BT Charge for new NTE5 !!! - UPDATE

Since I had so many replies to this post, thanks, I thought it easier to reply via a new post.

First of all my friend's BT Bill has the item "One-off charges" £169.00p which plus VAT @ 20% of £33.80p becomes a total for this repair of £202.80p.

I note that this is in excess of the standard £130.00p for an Engineer's Visit. Is the £130.00p plus VAT or inclusive?

As for the faulty bottom half of the NTE5.

I checked it out and found that a) the pin of the plug which engages with the 'test' socket had surface debris on the pin which goes to 5 and also b) the soldered joint for this same pin was dry with lifted pcb foil. Since it appears that the bottom half of the NTE5 is the consumers, I re-soldered the joint and secured with Araldite. (Since this part is my friend's, I'm competent to do this; I am MOD trained and there were many of the RAF's aircraft flying around from Lightnings, Belfasts and Nimrods with my repairs, back in the 60's & 70's + quite a few MN ships floating rather than flying...)

Interestingly the lower half of this failed NTE5 has the series inductor in the ring-wire, so could not have been that old. However, he tells me that the NTE5 that failed is about 18 months 2 years old, so I cannot be certain that this is a new lower half.

Also, he told me how the OR engineer was using an IDC tool when he replaced t. This seemed strange since there are no outgoing extensions connected to the NTE5, but further discussion revealed that the overhead line(s) feeds an adjoining premises and there is a junction box between the drop-wire(s) and both his NTE5 and that of the other property which, lucky for them, did not suffer any issue.

Whilst the enlightened few may know where to obtain the lower half of a NTE5 from, the average person would likely get ripped off by BT/OR for a considerable charge.

I can confirm that my friend had NO fixed internal wiring, ie connected to pins 2,3,5 of the lower half and that all that was connected was an ADSL filter plus one phone and his modem router.

Cheers!

£130 charge is for residential lines, £169 +VAT is for business lines.

Sounds like residential customer has been wrongly charged business prices.

Thanks for that. I should be seeing my friend tomorrow, he is a fellow County Councillor.

Strange how BT have different charges for the same work for different customers...

Cheers!

Have a look at the Timescale charges page for what is chargeable, and BT Price List page.

You think BT are bad for that - take a look at Virgin Media's (cable) business broadband offerings!

It's farly common practise IME, particuarly form the larger players.

Photos of the setup and a polite letter to the CEO particularly if this a standard residential line rental.
Business pricing while more, can also include faster fault response.

What has happened in the past is that as engineer fills in job report, the back room offices automatically raise the charges, so one mis-written job number can cause this sort of thing.

Hi Ancient_Mariner,

Going by the charge raised it sounds like your friend has a BT Business account.

If you want we can take a look at this (but check with your friend if he's happy to send over the details first!) Our "Contact us" link is:

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact_email/c/4950

Thanks,

Stephanie

Hi Stephanie

I spoke to my friend earlier and yes, it is a Business Account. Should have been was a Business Account, but despite attempts he has been unable to change to a Home Account (basically his house adjoins his old shop which he sold some time back).

To make matters worse, I assumed his monthly charge of £37.49p for 1 Sept to 30 Sept included Broadband, however from a discussion earlier this is just for telephone! His Broadband is with another supplier. Whilst he pays via Direct Debit, he has a paper Bill which I have in front of me.

I will do as you suggest and use your "Contact Us" link and give you the full details once I have checked some other points with him.

For continuity, can I mark for your attention please?

Many thanks.

Cheers!

Hi Clive,

No problem, please do.

As it's a business account, I'll need to get our BT Business team to check this but we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Stephanie