Have a look at various voice providers and see if they will arrange line installation. It's a purely administrative process between them and BT Wholesale, some providers can do this, some won't (Talktalk) but any Telco could if they wished.

Amongst the examples I mentioned be aware that Plusnet and Madasafish are both owned by BT but run completely separately and The Post Office just resells BT products.

Prices will vary but the wholesale charge from BTw is £88 + VAT

Results are often acheived from BT by e-mailing the main man, ian dot livingston at bt dot com

fnarrr

Thanks for this information. I'll look into some of them as soon as.

I wasn't aware of this. Ignorance is bliss. I just wouldn't like to be as ignorant as BT !

I have almost exactly the same problem with BT and their customer service. Tried using their advertised methods of bill payment without success - over the phone, on their website. Eventually my wife had to take time out from her work to go to a "Paypoint" shop and pay it. We spent many hours on the phone trying to speak to someone at BT with an inkling of common sense - no chance !

We had planned to arrange a direct debit payment schedule but the BT eejit who took my call managed to cut me off and we never spoke again.

On one occasion, my wife and I stayed on the phone to BT for over two hours. Eventually being automatically cut of 20.00hrs without having spoken to anyone ! I

I spent more time held on the phone to India than I do to my mother.

When I initially inquired about getting a line installed, I was quoted, and charged, about £190.00 which I thought was very steep as the property had previously had a line and still had the BT wall box. The engineer turned up on the wrong date and my wife had to leave work to let him in to check the box. This took a good 10 minutes of his time.

Then when it came time to pay the bill, none of their methods worked despite trying them many, many times. By this time the bill was overdue and we had to pay as above.

We then got correspondence from BT (after the bill was paid) advising us that our line was being terminated and they were charging us about £130.00 for the privilege.

We heard nothing further for a while until we got a demand from BT which we responded to in dispute over the termination charge. We are agreeable to a reasonable late payment fee but not a termination charge which was due in the main because of their inept quality of service.

I then contacted them through their website complaints system to advise them of the above. the reply I received was, to put it mildly, a farce.

They offered to re-connect us if we paid the termination fee AND a re-connection fee. They would then "consider" rebating some of the charges at a later date.

Needless to say this went down like a lead balloon and we are now being chased by debt collectors.

If there was an alternative land line service to BT, we would gladly choose it. We don't have cable in our area so BT pretty much have the monopoly where we live.

I have written to the debt collection agency today and we'll have to see what the outcome is.

I'll keep your posted

Could someone please help iam in despute with bt over my final bill to the point were they have transferred it to a bebt agencey i moved house in july and asked to be transffed to our new house to which i was told that it would cost me £125 there and then which i did not have they told me that i would have to pay a canellation fee for my broadband which was running till feb 09 i offered to pay the £17.99 a month by direct debit as i always did they told me i cuold not do this as i had to have the line rental with them but i was not under contract for the phone as i had been with bt many years.So i had to cancell my contract but my argument with bt is that techincally they cancelled my contract because i was not given anyother option having put this in a letter and paid a 19 fee for calls used and a so called late payment i was hopeing this would be the end now ive been handed over to a debt agencey and they are saying there is nothing i can do although i want to state my case in the court they say it wont go to court just to some dept and it will rule in their favor.ironicaly they say i can now pay the £17.99 amonth but the debt has now risen to 201 as apossed to 141