I moved into a new house last weekend.
There is a working landline in the property from the previous owner which I can hear a dial tone on, and have even been able to make a few calls!

I phoned BT to get the line rental transferred over into my name, also I wanted their £11.25 line rental deal with free evening and weekend calls.
They repeatedly told me that there is no phone line at my house and I will have to pay £122.50 to have a new phone line installed, plus the line rental is now £14.20 instead of £11.25 and I have to make a certain number of chargeable calls per month. They also told me I would have to extend the contract from 12 months to 18 months because of this.

I don't understand how they can tell me there is no phone line, when I have been using the landline in the house and even phoned them to talk about the line rental using that phone line and number!!!

Everyone I talk to at BT tells me that 'computer says no', there is no land line at my house, and even if there is, I will still have to pay £122.50 for the engineer to check that the line exists at the local telephone exchange. Why should I have to pay for an error at the telephone exchange?

Has anyone else had similar problems and were they ever resolved?

I think the person you spoke to was talking balls! The BT website clearly lists 11.95 line rental with free evening and weekend calls.

Can u give BT the number of the landline?
try dialling 17070 this will give you the phone number

Yes, I've given them the number and they've done a line check. They still refuse to believe that this is the phone number to the house and want to send an engineer round.

Hey gems19810

Ok I'll get to the bottom of this for you and get it sorted out.

Could you PM me any order details you might have already and the address where you want the line?

Thanks

Craig
BT Support

IF you dial 17070 and the automatic voice says 'the number defined as ********, BT/openreach line test systems...' then you have a bt line....dial 150 from it to get customer services, if you dont get the 'bt' bit then the dialtone may be from a LLU provider, and that may be why BT has no record of the address having a line....

Yes I've tried the 17070 number and it reads out my phone number followed by 'BT line test facilities'.

And dialing 150 takes you to BT Customer Service?

BT Support were helping me, but now seem to have disappeared!

Dialling 150 takes me to SkyTalk. Is this a cable service? Apparently the previous owner of my house was with Sky and has forgotten to cancel their phone package.
If they cancel it, will the line revert to BT's ownership? Or will I still have to pay for a new phone line to be installed?

Just rang Sky Talk and they have no record of the address or the phone number. I am totally flummoxed! Does anyone have any ideas?

Hi, I have read your post on the forums and understand that this is frustrating for you. Can you reply back with the following details.

The address of the property where the line was installed including the post code
The telephone number if you know it
The name of the previous occupier if know it
Do you know if it was a cable line?
Any other information that may be relevant.

On reading previous posts the line was with Sky. In answer to your question no ownership of the line does not revert back to BT automatically. Give me the details again and we'll have another look.

Many Thanks
BT Support Team