Taking BT to small claims court

[gg30340]

---

@rolg1 wrote:

I have been with BT for many decades. I recently discovered they over charged me by many hundreds if not thousands. Can anyone advise how to formulate a small claims court challenge to recover some of the excessive charges?

I see that the answer I gave to your question and the title of your post which is quoted above was not to your liking so you now change the question to ...

"Silly answer, I posted here to see if I can find another BT customer who has actually taken a similar case and to find out what the result was, the time it took etc"

Perhaps if you had correctly formulated your post and question in such a manner that people reading it could actually work out what you were trying to ask/achieve you would have been given an answer more to your liking.

It now appears that you are not seeking an answer about how to take BT to a Small Claims Court as you first stated but rather to have a moan about how much you have been charged over a certain period of time despite having been given an explanation and final resolution letter by BT.

If you do want to take BT to a Small Claims Court my first answer still applies because nobody on this forum are qualified to give you any legal advice or assistance in how to go about that because every case is different.

[Bob1001]

There is a small, very very small minority that pay the GPO/BT (shows how far that goes back) a rental for the phone etc. These people will not have master sockets with everything hard wired and as such BT (no doubt passed to open reach) is still the responsibility of BT.

Some don't have master sockets where the external wiring can be separated and in this case the internal wiring is still the responsibility of BT/Openreach but not the phone.

I now of one lady who was 91 before she died and still had a very noisy Plan 1A, I don't know if anyone ever came out to repair it but the rental was still on her bill.

Other than that all internal wiring and phones that are connected to the customer side of the master socket is owned by the customer and their responsibility. Should I say "Subscriber" to date me.

[iniltous]

AFAIK there has always been a grey area , where hardwired installations were in place , as obviously there isn’t an easy demarcation point that you get with a ‘modern’ NTE, modern being a relative term , NTE5 were the default socket since the early 80’s , ( so 40 years ago )…if ( and it’s a very big ‘if’ ) there are hardwired installations that  report a fault and there is a need to convert to a modern NTE , that work is not charged for by Openreach, the problem , potentially , is that by converting to a master socket , that needs a modern phone ( the implication is that a hardwired system would have a hard wired phone ) and the customer may only have the old hard wired phone  , but years ago , many installations would convert the BT30 where a phone cord would be connected,  to an intermediate point and a master socket connects to that…but that isn’t a hard wired installation, there is a demarcation point .

Admittedly,  there may be a very tiny number of original hard wired rotary dial 706/746 ‘Post Office’ phones in use, but how would these people navigate anything other than a personal call, as almost any call to a business , (unless a very small business) requires the * and # key to be pressed and obviously a hard wired 706/746 phone wouldn’t have this.

I’m sure I read , many years ago, that ‘BT’ effectively stopped charging rental on the very few customers that were paying rental on a phone instrument and the rental phone became the renters property, if there were some that were missed that’s unfortunate , but it must be rare that anyone would continue to pay a few ££ per month rental on an item that can be had for the equivalent of 2-3 months rental, as far as the OP, there is no suggestion that they were hardwired or paying rental on a phone instrument 

[Bob1001]

@iniltousThe old lady I knew liked her ivory 232s and did not want to change them, I updated them from candlesticks over 50 years ago when I was a T2A. She was deaf anyway so it probably did not matter if the phones still worked now.

PS I bought the candlesticks from the GPO to the best of  my recollection they cost me 5 shillings, I still have them.

[-Richie-]

---

@iniltouswrote:

I’m sure I read , many years ago, that ‘BT’ effectively stopped charging rental on the very few customers that were paying rental on a phone instrument and the rental phone became the renters property

---

You are correct, there are no rentals anymore and anyone that had them are now free.

[rolg1]

You obviously have nothing better to do with your time than whinge about matters that do not concern you in any way.

[rolg1]

Why do you think what you wrote has anything to do with the fact that

at my address the BT wiring that connects to their junction box somewhere down the road goes through an ancient GPO terminal on the outside wall of the house, that has been exposed to weather for 40 or 50 years ??

I should never have be charged for repairing any of its corroded terminals or work to re-connect wires that had gone open or short circuit as a result of corrosion.  Faults in ancient outside GPO wiring that had repeatedly caused my phone not to work cannot possibly have been my responsibility, regardless of changes in BT terms and conditions over the years. 

[Bob1001]

@rolg1  You are correct you should never be charged for any repairs from your master socket outwards. And if no master socket NTE5 type you should not be charged for any wiring repairs.

If you reported a fault from the master socket inwards then you will be charged and also if no fault is found anywhere and it works then you can be charged for the visit.

[iniltous]

I’m sure no one is arguing that any repair to what Openreach are responsible for should be anything other than free ( included in the line rental more accurately ) but internal wiring is another matter, if you reported a fault and the issue was ‘external’ then the only justification for a charge would be if the lineplant were damaged rather than fair wear and tear ( digging up the driveway and chopping an underground cable isn’t fair we’re and tear so would be charged for ) , 40 years of weather degrading an external connection block is fair wear and tear and the repair or replacement is covered and not charged for….if you were charged for something like this , the details can be reviewed and if appropriate the charges refunded ( if a charge were made in error )

[rolg1]

Repairs to lines dead as a door nail because of open or short circuits caused by corroded contacts in 50 year old GOP wires cannot be made the responsibility of anyone other than the legal owner of such wiring.