I think BT might be trying to rob me

[The Incredible...]

So, following my posts re virgin vs sky i have come to the conclusion that i am probably better of financialy and internet speedily to go with sky

however, i am told taht to change from a cable phone line to BT if there is no BT line present it costs £124. I am also told by random indian call centre man that no line exists at this address, therefore we would have to pay this hefty fee.

However, i don't believe him, as the house is about 20 years old and although we have had our cable line the whole of the 10 years we've been here I'm sure the previous owners must have had a telephone and as far as i'm aware cable phonelines didn't exist 20 years ago

Is tehre any other way that i could find out if i have a BT line at this property. A shiny penny t the first person to give me a useful answer

[FatherJack]

Call BT.

More specifically call BT and say you've seen the error of your ways, etc. and want to resubscribe with them - they may even waive the reconnection fee.

Unless you live in Kingston upon Hull, it's rather unlikely that the line isn't actually owned by BT, whether you take their services or not. Reconnection used to consist of pulling a plastic plug out of a socket, these days I suspect it's even more trivial.

[Chickenz]

Fucking BT, wankers. Stopped using them and went with Pipex as they were useless. Turns out the useless shower of shits had kept billing me for line rental and calls. So naturally I told the bank not to pay the direct debit. So today they blocked my line and wouldn't let me make any calls, even tho I'm now with pipex for phone calls. Rang them up, got annoyed, asked to speak to the management to discuss the legal implications. Got put on hold for 5 minutes before being told that my phone would be reconnected within the hour.

Fucking Wankers.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I'm sure the previous owners must have had a telephone and as far as i'm aware cable phonelines didn't exist 20 years ago

This is true.

However, most likely the connection fees apply to actually connecting a line to your house to some level, either at the big green box™ or to a BT master socket (which your house may or may not have) or, quite possibly. both.

[HereComesPete]

Similar thing in my old uni house, had phone line, rang BT and asked if it was with them, conversation went something like this-

'Hi, blah, phone line with you, blah?'
'nope, not ours'
'well who's is it then?'
'dunno'
'ffs, I'll find out, thanks for nowt'
'rang everyone else we could think of, nope...nope...nope...nope...'

Few weeks later after just using it anyway, the bill from BT arrives, saying we asked them to disconnect us, then reconnect us, so they'd like their bill paying of £90+ pounds! Cunts

We didnt, we let them refer the problem to a debt collection service, who let us get to their bright red angry writing final warnings, then we told the debt collectors what happened, who then confirmed it with BT, and the debt collectors apologised and charged BT their final costs, ha.

Ooh, actual helpful note, what FJ said, its gonna be their line, just get them to reconnect it, then ask for the internets, also give watchdog a ring to tell them off, and tell BT that their bombay based call centres fucking suck.

[The Incredible...]

This is true.

However, most likely the connection fees apply to actually connecting a line to your house to some level, either at the big green box™ or to a BT master socket (which your house may or may not have) or, quite possibly. both.

there's a big green box™ down the street, and we have a master socket i'm fairly sure

the whole thing may well be moot though as it seems that at 2-3 miles from the exchange we are probably too far to get anywhere near top speed anyway, so might be better of just upgrading our virgin connection

[HereComesPete]

Are you 2-3 miles out of any built up areas? If so, adsl is your only option really. If your 2-3 miles away from the exchange, but in the middle of a city, then you could well get phat cable speeds because a lot of companies uncoupled from the exchanges and laid (hehe) their own cables (hehehehe).

[The Incredible...]

it's bishops stortford in hertfordshire, so it's just outside a reasonably sized town

[HereComesPete]

Sticking with virgin sounds like your best option. 2-3 miles, unless you've got aluminium phone lines (which suck) will see you getting a ~2/3meg adsl line, bit more, bit less depends on bt, who still control the boxes and their quality. Could be more with your proximity to stansted though. You might get lucky and have an exchange capable of higher speeds, only a company can tell you what you'll get with any great accuracy, and iirc, most of the time they'll only do that after you've signed with them.

[northwesten]

however, i am told taht to change from a cable phone line to BT if there is no BT line present it costs £124.

sound like bullshity too me! I paid about £40 to fit a new line! Best to Call BT anyhow! 3rd Party company dont know shit half the time! I think BT ok

[Joose]

sound like bullshity too me! I paid about £40 to fit a new line! Best to Call BT anyhow! 3rd Party company dont know shit half the time! I think BT ok

Im sure thats about how much we paid in our last place, and that had absolutely no telephone connections at all. Cant be sure though, as we made our cupcake of a landlord pay. Serves him right for not reading his own tenancy agreement

[fabyak]

I think the £120 charge is to get an additional BT line put into the house, so they should either charge you a bit of money for a new line or nothing to reconnect an old one

[TheJockGit]

You need Internet Providings? 124 Mega Bitings?

[Woo Elephant Yeah]

You need Internet Providings? 124 Mega Bitings?

[The Incredible...]

the charge is £124 to connect a line if no previous BT line exists, which the man at BT said it didn't but i am 90% sure that this cannot be right

[Joose]

Bad news im afraid. Just checked with a friend of mine who works for BT. If theres no physical line to your house at the moment, it will indeed cost £124 to install one.

[The Incredible...]

but there must be one. the previous owners of our house must have had a BT line because cable wasn't that common before we moved here

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Yes, but ISTR it's quite possible that your house is no longer connected in many places (telegraph pole/green box/exchange)

which as far as BT are concerned probably = no line.

[FatherJack]

Have you managed to find the master socket on the wall? If there is one it's possible there's still a connection - they don't actually sever the wires. It should have a BT or a T-shaped symbol on it and lead only to outside.
Then try plugging a normal phone into it to see if you get a dialtone.

If that works, call BT again insisting you do have a line, asking for an engineer rather than a salestard if they don't believe you.

Either way, if you say you don't want to pay that much and will go elsewhere if they refuse to improve their offer then it's their own stupid fault that they've lost yet another potential customer. Ask for their supervisor's address and write to them telling them that their inflexibility has lost them money.

There are some houses where people just didn't want a telephone and don't have the master sockets, but for all others they were installed by BT, except in the Hull area, where they've always had a different company.

[Roman Totale]

Marcus Brigstock vs BT

Most amusing.