To be cross with bt?

[Theas18]

Elderly parents buy phone direct from bt.

Lightning on tues struck house, blown tv/phones etc.

It will, apparently take bt till 30/7 to sort the phone line out:( no way on line to say - not good enough as this is 2 vulnerable elderly people, one with dementia

Fortunately I have been able to come over today with mobile phone, net access etc and start sorting it out.

Fortunately mum has actually realised what the ring tone of her mobile is lol

To be fair you have no idea what the extent of the problem is.

Did BT offer to transfer all calls to your mum's mobile?

Thunderbolt put out the main line to our village. Took 10 days to get the line up and running again.

We had many vulnerable people in the village - we just got them mobile phones like you.

BT did their best as quickly as possible.

YABU. Your parents probably aren't the only ones with phone line problems after a storm, they are giving you an estimate of when it will be fixed but as said above, who knows the damage after a lightening strike. Your mother has a mobile phone... What's the problem?

True re extent, but it is just the one house, not neighbours... And yes.....diverted to mobile - as long as dad doesn't get hold of it and fiddle with it!

There is actually a priority service for vulnerable people who depend on their telephone service, but you do need a GP to sign a form which registers you for this - might be worth looking into.

However as this sounds like a fault outside the home, doubt even a priority service would make any difference. There's likely to be more damage locally due to the storm, and a repair will depend on the availability of equipment, engineers etc.

There's not a lot they can do in a situation like this, apart from loaning the use of a mobile phone but it sounds like you've already got that covered.

I don't work for BT, but I was a faults advisor with them for about six months after leaving uni in 2005. Used to dread running the diagnostic test and finding a fault outside the home. Always took a lot longer to sort these out because of the amount of work involved. Worse case was trying to schedule engineers after a particularly bad spell of winter weather, and coming back with a date in the next calendar year - I switched to the handset before informing the customer of this as I knew I was going to have to hold the receiver away from my ear once they heard the news

She is not good with her mobile (when will they make one that doesn't cost a mint that has just a few nice big buttons? That you can see? And not a bazillion options that we don't need.

She has macular degeneration and arthritis - manipulating a mobile is hard. She's scared she'll run up a huge bill too.. Not in a p&g phone with £8 on it you cant( and we can top up remotely!).

We have got a nice set of phones for when they are reconnected though.

like this one?

Wilson that looks great, though I don't think it's available at the moment...

Mum also learned an amazing lesson today too about mobiles- saying " well I think your sister must have a problem with her phone" half way through a call in tescos probably isn't really the answer if all the lights have gone out suggesting your battery has gone flat - because you actually used the thing lol

Tesco Direct do a Doro mobile phone (it's about £50) but it has large buttons plus an emergency button on the back. If you press it for 3 seconds it rings the programmed number automatically. It's designed for older people and has an extra loud ringtone etc.

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