For some time now we've had trouble with our BT internet connection. In April we reported a sporadic fault when the service kept going down. We reported the fault and was told it was an external fault. To cut a long story short, an engineer rang and said he needed to visit. He duly did and replaced the phone socket. BT then charged me £130 for the home visit. But everything seemed OK so I paid the bill and ordered a new router because I couldn't connect my Amazon Echo to my one. ( BT Hub 4's are notorious for it.)
So, new router arrives. Fitted and everything is fine for a few weeks. Then the faults start again. So I rang BT and having been told the usual guff, make sure all the connections are in etc. and was told that the router was faulty. So they send me another router. I fitted that on Saturday and everything is fine.
Yesterday the phone and broadband died completely. So I rang BT. Usual drivel, ' Take front off the socket, blah blah, blah.' '"Yeah yeah yeah."
We get an e-mail saying the fault will be fixed by tomorrow night. This morning there's a knock on the door and it's a BT engineer. "I've come about your fault ............." - " If you are going to charge me for this call I'm going to ...................." - "No no no sir, I just need to check. The fault appears to be outside in the box on the corner.
And so it was. So basically, I've paid BT £130 to repair a fault on their line. It seems that whatever the fault, BT has a policy of calling on the householder first and replacing the phone socket as a matter of course. Good racket innit? They probably pay about 25p for them. If the engineer gets £15 an hour they've made over £100 quid profit even after you take off other costs.