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Message 1 of 14

Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

Please can someone tell me how I can escalate and accelerate a problem with BT.

My elderly (81yrs) father who is frail and has many illnesses (hospitalised twice in November) moved to an assisted living flat 7 days ago.   He relies on his landline and it should have been a simple home move .  However, he can only make outgoing calls.  He cannot receive incoming calls (except from people on EE mobile).  He is terrified that doctor, district nurse, etc. won’t be able to get in touch.   I cannot call him - but I ave been going round to his flat every day – but I need to be away for work all next week. I won’t be able to get in touch.  We are desparate to get this fixed.  I have spent hours on the phone with the BT call centre over the last week .  I have seen the problem of not receiving incoming calls mentioned many times on this Forum, so you would think it would be something BT would be aware of and able to sort out relatively quikly.  But it is going nowhere.

Over the last 6 days I have spoken to 6 different people at BT Call centre who have all told me different things (e.g.  - order is on the wrong line (to old house); it is number porting issues;  it is broadband issue and needs engineer to cabinet (Broadband is working fine), it is DV issue).   During this period, a BT engineer showed up at the wrong house (Dad’s hold house) which we didn't know anything about in advance.  After which I got an email asking me to book an engineer,  which a call centre staff person then said I didn’t need to respond to.   Right hand doesn't know what left hand is doing, everyone is telling me something different, and nothing is moving forwards. I need one person to take hold of it and sort it out.   How can I escalate it to a manager?

(Before Dad’s move, I also had major problems with the order. BT made some error with the order, they had to cancel it, and then the cancellation got stuck in the system – it took 6 phone calls between 3-17th January to get it moving again. With different people telling me different things).  

Because Dad is so concerned about having a phone service, his whole move was organised around a date that BT gave us for doing the home move.  This was the 20th Jan - and they have totally failed him.  He has been a BT customer all his adult life.

Thank you for any help

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Message 2 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

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Message 3 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

@Pulmonaria 

Welcome to this customer to customer help forum for BT Residential phone and broadband customers.

The only BT employees on this forum are the moderators, who no longer have account access.

I have asked one of them to post here with advice.

Is your father registered with BTs priority service?

https://www.bt.com/help/landline/getting-set-up/help-people-with-impairments-or-with-particular-need...

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Message 4 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

this may help and is your father registered as vulnerable  https://www.bt.com/help/here-for-you

when your father moved is he now on digital voice where the phone connects to the green socket on back of BT HUb?



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Message 5 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

Thank you for replying and for contacting a moderator.

The link you sent for registering as vulnerable doesn't seem to work - I get a Secure Connection Failure message -  Error code: PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR. .  I also get it with the link the next reply below also included - so maybe there is a problem with these BT Webpages.

In my last phone call with BT yesterday I filled out a Welfare Case form with the person at the call centre.  But after doing this she said she would call me back within 4 hours (which would have been about 3pm yesterday).  Needless to say, that didn't happen.......

 

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Message 6 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

Hello - thanks for replying.

The link you suggested 'here for you' doesn't seem to work.  I get same error message as for link previous poster sent.

Yes, the phone line is plugged into green port at back of hub - but thanks for suggesting.

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Message 7 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

the links work so it must be your device  try changing to a different browser - it works on pc using chrome and edge



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Message 8 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

Link works fine for me

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Message 9 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

Thanks.  I tried Firefox and Safari on my Mac and the links don't work on either of them. 

He is already hopefully registered as a Welfare case - although I didn't hear back from the call centre about the action they would take based on this as I was promised.

 

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Message 10 of 14

Re: Vulnerable, ill, elderly man unable to receive calls for a week

I just tried to download Chrome for Mac - but my operating system is too old.  Also I can't use Edge on Mac.  I tried to get to the 'here for you' page by simply googling it - but it gives me the same error.  So it doesn't look like those BT pages are accessible for me given the age of my computer and operating system.  

 

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