A relative of ours has just moved house to south Wales, served by the Pencader exchange.

They know the telephone number of the house, and the phone is working to receive calls, but they can't make calls.

They phoned BT to get the line connected in their name, and BT told them it is not their line so they cannot help.

I have heard about this sort of problem in placed where the exchanges have had the local loop unbundled (LLU) and people have switched supplier for broadband. But this exchange has not been unbundled, so only has BT lines.

They are going to phone the previous owners when they next go out (no mobile coverage at home either) but how can this be a "non BT" line in a non LLU exchange?

They have just found out from the previous owners that they were with One Bill:

https://www.onebilltelecom.com/residential/

So now we know who they were with before.

Why is it BT can't help?

Of you want to change your landline AWAY from BT, you just contact your new supplier, and they arange everything, after all they WANT your business.

But if you want to change the line BACK to BT, they can't or won't help you. In other words they DON'T want your business.

I think they are now going to talk to talk talk and see if they want their business.

Are you sure they went about it the right way.

If the contacted the bit of BT that handles reconnections of BT lines after they have been temporarily disconnected because the previous customer has departed they won't be able to do anything (although you'd think they tell you which department to contact).

They need to get in touch with the 'come back to BT' department.

(This is just speculation, actually, but it seems the most likely explanation.)

It looks to me that the previous people at the property have not contacted Onebill to have the service ceased.

If the line was just lying dormant then BT Retail could easily place an order to start the line.

When the line is with another provider is isn't nearly as simple. BT Retail cannot simply say to the other provider that they are taking over the line.

The problem here has been caused by the people who moved out the property, no-one else.

Looking at the legal bit, it looks like that company charges an admin fee to terminate the service, so I suspect that the previous owners didn't bother and saved the money... causes a bit of a problem for your relatives though. I imagine that until they pay for the service to be terminated, they won't be able to switch to another provider... uless they're a very nice and understanding company.

But if you are right and they haven't paid for the service to be terminated, then why is the line not working for outgoing calls? Looks like it has been "partly terminated"

I think my relatives are making progress (with talk talk) but have been told it will take 2 weeks.

These end of contract things are all a bit silly. When I came to the end of a mortgage once, my BS said they would hit me with a £300 bill to close the account. So I didn't quite pay it all off, I left £100 outstanding on the mortgage account.

They first wrote to me and said is this a mistake. I wrote and said no, that was what I intended, please keep charging me the interest on that £100. They then wrote back and said the account was now closed

I like that mortgage idea... must remember that!
Last edited by airprox : 20-09-2007 at 13:03

I got the idea from a friend, who was even more cheeky. He paid it all off bar £1.

Silly thing is in his case they didn't close the acount and they still send him an annual statement, though they don't charge him any interest on the £1 ballance.