My mother, who has dementia, has had endless problems with her BT landline. She lives alone and relies on her phone enormously.
Despite our best efforts she cannot get used to a mobile phone, so her landline is her connection to the outside world.
My brother and sister-in-law live half an hour away, but I live 200 miles away. Our twice-daily calls are part of her routine, which if disrupted causes her much distress. Over the past several months her line has been disrupted several times. The fault will last for anything between a day to a week, and after a spell of being OK the landline will redevelop the same fault.
I was prepared to believe it was something my mother was doing wrong, but on each and every occasion it has been identified as a “fault at the junction box”.
Engineers have come to the house, and I have been given a direct line to BT’s priority fault repair scheme. But despite all this the fault recurs. I cannot tell you how distressing it is for her. Part of the problem is the recorded message that keeps telling her there is a fault, which she believes is someone talking to her.
My conclusion is that BT is not interested in its landline customers. LT, Skipton, North Yorkshire
It takes media intervention for BT to discover a fault both with the network and with the wiring in your mother’s house – despite its priority repair scheme, which is supposed to keep vulnerable customers connected.
Depressingly, a technician was sent and the problem was fixed within a day of my contacting the press office.
Your mother has been offered a year’s free broadband and an unlimited call plan as a goodwill gesture.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
