BT charged me for more than a year despite landline being dead

I’ve had no landline since May 2025 when BT switched it to Digital Voice. Weeks passed, and each call to BT involved at least an hour waiting on hold and answering security questions before being passed between departments.

Eventually, last December, two engineers were sent and discovered that a wire had been severed during the upgrade. They said they needed a cherry picker to reconnect it to its original location and would return. They did not.

Since then, I’ve called BT to no avail, and all the while I’ve been paying for a landline that doesn’t work.

I am on the priority register due to serious illness and am reduced to tears of helplessness.

HH, York

You have been paying £32.99 a month for a dead landline and broadband, which was unaffected. BT claims it was unaware of the problem until you complained last December. You insist you had reported it before then, but do not have records of when. It turns out the case was closed in December after the engineers’ abortive visit.

You next complained in January, but BT admits it again closed the case because, by then, your landline had been removed from your account, though you were still being charged.

It says it did not hear from you again until I intervened in July.

You said that you had believed promises that a fix was under way.

A complaints manager rang you after my contact, and you were offered an extraordinary £6.46 to “make up” for its failings. Your line was eventually activated in September.

The telecoms regulator Ofcom requires providers to pay £10.34 compensation a day if a reported fault is not corrected within two working days, which means you are, in theory, entitled to more than £4,600.

I’ve put this to BT, but it is digging in because, it claims, you waited months to report the problems. Since you can’t provide proof to contradict it, I can’t argue the toss.

You have the option of a complaint to the Communications Ombudsman but have now accepted £689 for the 60 days without service which BT acknowledges fall within the compensation rules, and for its mishandling of the two complaints it has on record.

Always keep a timeline of interactions with a company and follow up unaddressed complaints promptly and in writing.

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