For the second time this year, mum's phone has stopped working. She's bed-bound and unable to use a mobile phone. Having reported the fault yesterday, we've had a message saying BT aim to fix it by 19/9/24. This means she can't call us and we can't call her for up to 6 days and 6 nights. When this happened earlier in the year, we ended up having to pay for extra visits by her carers and also had to upgrade her emergency call pendant so she wasn't dependent on an unreliable landline. She's already paying £75 a month for her phone and broadband and for a vulnerable pensioner on a fixed income, these extra costs are really difficult.
What's the best way to escalate? There's a form for some kind of priority repair service, but you have to print the form, get it countersigned by a doctor and send it by post!
is your mother registered here https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt/help/including-you/BT_Free_Priority_Fault_Repair_Scheme.pdf
does your mother qualify here https://www.bt.com/exp/broadband/home-essentials?s_cid=con_bt_dg-home_awin_aff_vidAJM_110483-Editori...
Unfortunately weekends don’t count as working days , and the target is two working days after the report ( not including the report day ) , so Wednesday or Thursday is the target depending on if Saturday is the report day or Monday is ( 18th or 19th is the target ) but that doesn’t mean it can’t be repaired before then , but also depending on what the problem is it could take longer …that’s just the way it is , but there is a scheme to register vulnerable customers.
Your mother may qualify for a social tariff ( pension credit is one qualifying benefit ) which reduces the price of broadband and phone , but even without qualification for the social tariff, a typical price for broadband and phone from BT is around £33 a month , so if genuinely paying £75 for just broadband and phone there is obviously substantial saving to be made by joining a current broadband and phone ‘plan’ .