Elderly Mother Being Charged For Work That Wasn't ...

Question

I wonder if someone can point me in the right direction please to get this resolved, I'm at the end of my rope here.
A couple of months back my 82 year old mother moved in to a retirement flat.  The flat had a variety of old unnecessary BT kit (trailing sockets, loudspeakers, unidentified junction boxes) and multiple runs of phone cables around doorframes, along skirting boards etc that had obviously accumulated over a period of time.  My mother only needs one socket and wanted to lose the rest as it's unsightly and in one case a bit of a trip hazard.  I phoned BT on her behalf (she's elderly and doesn't like all the button pushing) and I spoke to a lady, asking if we could have an engineer visit to remove all the unneeded gubbins - I described in detail what had to be removed.  The lady said that was fine and she would book the job for us and it would cost £130, the date for the visit was set as 30 November both of which I agreed to.  Neither myself nor my mother received any written confirmation of the work which I thought was a bit odd but didn't worry about at the time.
The engineer (actually two of them) turned up as arranged on 30 November and my mother showed them the cables, boxes, sockets etc that she wanted rermoved.  The lead engineeer said they couldn't do this type of job because it would risk damaging the decor and then my mother would sue BT and so they couldn't do it.  My mother pointed out that the cables hadn't been painted over and embedded in the skirtings, that they were just pinned with cable clips onto the top of the skirtings and doorframes and she understood that there would be an odd small hole where the clips had been and that was OK.  But the engineer still declined to do the work.  My mother then asked him that as he hadn't done the work, was she going to be charged the £130.  He said no, of course not, that this happens all the time and that he just puts it through asd a 'No Charge' job.  They were in the flat for less than 15 minutes.
My mother was not especially happy that she'd wasted several weeks waiting to have the job done only for it not to be done but at least she could afford to pay someone else like a handyman to do what BT wouldn't.  Then her bill arrived yesterday and she has been charged £130 for the non-work.
She tried phoning the call centre herself twice this morning but was fobbed off.  Once she was told the £130 is a call-out charge and as the engineer attended she had to pay the bill even though no work was done.  The second time she was promised a call-back which never happened.  She's getting a little hard of hearing and finds accents on not very good phone lines difficult and she was getting a bit distressed at having to deal with this so she asked me to take over.  I have spent the rest of the day on the phone to the call centre getting increasingly angry at the way we're being treated.  I have explained the situation to 6 different people.  I was promised 2 call-backs which never happened.  They promise faithfully to investigate, fix it and the minute you're off the line they forget about it.  They kept trying to transfer me to a department which I think they called TRC(?) - I did speak to a very helpful chap in the UK in this department early on who explained that the department only deals with faults resulting from orders not with billing problems with orders and that he'd have to pass me back to the call centre.  I keep explaining this to the agents but they still want to keep passing me over.  Finally tonight after speaking to a total of 9 different people, I told them I wasn't getting off the line until they fixed it and they hung up on me and the call centre is now closed.  I now have steam coming out of my ears.
All I want is to have the £130 charge on my mother's bill removed.  No work was done.  When I placed the order, I was not informed that it was a call-out charge.  I described very precisely the work that was to be done and the lady said it would cost £130.  She didin't inform me that BT won't remove unneeded equipment in domestic premises for fear of damaging decor - why did she even take the order in the first place if this is BT policy?  Neither my mother nor myself received any paperwork for the order that might have contained information on call-out charges or what engineers will and won't do.  My mother was given no documentation at the end of the visit and signed nothing.
So I want to talk to someone preferably in the UK to get this charge removed.  I feel that a vulnerable elderly lady is being taken advantage of, that somewhere along the line someone has been incompetent/dishonest and that the call centre is a complete joke.  I'm not going to waste any more time with them, I need to be able to talk to someone who will take responsibility and actually do something.  Does anyone know how I can contact such a person, preferably by phone.  My mother pays her bills by DD and is going to lose this money out of her account quite soon and she really can't afford it.
Anyone?   If you got this far, thank you for reading!

Answer 1

ceres wrote:
I wonder if someone can point me in the right direction please to get this resolved, I'm at the end of my rope here.
A couple of months back my 82 year old mother moved in to a retirement flat.  The flat had a variety of old unnecessary BT kit (trailing sockets, loudspeakers, unidentified junction boxes) and multiple runs of phone cables around doorframes, along skirting boards etc that had obviously accumulated over a period of time.  My mother only needs one socket and wanted to lose the rest as it's unsightly and in one case a bit of a trip hazard.  I phoned BT on her behalf (she's elderly and doesn't like all the button pushing) and I spoke to a lady, asking if we could have an engineer visit to remove all the unneeded gubbins - I described in detail what had to be removed.  The lady said that was fine and she would book the job for us and it would cost £130, the date for the visit was set as 30 November both of which I agreed to.  Neither myself nor my mother received any written confirmation of the work which I thought was a bit odd but didn't worry about at the time.
The engineer (actually two of them) turned up as arranged on 30 November and my mother showed them the cables, boxes, sockets etc that she wanted rermoved.  The lead engineeer said they couldn't do this type of job because it would risk damaging the decor and then my mother would sue BT and so they couldn't do it.  My mother pointed out that the cables hadn't been painted over and embedded in the skirtings, that they were just pinned with cable clips onto the top of the skirtings and doorframes and she understood that there would be an odd small hole where the clips had been and that was OK.  But the engineer still declined to do the work.  My mother then asked him that as he hadn't done the work, was she going to be charged the £130.  He said no, of course not, that this happens all the time and that he just puts it through asd a 'No Charge' job.  They were in the flat for less than 15 minutes.
My mother was not especially happy that she'd wasted several weeks waiting to have the job done only for it not to be done but at least she could afford to pay someone else like a handyman to do what BT wouldn't.  Then her bill arrived yesterday and she has been charged £130 for the non-work.
She tried phoning the call centre herself twice this morning but was fobbed off.  Once she was told the £130 is a call-out charge and as the engineer attended she had to pay the bill even though no work was done.  The second time she was promised a call-back which never happened.  She's getting a little hard of hearing and finds accents on not very good phone lines difficult and she was getting a bit distressed at having to deal with this so she asked me to take over.  I have spent the rest of the day on the phone to the call centre getting increasingly angry at the way we're being treated.  I have explained the situation to 6 different people.  I was promised 2 call-backs which never happened.  They promise faithfully to investigate, fix it and the minute you're off the line they forget about it.  They kept trying to transfer me to a department which I think they called TRC(?) - I did speak to a very helpful chap in the UK in this department early on who explained that the department only deals with faults resulting from orders not with billing problems with orders and that he'd have to pass me back to the call centre.  I keep explaining this to the agents but they still want to keep passing me over.  Finally tonight after speaking to a total of 9 different people, I told them I wasn't getting off the line until they fixed it and they hung up on me and the call centre is now closed.  I now have steam coming out of my ears.
All I want is to have the £130 charge on my mother's bill removed.  No work was done.  When I placed the order, I was not informed that it was a call-out charge.  I described very precisely the work that was to be done and the lady said it would cost £130.  She didin't inform me that BT won't remove unneeded equipment in domestic premises for fear of damaging decor - why did she even take the order in the first place if this is BT policy?  Neither my mother nor myself received any paperwork for the order that might have contained information on call-out charges or what engineers will and won't do.  My mother was given no documentation at the end of the visit and signed nothing.
So I want to talk to someone preferably in the UK to get this charge removed.  I feel that a vulnerable elderly lady is being taken advantage of, that somewhere along the line someone has been incompetent/dishonest and that the call centre is a complete joke.  I'm not going to waste any more time with them, I need to be able to talk to someone who will take responsibility and actually do something.  Does anyone know how I can contact such a person, preferably by phone.  My mother pays her bills by DD and is going to lose this money out of her account quite soon and she really can't afford it.
Anyone?   If you got this far, thank you for reading!
Hi ceres,
Welcome to the forums.
I am suprised that the Engineers did not quote the HEALTH and SAFETY rules.
If you fill in this form: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact_email/c/4951 with a link back to your post for ref, the mods will get back to you. It can take up to 3 days and they will contact you direct via email or phone.
toekneem
http://www.no2nuisancecalls.net
(EASBF)