What's the best way of getting BT out to sort a line problem?

bledd

bledd

bledd

Don
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My mum has had a line issue since February.

There was a lightning strike which took out the router and PC.. I've given her a new router (and BT have) and replaced the PC.

Internet was previously a very modest, but stable 1.2-1.6 Mbps. It would disconnect maybe 2-3 times a month.


Since February, it has been disconnecting multiple times a day and today it has a speed of 160 Kbps, which is dreadfully unusable and it keeps disconnecting.


She goes round in circles with the Indian call centres. An engineer came out about a month ago, mumbled something about a line problem and she never heard anything back.

It's driving her crazy spending hours on the phone each week going through the same old drivel from the call centre.

Anyone on here able to pull some weight or advise what to do to get it sorted? -Worth switching to Plusnet and let them deal with it?
 
Best thing you can do is get a fault raised (the original has probably closed now) and keep hammering them, get an engineer out, if they fail then get on the phone and press them and press them. Ask to escalate every time they miss an appointment or don't fix it or as soon as they hit 5 working days. Just hammer them, yes it will be time consuming and a strain on your time but it will sort it.

If you switch to plus net you are just adding a link to the chain and they are less likely to convey the same passion to BT themselves that you will do.
 
I also was having this issue for a few weeks with the net disconnecting continuously, on and off etc. I am with TalkTalk and the guy was good on the phone. He said they would get someone to get back to me. That was days ago!!

Anyway, i sorted the issue out myself after some detective work. It turned out that the bit that you can pull off at the bottom of BT Master socket was faulty (Even though it looked fine!) I ordered a replacement from Amazon and only replaced this part. Been working superbly ever since.

Still not heard from Talktalk either!!
 
BT are awful for this. Our church is under a railway bridge (in the arch) and has a business line. At the beginning of this year the line just went silent. Totally dead, nothing. I checked the obvious (new handset, checking connections etc) to no avail.

After no less than two dozen calls to BT over the space of a month and a half we still hadn't got anywhere. We kept getting the same script over and again, asking us to dial them from the handset. We kept repeating it was totally dead, no dial tone, no calls possible. "That's great sir, please dial 150 from that handset and we will speak to you on that line". We then got told an engineer would visit between 9am and 5pm at some point in the following week. Not possible, we say. This is a business line in a non-residential premises. It's only open four days a week and only then for three hours at a time. We need a time (even a half day slot) to have someone arrange to open up and be there. We booked THREE engineer visits and waited in for four hours at a time; no show on any of them. We escalated to complaints and got a complaint reference and were promised it would be resolved.

Eventually we got an engineer out and he came as far as the street cabinet, said it looked OK at that end and left. Didn't even bother to check the line into the premises or the socket, and we'd waited in for six hours that day thinking he hadn't showed up. He did, he just didn't tell us or come into the premises to check anything. Months later and no further on, we now have a VM line. Not especially relevant to you, admittedly, but I'm led to believe this kind of kerfuffle is typical with BT. Be patient, be pushy and don't let it drop.

Good luck. :(
 
Are there any voice issues with the line? It sounds like you need a proper broadband engineer. Ask specifically for a LL14, also known as an SFI engineer. Make sure everything in the house, router, DSL cable and filters have been changed and tested and the test socket has been tried. Once that's been done any 'threats' of charges are unfounded and just BT playing it safe as if there is a fault BT will have to pay Openreach.
 
Definitely try the test socket (have to take faceplate of to see it) because it will eliminate all wiring in the house.
 
BT are terrible for comming out to problems! They try to charge you too if they don't find a problem! Happend to me i got charged 70 quid for a no fault found and later that same problem/fault just never went away so i got in touch again but with evidence! This all took about 13 phone calls. Then a engineer came and found a fault which was on the street. I had to get my £70 back which was painful. Not to mention i had to do it through talk talk too.

It was end of January when i had my problem. Beginning of april is when it was fixed. Then it came back a month later then i moved house lol. My problem was similar to OP as well. except i never got hit by lightning.
 
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