Story

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Hi @anothercomplaint and welcome back.

It's been a really long time but great to have you back again. I'm really sorry to hear about your house fire, I hope everyone is ok. I'd like to take a look at this for you if that suits. I'll drop you over a message now so you can get in touch.

Cheers

David

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Message 10 of 28

Re: My Story

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After numourus chats and calls with DavidM from BTForum (A very helpful and caring person A+ to David) we decided the best thing to do would be cancel the whole account and create a new customer account (As BT said Open Reach may charge upto £100 per hour to a loyal customer of ten years but a new customer would receive the same service free of charge)

4th Nov - New broadband package ordered! 😄 - Explained during order that i had an existing complaint about BT on home adress and i wanted a new line to a new building so created a new adress

21st November Engineer visits ... Could not instal a new line as was only tasked with connecting from a mian socket on site. Engineer reported back to OR that a NEW LINE WAS NEEDED and new appointment booked

28th November engineer misses visit

5th December ACTIVATION DAY 😄
5th December Engineer visits ... Could not instal a new line as was only tasked with connecting from a mian socket on site.AGAIN

12 December Engineer visits ... Could not instal a new line as was only tasked with connecting from a mian socket on site.AGAIN

Told next visit would be Jan 7th.

23rd December, Feed up with such poor service so cancelled order. Promised on phone compensation would be paid as per BT's automatic compensation gaurantee. Glad of this as four days off work for engineers visits has cost me alot.

29th December, called to chase compensation... Told because I cancelled the compensation is also cancelled.

Serves me right for doing the right thing and cancelling as soon as i decided to give up with BT rather then letting the days add up at £5.25 per day to claim more 'Automatic Compensation' THEN cancelling..

Another POOR POOR show from BT .
Glad my 5G Mobile Wifi service is so much better than the promised Broadband rate BT sai i would get. To show a little respect to BT i wont say the 'ID' of the 'MOBILE' company now providing me with cheaper faster service than BT.

Plan on buying another service from the 'ID' hidden 'MOBILE' provider once i get back into the house.

BT can count me out as a customer from here on in.
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