BT blames customers for faults and fines them £130

BT customers are being forced to pay a £130 charge when their phone line stops working through no fault of their own.

Money Mail readers have told how they have been charged a set fee for an engineer�s visit, even when Britain�s biggest phone company is to blame for the problem.

BT should levy the fee only if the customer is to blame.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-21278...

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

BT customers are being forced to pay a £130 charge when their phone line stops working through no fault of their own.

Money Mail readers have told how they have been charged a set fee for an engineer�s visit, even when Britain�s biggest phone company is to blame for the problem.

BT should levy the fee only if the customer is to blame.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-21278...

I've had to arrange a broadband engineer to come round and fix the broadband on several occasions but the call centre in India repeatedly kept sending line engineers who aren't equipped to fix broadband issues. This resulted in me being charged on the bill but I rang up BT who were aware of this communication problem and refunded me straight away.

This is probably an isolated issue that the daily fail has blown completely out of proportion...again.

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-Apr-12 11:05:49)

Well known in broadband circles, i.e. you should test from the test socket, and unless you have damaged the outdoor cabling with a strimmer (Daily Mail example) then you should not have to pay anything.

All detailed in the telephone directory.

What is NOT expanded on is that the engineers work for Openreach, and file a job report, and then the backoffice systems raise the charge according to the codes in the report. These are passed to the phone line rental provider, which is at liberty to appeal these if they think they are unfair. BT Retail seems to pass them on without question, relying on the home owner to do so.

System is like it is because of the seperation of units within the BT Group.

Yet another creeping rip-off that this country is getting to be so good at. There's an interesting post about this on the TalkTalk forum - one man's experience of OpenReach charges. http://talktalkmembers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7...

In this case TalkTalk appear to be shirking any responsibility as the retailer.

This is not new, but interestingly it seems more common with some providers than offers, and not just because of the providers size. i.e. some do better at handling faults and the communication processes.

The creation of Openreach was bound to lead to a desire to charge for everything, and is normal for this sort of enforced thing, as the accountants require every action to have a profit margin.

There might be a few where an incorrect charge is raised but in a lot of cases where people appeal it is later proven that it was not BT responsibility and the customer should pay.

I would guess that there are significantly more cases where BT has not charged when it could have compared with incorrect charging but those are never published.

Do the technician have targets to charge for X repairs per week - NO.

lol, snip from the DailyFail article:

"The fault, which started after heavy rainfall, was eventually found to be in the phone exchange."

riiiiigght - it rains inside the telephone exchange...

In reply to a post by FRS_Plunderer:

riiiiigght - it rains inside the telephone exchange...

I know a guy who only managed 512kbps on ADSL until he moved to AAISP who managed to persuade BT to properly investigate. They found a hole in the exchange roof, letting the rain in onto his line card. Something BT retail (previous ISP) never did determine.

Now his connection achieves around 7mbps.

Sounds tres odd.

The DSL line card, as in the DSLAM is in a 19" rack, and the card is shared with 47 other lines, and is a cm from other cards too. So a leak onto the DSLAM is likely to render it inoperable, rather than limit speed.

lol sounds like the kind of fud customers get told when they ask the engineer "what was the problem then", round here they either say it was a cracked dilithium crystal or faulty flux capacitor...

Openreach engineers have very specific targets for TRC (time related charges). Should an engineer not raise enough charges in a review period he's likely to find himself on a pip (performance improvement plan). When a customer is at fault I have no issue in charging his SP, however some charges are because of poor engineering practices ie block terminals in bathrooms or next to sinks, however again we are pushed to charge in these instances or we may get a slapped wrist for a missed opportunity.

Oh yes it's the Daily Mail's fault. never Openreach's... i keep finding evidence on here that this site is a BT crony zone.

A BT crony zone? That's like saying MPs can smoke in the Houses of Parliament bar! ... oh wait...

And who said that was the case?

There have been comments suggesting the Daily Mail has exaggerated the case.

There is no denying that some people are charged for network faults, when they should not be, so it is down to the customer to complain to their retail provider. Some providers look at the charges and query them before passing them on, others blindly pass them on.

Of course BT is the evil empire that must be avoided at all costs, we do forget this fact, it has obviously never done anything useful. Sounds silly and sarcastic - but so does labelling the site a BT crony zone.

Dont think the DailyMail over exagerated the probelm at all.

I had and still have a fault on my broadband connection, I did all the tests in the test socket and after various modems and filters. My tests were saying the connection between my house and the exchange was fine, maximum sync on adsl max of 8128K, SNR 6Db. stable connection.

The probelm I am having is heavy congestion, although I have maximum sync of 8128K, and speedtests in offpeak times are between 6.5-7Mb. Peaktime speeds drop down as low as 0.6Mb.
BT engineer was sent out, did his tests early one morning (offpeak) and said there was nothing wrong with my line, and I had to pay the £130 call out charge.

Fault is still here on my broadband, and to add insult to injury after BT kept saying the fault must be at my end. It now shows up on the plusnet exchange checker that the fault is actually on the BT exchange and they say they will fix it in September.

http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/?exchange=Westga...

BT refused to refund the £130 call out charge, and said it's above their minimum 0.4Mb product specs for the service.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

The probelm I am having is heavy congestion, although I have maximum sync of 8128K, and speedtests in offpeak times are between 6.5-7Mb. Peaktime speeds drop down as low as 0.6Mb.
BT engineer was sent out, did his tests early one morning (offpeak) and said there was nothing wrong with my line, and I had to pay the £130 call out charge.

Congestion is not a "fault" as such, and certainly sending out an engineer could not fix it.

If it is genuine congestion it is the ISPs problem and should never have been passed to OpenReach!

The problem is that BT can send out an engineer which raises a charge which the vast majority of broadband users do not have the knowledge (or would be expected to have) to query. It is the Flux Capacitors and DiLithium Crystals again.

The ISP "should" protect the customer against this but it is easier said than done.

No different from a garage who says "the <insert technical terms here> is broken, £500 to fix. Just spotted it in time - would have been very serious".

In reply to a post by greenglide:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

The probelm I am having is heavy congestion, although I have maximum sync of 8128K, and speedtests in offpeak times are between 6.5-7Mb. Peaktime speeds drop down as low as 0.6Mb.
BT engineer was sent out, did his tests early one morning (offpeak) and said there was nothing wrong with my line, and I had to pay the £130 call out charge.

Congestion is not a "fault" as such, and certainly sending out an engineer could not fix it.

If it is genuine congestion it is the ISPs problem and should never have been passed to OpenReach!

The problem is that BT can send out an engineer which raises a charge which the vast majority of broadband users do not have the knowledge (or would be expected to have) to query. It is the Flux Capacitors and DiLithium Crystals again.

The ISP "should" protect the customer against this but it is easier said than done.

No different from a garage who says "the <insert technical terms here> is broken, £500 to fix. Just spotted it in time - would have been very serious".

The Congestion is not on the ISP's side, its on BT's virtual pathways at the telephone exchange. BT have acknowledged this already, and say they will fix it in September, which doesn't help me as I've had the problem since December 2011

said there was nothing wrong with my line, and I had to pay the £130 call out charge.

Your evidence suggests he was right - full 8M sync and solid reliability. Openreach are doing and did their bit.

So your ISP billed you for the engineer visit ? they should not have sent an Openreach engineer out when the line was clearly not at fault. You should decline to pay your ISP the £130.

i keep finding evidence on here that this site is a BT crony zone.

spoken like a true paranoid. I keep finding evidence like your username that suggests you too have an agenda.

It still doesn't change the fact that Plusnet listened to what you said, would have been more than capable of testing and seen the solid 8128 sync, and still raised an SFI visit via BT Wholesale for an Openreach SFI visit.
Clearly the engineer has done exactly what was asked of them. Come and tested the line, found it, and the sync it produced as stable, no problem with your set up, no problem with the DSLAM port. 'No Fault Found'.
That your ISP has chosen to pass the costs of this visit back to you, is between you and them. The title of this thread should have been 'Plusnet blames customers for faults and fines them £130'.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

It still doesn't change the fact that Plusnet listened to what you said, would have been more than capable of testing and seen the solid 8128 sync, and still raised an SFI visit via BT Wholesale for an Openreach SFI visit.
Clearly the engineer has done exactly what was asked of them. Come and tested the line, found it, and the sync it produced as stable, no problem with your set up, no problem with the DSLAM port. 'No Fault Found'.
That your ISP has chosen to pass the costs of this visit back to you, is between you and them. The title of this thread should have been 'Plusnet blames customers for faults and fines them £130'.

?

Has nothing to do with plusnet, BT is the ISP, I repeatedly told them my tests show there is nothing wrong with the line.

BT insisted that I had an engineer visit even though I repeatedly told them the fault was at the exchange.

BT engineer came, did his tests and found no fault with the line, as I already repeatedly told BT over the telephone.

BT automatically added it to my quaterly bill.

Fault still exhists at telephone exchange.

So if the BT openreach engineer is not responsible for repairing faults at the telephone exchange, only the line. Who exactly is responsible as BT Broadband dont seem to be, and BT openreach engineer's dont seem to be according to you.

The calls to BT will have been recorded. If what you say is correct then you should be able to get this charge rescinded by insisting they are listened to. It would aid the process if you can give the dates and preferably the times, within an hour or so.

However, if in your conversations with BT you have kept on doing what you keep doing here, which is saying there is a fault at the exchange, you may have no argument in your favour.

There is no fault at the exchange, as you have been told. There is a congested VP. Unfortunate for you, but not a fault!.

So if you have insisted and insisted and insisted that there is a fault on your line, despite whatever anyone at BT said to you, leading them to send out an engineer to satisfy you, then you will have to pay up. The fact that you "repeatedly told them the fault was at the exchange" doesn't matter, as that still requires an engineer visit.

He could very well have checked your line at the exchange as well as at your end. No fault found with your line. Engineer line checks required at your insistence. You pay.

Why is a congested VP not classified as a fault ?

If something nolonger functions as it use to or was intended, then I classify it as faulty.

I accept it could be argued that a congested VP is a fault, but the point is that it isn't a fault on your line.

Your line is connecting perfectly with the exchange. You/it do not have a fault, even at the exchange - where the connections between your line and the line card in the DSALM/MSAN, or even the line card or DSLAM/MSAN itself can be faulty.

An engineer sent to test your line need not be aware of the congested VP, which is part of the backhaul from the exchange and nothing to do with your "line", even though it affects your throughput. He will test at most the connection between the DSLAM/MSAN and your master socket.

You've been had
BT Retail should not send out an engineer for exchange congestion - that is BT Wholesale domain and not anything to do with Openreach

I would suggest raising a high level complaint via [email protected]

If the VP has (say) a 100Mb capacity and it is working and delivering 100Mb of traffic, is it faulty?
The demand may have increased to 200Mb, but the VP is working as intended.

This is perhaps similar to road congestion.
If a jam occurs due to a high volume of traffic because everybody is driving to the airport on the same day, is the road regarded as faulty?

It is a fact of life that differing levels of congestion exist throughout the internet. Sometimes it is noticable, sometimes not, but it is not a 'fault'.

FWIW

Re. BT's recorded phone calls. Unless they've changed things, they charge around £10 to supply a recording...

Conveniently for BT Retail, none of the calls were recorded in my case

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The calls to BT will have been recorded. If what you say is correct then you should be able to get this charge rescinded by insisting they are listened to. It would aid the process if you can give the dates and preferably the times, within an hour or so.

|I called for a fault and got BT india they did a test and said yes we can see a fault and you will not be charged.

I said five times on the phone call, dont send an engineer if there is any chance i could be billed for the call out and five times he said no i would not be charged.
Engineer comes out finds no fault and 3 month down the road i get a bill.
Call BT and inform them i said five times not to send and engineer if they think there is any chance i could get billed for it.
tells me to hold on and will look for the call recording.
Comes back and tells me he only has half the recording and that part of the conversation is not on it.
Tell him i dont care and if they dont pay me back then i will take it further as its not my responsibility to make sure all the call is recorded. He agrees that its strange that the call was not recorded for the full length of the call and agrees to waver the bill. Still waiting for the money to go back into my account 2 months later

ok so your line was testing faulty but when the engineer shows up he can not find a fault ?

if so that is a FNF ie Fault Not Found and you should not get a charge , we get told this when we close a job on the laptop !

so not sure what is going on with your fault

good luck with it.

Edited by deleted (Thu 19-Apr-12 20:10:39)

Happened to my parents a few years ago, broadband filters kept burning out with no use and they were without telephone for over 2 weeks at one point and more than once.

Eventually they found the fault outside the house so rerouted the cabling to go through the attic, then charged my parents for it, then a few months later the problem reoccured and the cabling was faulty in the attic due to the way they installed it and they tried charging my parents again.

Took a huge amount of time to get it sorted and my parents were getting debt collector letters!

damage within the end-users curtilage is typically chargable, Is there a damp problem within the home? strange that things should just 'burn out'.

In reply to a post by FRS_Plunderer:

.... Is there a damp problem within the home? strange that things should just 'burn out'.

I often see drop wires entering a premises with no "drip loop". I fitted a "grommet" on mine to cure the internal damp ingress that it was causing.

I have had 4 engineer visit's within the last two week's ,if had been charged for any of them i would have point blank refused to pay as i have been told by them that the fault is variously
Within O2's computer system
100% within O2's equipment at the exchange ,this was after the "Engineer " had been to the cab ,came back here and told me everything was fixed and working fine ,my wife said the phone isnt working ,yes it he insisted ,then a neighbour from across the road come to tell us he has had a phone call for us ,off goes engineer back to cab ,guess what his excuse was
" when i came back to the house someone had broken into the cab and swapped connections around " ,he had also left two others without BB or phone ,he also refused to change the faceplate on the master socket saying it was fine ( it was 20 years old i reckon ) ,then claimed on his report to O2 that he had done so

during his second visit he insisted that he only had a short time to investigate the problem as job's are time limited ,i have since had it in writing from o2 that they paid for this visit on a " stay till it is fixed " basis on the insistence of Openreach ,he also refused to call O2 as he had been instructed to discuss the fault with their tech people but again claimed on his report that he had ( O2 had asked me to remind him to call , he said he didn't need to )

luckily the other engineer who also made two visits did his job and identified the problem and even called his manager and O2 to try and get the fault fixed

so O2 have paid for 4 visits ,two of which were a complete farce with no real attempt to do anything useful ( the fault is with the O2 software in the exchange which they need to uninstall and reinstall remotely and this will fix the fault , this was another of his excuses ),this was the final straw and both myself and O2 have filed a complaint about this guy

if i had been told to pay for this level of service they would have had to take me to court to get any money out of me

That sounds very much like an engineer that I know. Fortunately though, such pariahs are rare with most engineers being proficient and very helpful.

I am sure that 99.9% of the engineers are very proficient and conscientious ,i just happened to get one that wasn't ,he may have been very proficient in his job but he just wasn't interested in going outside in the rain

Yep, I certainly wouldn't like to have any more than the simplest of faults if I knew that Jimmy would be attending. In fact, I don't think that I'd answer the door!

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

In reply to a post by FRS_Plunderer:

.... Is there a damp problem within the home? strange that things should just 'burn out'.

I often see drop wires entering a premises with no "drip loop". I fitted a "grommet" on mine to cure the internal damp ingress that it was causing.

So have I, normally after there has been some modifications done to the property long after the line was installed, PVC fascia boards - contractors relocating fixings, new windows even new brickwork. Fact is it is an audit failure not to form a drip loop or equivalent on a new fit without a very good reason and installs to get audited.

Far from an isolated issue

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/10/bt.html

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Far from an isolated issue

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/10/bt.html

From 3 years ago... BT/Openreach were definatly in the wrong with those kinds of charges, no excuses - in all cases these were charges for damage caused outside peoples homes not within their own properties. But keep one thing in mind, Openreach do not bill the end-user, they charge the service provider - it is up to them to contest the charges and decide what to hand onto their customers.

I always found the lightning one a little odd though, lightning damage was always chargeable even when it came down the phone line after hitting a pole or a near miss which I can't say made much sense.