No landline for 3.5 weeks

[hra29904]

Hi Keith. I don't exactly know why my service was disconnected but yes I did report it by text as a fault. I received a text reply that an engineer would call back within 48 hours but by the  time the 48 hours was nearly up I called BT anyway and was told my service had been deactivated on 5 January.

On 5 January I also unexpectely received an email saying "Your service is now live"  and "Your broadband service is ready". It was actually in calling BT to find out why I had received this email that I found my landline was not working!

[Keith_Beddoe]

Did you make any changes to your broadband package, that may have triggered the loss of the phone line, as a regrade would normally result in the loss of the physical phone line, and a migration to DV, as its not possible to keep a PSTN line after a regrade or renewal of contract.

[hra29904]

No I didn't make any changes to my package.  I also received an earlier email on 27 December saying "Your service is now live" but this did not result in loss of landline service. 

[hra29904]

My contract is actually due to expire before the 29 January switchover but it hasn't expired yet.

[Keith_Beddoe]

That should not make any difference, as you would simply carry on monthly, out of contract prices.

Someone has made an error.

[hra29904]

Yes that is my impression too, verbally from the first call I made after reporting the fault. I find it hard to believe that they cannot bring forward the date of the phone part of the switch, which they have already changed once (as I did too) or offer any physical solution given my lack of a reliable mobile signal at the moment. No questions have been asked as to whether I am vulnerable or look after another vulnerable person.

[RobbieMac]

Hi @hra29904

Welcome and thanks for your posts!

I am sorry for the problems you're having making and receiving calls since your switch over to Digital Voice.  I appreciate the amount of your own time that you've spent trying to get this sorted out.

Get in touch with us and we'll see what can be done.  I have sent you a private message with instructions on how you can send us over your details and we'll look into this for you. See: Private messages

Thanks,

Robbie

[hra29904 · Accepted solution]

Just to post how this all ended up.

On 29 January I did get my landline back and did not lose my number. Both BT and my potential new supplier had advised me to wait.

During this period I only had a PAYG mobile with unreliable mobile service and also lost access to any online website which sent security codes to my landline. Some of these were time-critical or had sent secure messages online I could not access and were very inflexible about changing the security arrangements.

The vulnerable person I help to support was away during part of this period but that was a worry as well.

Part-way through the outage however, I went to an EE shop and the very helpful members of staff replaced my mobile phone SIM, which resolved the frequent loss of signal.

In addition the BT team here were also very helpful in contacting me promptly and addressing the complaint, trying to see what options there really were.

Far from the £20 I was initially offered, they have ensured I will get automatic compensation for the whole 3.5 weeks.