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Message 1 of 7

Fault appointment email for an unknown fault?

My 93 year-old father-in-law has received an email notifying him of an engineer appointment to look into a fault. He knows nothing about the fault and has not reported one. The email is from btcomms@info.bt.com, so it looks genuine. But the email is worded as though he has reported a fault, which he hasn't. Is this likely to be genuine? Could someone else have reported a fault on his line without his knowledge?

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Message 2 of 7

Re: Fault appointment email for an unknown fault?

Hi @alan57fisher,

Welcome to the BT Community

The e-mail address you have given is a legitimate e-mail address. However it is possible though it is showing as coming from that e-mail, the actual sender e-mail address is different as that is a common tactic for phishing. You can usually tell this by clicking on the e-mail address at the top of the e-mail where it will show the address it has actually come from. 

Does the e-mail include any identifying information such as his account number? If he has not reported a fault himself it is likely to be a phishing e-mail. Does he have a BTID and if he logs in there is there any fault showing? You can click the login and track a fault button at the bottom of the page here Report and track your BT problem | BT Help

If you can see that it has actually been sent from another e-mail I would recommend forwarding the e-mail to phishing@bt.com

Alex
 

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Message 3 of 7

Re: Fault appointment email for an unknown fault?

@Alex_H 

"If he has not reported a fault himself it is likely to be a phishing e-mail."

It is a few years ago that I retired from BT, but I thought that in the past, it was not only the account holder that could report a fault?

For example, if a concerned relative was unable to get an answer after multiple call attempts, they might contact the Operator, who would get the line checked, (by the Repair Service Control), and reported for repair if faulty - possibly before the account holder was aware of a problem. That might then lead to an engineer arrive at their home "unexpectedly".

Does this no longer happen?

 

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Message 4 of 7

Re: Fault appointment email for an unknown fault?

That’s probably a very old policy, imagine you could report a fault on someone else’s ‘line’ , and your ISP/CP reported it to Openreach ( without any confirmation of access being available ) , OR turn up at the address ( a surprise to the occupant ) who lets them in anyway , the technician checks and finds the customer has inadvertently left a handset ‘of the hook’ rendering the line out of service ( but the occupant hadn’t tried to make a call so was oblivious ) , the tech helpfully replaces the handset and makes an incoming call , that can be answered etc ….if the occupant had reported that themselves, it would be a text book chargable visit ( no fault , the customer was responsible ) but with a third party report, who ‘pays the bill’ ? , the customer didn’t ask Openreach ( via their CP /ISP ) to visit , the person reporting the issue has no relationship with BT on this matter , so you can’t charge them , and  how can people know who is the supplier of someone else’s line is , then are hundreds of providers , not just BT  , so who would a third party report it to ? , and then you have a report without an appointment, so if OR turn up unannounced, and there is no one home , that’s another chargable event ( no access )  , so for those reasons , and probably a few others , third party reports are pointless and not acted upon.

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Message 5 of 7

Re: Fault appointment email for an unknown fault?

When I originally posted this, the BT account services weren't working. Since then, I've been in and verified that there is a fault report, with the fault reference quoted in the email. So I'm pretty sure it's genuine. It's also a fault report for broadband connection, which makes it unlikely someone else would have raised it because they couldn't get through to him.

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Message 6 of 7

Re: Fault appointment email for an unknown fault?

@iniltous 

You make some fair points in the context of the way things are today.

" as well as how can most people know who is the supplier , then are hundreds , not just BT"

It was the mid to late 1980s that I was thinking about, around the time of BT privatisation, so the only suppliers then would have been BT and Mercury!

 

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Message 7 of 7

Re: Fault appointment email for an unknown fault?

@alan57fisher Thanks for providing an update, it sounds like everything is genuine then with it also appearing in his MyBT account.  

However as he has no knowledge of the fault, I would suggest he give our team a call on 150 from a BT Mobile or 0330 1234 150 from any phone and they should be able to provide more information on how the fault report has come about. 

Alex

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