Unfair engineers charge applied

[olibruce11]

Hi, we had an engineers visit in April as our phone line suffered from corrosion due to the snow and led to it splitting. We advised bt on the call where the fault was, i.e., it was on the wall of our house, but were not advised this WOULD be chargeable, only read the standard statement. Our view was that the damage was wear and tear, thus in no way could be chargeable, however two months later, just as my wife has gone on maternity leave, we have been billed £129.99. We took pictures of the damage which clearly show corrosion, however when going through the company's complaints/escalation process they are saying the engineers report says the line was cut and are not interested in seeing the pictures which clearly show otherwise. Can anyone help me resolve please without having to take them to court for breach of contract? Thanks inn advance

[Starwire2000]

A charge may have been raised if the cable in question wasn’t installed by BT or Openreach.

Upload the pictures of it, I’ll be able to confirm.

[olibruce11]

Hi, tried to upload but can't get it to work as maximum image size is 333kb which is far too small for any images taken nowadays. Is there a way around this please? Cheers

[olibruce11]

Hi, I've uploaded to imgur if you can view this?

https://imgur.com/a/1PQbojY

[imjolly]

the wire that is corroded and broken looks like standard internal extension cable unlikley fitted by openreach

[iniltous]

Perhaps you could post a picture of what it looks like now.....the old cable does look like a non standard kit, possibly done by a previous occupant ( if not done by yourself ) perhaps someone relocated the phone socket themselves , and didn't do a particular good job , the fault you had being a direct result of that dodgy involvement in 'Openreach's' network.

It always seems unfair , if the fault was before the master socket , and you were not responsible for the dodgy work, but arguably it wasn't OR 'fault' either, if whoever had done this 'work' had left it alone, or got it done by OR properly , then chances are it wouldn't have developed a fault, or if it had , it would have been covered by 'fair wear and tear'.....if you knew this was where the problem was , it would have been better to ask advice on if the repair would be chargeable , before asking your provider to send OR out

[Starwire2000]

That’s a Drop Wire 6.

That wouldn’t have been installed by either BT or Openreach but the GPO! That type of cabling dates back to the 1970’s. Chances are the kid of guy who installed it has probably died of old age.

You shouldn’t have been charged for that.

[licquorice]

I agree with @Starwire2000, that looks like a corroded dropwire. I have asked the mods if they can pick it up.

[RobbieMac]

Hi @olibruce11

Welcome to the community and thanks for your post!

Sorry for the upset being charged for the engineer's visit may have caused you.  I can understand your concern.  Can you send us over your details and we'll check the engineer's report?

When you send us over your details we'll get back to you as soon as you reach the top of our email queue.

Cheers,

Robbie

[olibruce11]

I've uploaded a pic of the repair below if that helps. 

https://imgur.com/a/c4mSUVn