Extortion?

[geoffrey]

An elderly lady had trouble with her phone and called Utility Warehouse who called BT. After three days waiting an engineer called from their depot less than a quarter mile away. He looked at the phone connection box and said that it was a loose wire. He was gone within about five minutes. She has been billed with £250 'callout charge' plus 20% VAT, a total of £300. 'as the fault was with the consumers property'. Surely this is extortion. His total time from leaving his depot to returning to it cannot have been more that 15 minutes at the absolute maximum. If it was a private trader he would probably be arrested for fraud, but what of BT?

[ostell]

Re: Extortion?

Was the loose wire in the master socket in the house, ie the first socket where the line enters the house ? Or was there only one socket in the house? If the loose wire is in the master socket then it could be (probably is) a supplier problem. BT are not above raising a bill without looking at the resolution details.