I have to ask, cos (try to keep up it MIGHT get confusing) my 'home' land line went dead yesterday, my 'office'/broadband line is fine. SO I 'rang' BT on my office line and pressed all the buttons and entered all the divert and contact phone numbers in AND heard how helpfully I could track the fault or report it on line, just how unless you have two phone lines in your home I haven't quite worked out yet, but that is the least of my worries.

Eventually I got the recorded message that an engineer may need access to my home '.... on.... Wednesday.... the... 30th..... of..... August' and went through the whole blasted rigmarole of telling them 'yes, someone would be at home all day' and 'no, I am not regularly involved in a school run', what that has got to do with it when I have all ready told them someone will be available all day is mystery to me.

I wanted to speak to someone just to be certain the world had not ended by now, but of course 'We are experiencing a high number of calls at the moment, please enter a contact number and someone will ring you back in the .... next .... forty .... five..... minutes'. Firstly HOW THE H**L is any normal household supposed to leave a telephone number when their telephone line is what is knackered, despite the helpful suggestion that you leave the number of a neighbour. Wont' they love that especially if they are on the school run at the time. Secondly I am still waiting for the returning of my call.

Today I have again rung them to be told an engineer will need access '... on.. Wednesday.... the...... 30th... of.... August'. And of course bt.com/faults just tells me the fault is not completed, which if I relied on my home number for internet access would be pretty useless anyway. Oh sorry they were slightly helpful in that they know the fault is between the exchange and my home.

As I say is this normal?

I have always been a fan of BT cos until yesterday things have usually been sorted ASAP, including missed bills being paid , but this really is pretty shoddy especially as no one will either talk to me or tell me why it will take a week for an engineer to get off his/her a**e and sort out my phone. And I am getting earache from my mother.

Yup seems pretty normal to me - BT are no better than any other supplier in resolving faults, which is why they are not worth paying higher call charges for lacklustre service IMO of course.

Great when it works, but rubbish when it stops.

I wouldn't be happy about having to wait a week for an engineer to visit but likewise I wouldn't be happy to wait for ages in the queue to speak to someone.

With Queuebuster, the system that BT has that offers to call you back, you can either get a callback, most people have a mobile number that BT can call them back on, or hold in the queue. The decision is up to the customer.

There is a happy ending I am sure you will all be relieved to know. Not long after typing my rant I saw a BT van appear next door, my mother started muttering 'what did they do to get an engineer before Wednesday? etc'

Anyway there was a knock at the door and low and behold a BT engineer informs me he will be working out side my home to fix my line and the FOUR others on the estate. Twenty minutes later all back to normal and we helpfully got one of those messages to tell us our phone was working, well no sh*t. cos the phone rang to give us the message.

As for the use of mobile phones for contact, well yes I have a mobile, and that was the diverted number, but my mother does not, if she needs one when she is out I or my sister lend her ours, BUT during the working day we both need them and to have left it for the purposes of BT NOT ringing back would have been inconvenient. So again I would love to know how BT can ring you when your BT line is knackered?

BT really are damned if they do and damned if they don't!!

You can wait and hold in the queue, you don't have to accept the call back.

The call backs are done automatically anyway, it isn't like the individual advisor looks at the details and decides not to call back.

They are only damned if they don't get their fingers out fixing my phone in a half decent time. IF I had been able to speak to someone maybe I would have discovered that it had been prioritised because of more than one household affected and not needed a call back or not. Maybe if BT didn't seem to commit so much to push button menus and automated replies then perhaps the system could work towards getting the job done, then I and I assume many others would not get so irate at a) length of time without a phone and b) the inability to get anything more than some staccato woman telling me they know about fault.

I don't damn anyone if they do their job properly.

The automated menus can be great (when you finally work out what option to use) - especially when they can (and do) say something along the lines of "We are currently experiencing a fault in the XXX area, we are investigating the problem and should have an update available at 12:00 - not actually come across this from BT - but from a couple of ISPs. Perhaps, when you called this was an isolated incident, but when your neighbours went through the same process the automated systems triggered an "ouh ouh, we've got a number of lines on the same street broken - better send an engineer round" - BT could use there text service for this (like they do when they are working on a fault) - e.g. "A localised fault has been found in your area, a BT engineer is now on his way to the location", "A BT engineer has arrived on site and found a fault. We expect normal service to be resumed by 17:05". The automated phone call then sees if the line works, and if it doesn't BT could then know something is wrong and to investigate further.

As for people being in all day - many seem to think that nipping little johnny to school means that you are still in - by asking about the school run they can prioritise the calls to ensure the engineer doesn't sit around in his van for half an hour waiting for the chelsea tractor to get back.

Wow don't kids walk to school any more?

A week? You're lucky. I had the exact same problem. My line suddenly went dead. My BB was fine though.

When I reported the fault to a real person after 47 million button pressing options, they told me it will take them 4 weeks to get an engineer out!
4 weeks! I moaned at them very politely, and 4 days later an engineer came out and fixed it.
I'm also getting some credit back for the time it was off.