A few weeks ago I changed my old landline phones to a trio of Panasonic DECT phones. Caller display didn't work, and so I decided to order BT Privacy at Home, which is supposed to provide registration with the TPS (which I already had) and free caller display. However, despite a lot of hassle with Indian call centre people, and though someone else from BT is supposed to be sorting things out, the problem persists and caller display still doesn't work; rather than the caller's phone number, all the display shows is "Incoming call".

I've tried almost everything suggested in this document. If I dial *#234# or *234# I get the recorded announcement, "Sorry, the service requested is not available." This suggests to me that the service hasn't been activated, but I'm assured that it has been. I've tried removing all the broadband filters and so on from my system; I've tried plugging the phone base unit into the BT master socket, but still with no joy.

It seems to me there are three possible causes of the problem.

1. Despite their assurances, the caller display service hasn't been properly activated by BT.

2. There's an external fault, either with the cabling leading to my house or at the exchange.

3. There's a fault with the wiring inside my house. I don't think that's the case, but I could be wrong.

Anyone got any views?

There is no wiring issue.

When you had your old phones did you have caller display on them?

Thanks for your reply. No, my old phones didn't have caller display.

If there's no wiring issue, what's the cause of the problem?

Could be a few things.

Either the order wasn't placed on your account correctly in the first place, the order hasn't went through from BT Retail to Openreach properly or there is a fault at the exchange.

I'd give 151 a call as they are open 24 hours. If they tell you there is no Caller Display on the line then 150 should be able to place an order for you in the morning.

As weird as it sound when ordering BT Privacy At Home you have to add the different components of the service separately, it could be that the advisor has forgotten to add the Caller Display component.

Well, I'm no further forward.

The long and very boring background to this story is here:

http://community.bt.com/t5/Phones/Ca...nce/td-p/66903

I'm Rinansay. You'll see from the thread that a moderator said he'd sort things out and asked me to email him with my account details. I did so, and on 17th November (i.e. last Wednesday) he replied:


However, caller display still isn't working, if I dial *#234# or *234# I still get the recorded announcement, "Sorry, the service requested is not available," and I've had no call from the faults team.

On the advice of muffin1977, I called 151 and spoke to yet another call centre person. That was just after nine this morning. She told me that caller display wasn't activated on my line, despite what I'd been told earlier, but she'd take the matter into her own hands and would ring me back within fifteen minutes. More than two hours later I'm still waiting for her call.

There appears to be something that's complicating what should be a simple matter, but I don't know what it is, and it would seem that BT staff don't know either and lack the competence or the will to sort things out. I guess I'll get back onto the moderator from the BT Community Forum tomorrow and nag a bit more.

Call the service dept on 150 and get them to check that caller display is active as diallinh *#234# is saying that it is NOT active.
BT Privacy comes in 2 parts on your account, the 1st registers you for TPS and the second part gives you caller display.
I suspect they have not ticked the "free caller display box"

As soon as I saw BT Privacy mentioned I thought the same thing hence the last sentence from my post last night.

Oneview has a lot to answer for! Smart and CSS were so much easier to use.

Thanks for your reply. I think I've given up for today, though I'll do a bit more nagging tomorrow. The Indian person I spoke to this morning said that caller display wasn't active on my line, though other BT people had told me that it was.

I was interested in this post on the BTCare Community Forums about the Indian call centre people::


http://community.bt.com/t5/Phones/Ca...oad/td-p/69447

The lady I spoke to this morning still hasn't phoned me back, despite her promise to do so within fifteen minutes, and it seems likely that she has just decided to ignore my problem. According to my online "My BT" pages, no faults have been reported for my line (even though I have reported one) and there are no orders associated with it either. I'm beginning to get the impression that the Indian call centre people will solve a customer's problem if they know how to do so, but if they don't, they'll just try to forget about it or pretend it never happened.

Anyway, as far as I can gather, the problem isn't with my phones or my internal wiring but with something that BT are failing to do. I guess I'll just have to keep banging my head against the brick wall of their poor service, and maybe I'll eventually get somewhere.

I had been considering taking my broadband service to BT, but my recent experience has made me feel that would not be a wise move.

I think there's probably a bit more to the problem than that, since I've spoken to a couple of BT people (well, call centre people) who have seemed sure that they could sort out the situation and then have been unable to do so. As I said earlier, a BTCare Community Forums mod told me that "BT Privacy is definitely in service". The TPS part of it certainly is, because I received a letter from them confirming that, but maybe you're both right in thinking that someone's forgotten to activate the caller display part of it. I really don't know, but I hope it's as simple as that!

I have the same problem. What I was told, and I have no idea if this is true but there's evidence on BT's website that it is, is that the reason you and I are not getting it is that you have to make a certain amount of PAID calls a month to receive this for free. I forget the amount - 6 or something. The problem lies if you have some sort of unlimited package. My package means that all calls are free and so its very hard to make a call that I have to pay extra for! I was told to ensure I phoned a mobile number a few times a month so that I could get caller id for free.

This is bloody stupid.

If you don't make any calls you can pay, I think it's £2.50 a month to get the caller ID service.

I've given up on it.

I had this problem a couple of years ago when I bought a new phone. Caller Display had been working on my old phone, but didn't work with my new one, when the phone was Caller ID compatible. This was around the same time I had gone to my online BT account and switched from the old separate Caller Display service that you paid for, to the current one where it's free under BT Privacy. I remember phoning them up and telling them it wasn't working, and was told there and then that Caller Display hadn't been activated properly when I requested the change online. They phoned me back 15 mins later with their number clearly displayed on my phone and problem fixed. So whatever the fix is, it's that simple that it can be done in 15 mins.


I had a separate issue recently when I was changing my calling plan where I had been quoted an order number by email from BT, but my BT account said I had no orders. Turns out BT had processed it as an "offline order" because their staff had tried to change it on several occasions but it wouldn't go through, so it was referred to their "offline team" as a failed order to fix - which took a month!


No, that's a separate issue to the OP. The OP isn't getting Caller Display at all. If it's activated correctly, you will always receive it. You will just be charged for it (instead of it being free) if you don't make the minimum number of chargeable calls - 2 a month if you pay monthly, or 6 a quarter if you pay quarterly.

Well, you were luckier than me, because after placing the order for Privacy at Home I've been in touch with about five different BT and call centre people and no one seems willing or able to sort out the problem, and still if I dial * # 234 # (to "check the facility is switched on") or * 234 # (to activate it) I get the recorded message I've come to hate: "Sorry, the service requested is not available."

Frankly, I'm beginning to doubt if BT will ever fix the problem. My current contract with them expires sometime in January. Does anyone know of any efficient providers of home phone services?

I've just received another email from a BTCare Community Forum mod who says, "I have checked a few things and this issue appears to be related to a records mismatch, which I am in the process of rectifying. It'll take 24 hours for this to complete, and then I'll re-order caller display for you."

Maybe we're getting somewhere at last?

I'm very pleased to say that thanks to the intervention of StephanieG, a mod on the BTCare Community Forums and a fine, intelligent woman, my caller display is now working. She succeeded when others had failed or hadn't bothered. Thanks, Stephanie; I'm grateful to you.