BT - jokers

Spirit7

Spirit7

Spirit7

Associate
Joined
7 Dec 2004
Posts
563
Location
London (uni); Paris (Home)
RAGE RAGE RAGE

Moving into a new property which already has phone points installed, but no dialtone. BT want £125 to connect it to the exchange, and won't be able to do it until August 27th :mad:

TWUNTS.
 
Their internet is awful. I want to transfer my speedy BE connection over but they require a BT line...
 
Cyanide said:
Join Sky, get decent TV, free phone calls, free internet and claim the connection back :p
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Is that right though? I thought it was a bit of a myth that Sky let you claim the connection fee back.

You can pay your line rental to Sky now too - do you still have to pay the connection fee?
 
Sky require a BT line anyway, or at least they do round here. They charge us line rental also, so that's a fiver a month to BT for doing sod all.

Had them in for about a fortnight then went back to NTL due to the haneously slow speeds.
 
scorza said:
Is that right though? I thought it was a bit of a myth that Sky let you claim the connection fee back.

You can pay your line rental to Sky now too - do you still have to pay the connection fee?
Click to expand...

I got my connection fee credited to my sky account in November, got me quite a few months without having to pay :p

The sky line rental is, afaik, still a BT line. You just pay everything through sky so that the whole service is paid through one account.
 
They won't actually charge you £125 unless they have to install wires. Had this same issue when me and the wife moved into our flat last year.
 
That's not true. We have the BT points installed but there's no dialtone. They still have to connect us to the exchange (as it's a new line) and apparently that'll cost £125.
 
Spirit7 said:
That's not true. We have the BT points installed but there's no dialtone. They still have to connect us to the exchange (as it's a new line) and apparently that'll cost £125.
Click to expand...
Of the 3 times I've had BT lines installed in places I've lived, I've never once paid for it doing. Twice they had to do some re-wiring into the house aswell.

You can get it done earlier too, just phone up and moan until they offer you a date sooner, they have loads of free slots if you push them. I've never had to wait more than 3 days for an installation.
 
I spent ages on the phone to them earlier.

I was meant to get my line activated (aka flick a switch) on the 4th july. I didn't hear from them and i assumed my line was active (before anyone points out that i could have tested it myself - i have hardly spent more than a couple of hours at home for the past few weeks!). I then got a letter from sky saying my activation date for my broadband has been pushed back because BT haven't activated the line!

I got on the phone to them the next day - they didn't know what had happened to the engineer originally but i had to re-arrange the date to the next week. I wanted the coming friday but after a lot of pestering they wouldn't do it. The engineer came round, tested the line and it was all fine. I had been given the impression on the phone that they had to do a lot of work in the property hence the need for a visit - clearly this wasn't true. I also demanded a refund of my activation fee but again, they told me to call up after the line was activated..

I called them earlier to demand a refund and i was told flat out that they could not refund the charge because of the work that had to be done. they said an engineer visited on the 4th but they couldn't access the property (this is despite me giving them my mobile number and explicitly stating that the engineer needs to call me close to the time - they didn't). I was then told i couldn't get a "missed appointment" payment of £10 because I had missed the appointment, not them. They also told me they sent me a letter to tell me i needed to contact them to re-arrange an appointment. This letter never turned up. There was also a massive flaw in what they were saying - the engineer who did eventually come round did nothing but check the line was OK at our end, so surely if no work ever needed to be done, wouldn't the line have been activated anyway without the need for the engineer to visit back on the 4th? They couldn't give me an answer for this.

Eventually after speaking to their manager they gave me a £10 refund for the missed appointment after they accepted there had been some miss-communication. They would not, however, refund the activation fee because the previous person was not on a BT service so they had to do work on the line. Carp. I'd pursue the matter further but having already spent the best part of 1-2hrs on the phone to them i've given up
 
Has the property had virgin installed previously? This may be the problem, thus necessitating an engineer. If it's not connected at the exchange and in the street it'll obviously need to be. Why dont you call virgin and ask what they can do for you? Their broadband is very speedy, on par with BE imo.
 
trojan698 said:
Has the property had virgin installed previously? This may be the problem, thus necessitating an engineer. If it's not connected at the exchange and in the street it'll obviously need to be. Why dont you call virgin and ask what they can do for you? Their broadband is very speedy, on par with BE imo.
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Nope - cable isn't available in the area.
 
I'll echo the others. THey say £125 but if there is already a line, you shouldn't be charged. Happenned to me.
 
If you want broadband that is not cable you need a BT line. If there is no BT line in the house, or there is a BT line that has been disconnected/ unbundled from the exchange then they charge you £125. There was an article about it in The Guardian in 2007 here :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/oct/27/internetphonesbroadband.moneysupplement

Has happened to me twice in the last 12 months, one time we moved into a place that had been vacant for a week yet we were told the line had been disconnected.

I got so peeved off I've actually written to my MP about this charge as I think it is outrageous and unfair.My MP has responded and is taking it up with BT's head of political affairs on my behalf :)
 
Youstolemyname said:
If you want broadband that is not cable you need a BT line. If there is no BT line in the house, or there is a BT line that has been disconnected/ unbundled from the exchange then they charge you £125. There was an article about it in The Guardian in 2007 here :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/oct/27/internetphonesbroadband.moneysupplement

Has happened to me twice in the last 12 months, one time we moved into a place that had been vacant for a week yet we were told the line had been disconnected.

I got so peeved off I've actually written to my MP about this charge as I think it is outrageous and unfair.My MP has responded and is taking it up with BT's head of political affairs on my behalf :)
Click to expand...

happened to me 3 times in 2 1/2 years!
 
oli collett said:
I spent ages on the phone to them earlier.

I was meant to get my line activated (aka flick a switch) on the 4th july. I didn't hear from them and i assumed my line was active (before anyone points out that i could have tested it myself - i have hardly spent more than a couple of hours at home for the past few weeks!). I then got a letter from sky saying my activation date for my broadband has been pushed back because BT haven't activated the line!

I got on the phone to them the next day - they didn't know what had happened to the engineer originally but i had to re-arrange the date to the next week. I wanted the coming friday but after a lot of pestering they wouldn't do it. The engineer came round, tested the line and it was all fine. I had been given the impression on the phone that they had to do a lot of work in the property hence the need for a visit - clearly this wasn't true. I also demanded a refund of my activation fee but again, they told me to call up after the line was activated..

I called them earlier to demand a refund and i was told flat out that they could not refund the charge because of the work that had to be done. they said an engineer visited on the 4th but they couldn't access the property (this is despite me giving them my mobile number and explicitly stating that the engineer needs to call me close to the time - they didn't). I was then told i couldn't get a "missed appointment" payment of £10 because I had missed the appointment, not them. They also told me they sent me a letter to tell me i needed to contact them to re-arrange an appointment. This letter never turned up. There was also a massive flaw in what they were saying - the engineer who did eventually come round did nothing but check the line was OK at our end, so surely if no work ever needed to be done, wouldn't the line have been activated anyway without the need for the engineer to visit back on the 4th? They couldn't give me an answer for this.

Eventually after speaking to their manager they gave me a £10 refund for the missed appointment after they accepted there had been some miss-communication. They would not, however, refund the activation fee because the previous person was not on a BT service so they had to do work on the line. Carp. I'd pursue the matter further but having already spent the best part of 1-2hrs on the phone to them i've given up
Click to expand...

To be fair, the engineer may have been working externally a while before coming to the house to confirm it was working. I used to test the line first before visiting the customer, if it showed it wasn't registering a socket on the line, I'd go and do all the external work I could, rather than heading to the customer, fiddling around, going back and forth and disrupting them more.
 
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