General Chat

I've just won a minor battle with BT at last!

I've lived in my flat for two years now, and ever since we first moved in we've had static on our phone line, unless we wiggle the jackplug in the socket unti we find a place where the static goes.

Now this does interfere from time to time with our broadband, but not to the point that we've had to have an engineer out.

From the very beginning I called BT to tell them about it, only for them to tell me to unscrew the front of the socket and plug into the test socket. Any tests from BT to my socket always shows as OK. Everything works in the test socket, so BT have told my it's my equipment.

I've bought three new extension cables, given up on our relatively new phone and bought another one, and nothing changes, still static interference, especially if the cable near the socket gets moved, ie when I'm cleaning or when the cat wants to sit on the windowsill.

Anyway, since Friday we've had ridiculously slow broadband, slower than dial-up, I've been unable to use BBC iplayer, so missed strictly come dancing, and it was cutting out every so often so we had no internet at all, until cables were wiggled and the router re-set. I've even re-configured the router to see if another channel worked.

Yesterday it cut out altogether, so I called BT and told them I had no broadband service at all. They tested the line again, said it was fine, I tested the socket again, and when they called back, it was fine. So they arranged for an engineer to come out today. We did get slow broadband back last night for a while.

AT LAST!!! He tool the front of the socket off, took one look and said, it's not only corroded, so probably not connecting properly,but you've had lightening strike at some time. He changed it and went away, and everything's fine!

I've spent over TWO YEARS trying to tell BT the fault was with the socket, not my equipment....

Well done for finally winning. Don't you now feel like contacting them and saying you were right??? Not that it would get you anywhere. I wonder if they would have been the same if you were a man??? Just a thought

ring em up n say there service is rubbish and coz u waited 2 yr ya thinking of leaving, and u will get compo lololol

To be honest, they guy did explain why nothng showed on their tests. It was the extension sockets that were burned out, you could see they were blackened, through the lightning strike (I reckon it was a storm we had here about 4 years ago when we were in the upstairs flat, I remember it being that close then).

Anyway, he said, as we don't use it for extensions it wouldn't have showed on any of their line tests. If we had an extension wired into it, they would have known about it on the first test two years ago.

I can live with that, it makes sense to me, having worked in telecom electronics for some years. I really don't think it was a poor excuse.

I did say to him several times 'Two years I've been telling your company there's something wrong with that socket and they wouldn't have it' LOL

Hi Teresa, this is going to sound sexist,and it probably is, but true nonetheless.

Whenever something technical breaks down, you must get a MAN to phone up for you,otherwise the MAN at the other end will treat you like a stupid female,who dos't know what is what.

If you are single,bribe a male neighbour to be in your house when the repairman is there,and you may get some sense out of him and not be fobbed off.

Totally disagree about getting a man to telephone!

When we have a problem OH gets me to telephone, especially if it's technical because I research beforehand and I am a complete witch :-))

I am quite happy to throw into the conversation ombudsmen, governing bodies, MP and if all that fails I chuck in the disabled card...lol

Glad you are sorted TW, now you can waste even more time on here ;-)

Sue xx

Hi there from New Zealand.

Many years ago we had a problem with our phone sometimes not working. I eventually found that if I went outside and down through the bracken to where the pole was and shook it, when I came back the phone was working. I kept telling them there was a fault at the pole and explained how shaking it usually fixed it. I didnt want to be going down through the bracken on a dark wet night if I had an emergency and had to make a phone call. Eventually I got a serviceman who climbed up the pole and found the fault and fixed it. Why couldnt they have sorted it when I first explained how I temporarily cured the problem each time?

Huia.

I also disagree with the man thing. All you need to do is a little research to throw a techie term in the conversation fairly near the beginning. Fortunately, as said before, it helps that I have some experience of telecoms electronics.

He certainly didn't fob me off to be fair, he repaired it right away, and there was no argument.

Previously, as BT always will, when I have called to complain, they have always done a line test, which of course turns out ok. The problem I actually had was only found once the engineer finally came out. I have also spoken to both men and women on the phone with the same complaint, to get the same result.

My internet is still awfully slow, but he did say it could take up to ten days to build up speed again. All to do with communicating with the servers.