Conflicting advice and a merry go round online system

[moscarella]

I have a phone problem which apparently cannot be resolved by the helpline. My phone is dead, on calling the helpline they advised me to remove the front of the master socket, which the engineer advised me not to do as this was a mk3 master socket and removal of the front was unnecessary in  case of a fault. I advised the helpline of this and was told that an engineer will charge me £240-00 to remove the front of said socket (two screws)! This was intalled 10 days ago!

My Broadband connection is working fine and I suspect that the pole connection a short way away carrying the line in has suffered from the appalling weather here recently.

Who’s advice do I take here, the engineers or the helpdesk? In the meantime I have no business phone line at all and I am at a complete loss as to how to get my phone line working again. I would greatly appreciate some help here.

The online help system simply goes round and round, forcing me to sign in several times and simply acts as a merry-go-round which simply does not work.

[Burkem5]

Hi there @moscarella

I am sorry that you have been given conflicting info about this.
The engineer should have said that the new Mk 3 Fibre socket means that if you have a fault with your Fibre Broadband you do not need to remove the face plate -  This is correct.

What he did not say is that if you have a Phone Line issue then you do need to remove the faceplate as per the advisers instructions.

If you remove the front plate you will see this

You can then remove the middle plate like so

Plug into the test socket there and see if you get a dial tone.  

If you do not then contact us and let us know.

If you do then either the socket or something connected to any of the extensions are faulty and causing interference.

This interference overwhelms the bell filter built into the faceplate,  it may be worth then re assembling the socket and then removing everything on that line bar the phone.

If the phone works then plug in the router and check if this continues to work

Then plug one device into the extensions  at a time and see which brings down the phone 

When the phone goes down you know that the issue is either with the extension this is plugged into or the device plugged in.

Hope this helps 

Burkem5

[moscarella · Accepted solution]

Update - The BT Engineer, on investigation discovered very quickly that the reason for my dead phone was because some person, for reasons best known to themselves, had physically cut my phone line inside the "green box" across the road. The fault reporting system on the BT website does not work and the enourmous number of pages to wade through is as bad as gov.com.

Hats off to the unsung heroes of BT, the Engineers!

It is still a complete mystery however, why I have to change my cookie preferences from full spam to functional on each and every different and sequential page of the BT website!

[Burkem5]

HI @moscarella

I will raise that off to the website guys.
Can you do me a favour and post what browser you are using and which browser extensions and pluging you are using there?

Thanks 

Burkem5

[moscarella]

Hi, I use Firefox, since MS Explorer and Edge have more security holes in them than a virtual colander, I use the following add-ons. As do Kent Police etc. etc. Do these problems also occur with say, the likes of Safari? I have no problems whatsoever with any website at all, with the exception on one updating instance with Paypal and a simple phone call cleared that up immediately. Millions of users have Firefox! I use it because I want to know who is watching and tracking me.

1.Self Destructing cookies

2. Ghostery.

I use Agnitum firewall and Malware Bytes also. And will never "upgrade" to Windows 10 because it is chock full of spyware and have a block on my system being stealth upgraded from Win 7.

I have no great problems with cookies except LS cookies and Flash storage, which I regard as invasions of my privacy. I have a great many confidential medical records stored on my systems and I will be damned if I give anyone access to them except myself! On a final note, I also consider that the BT cookie preference system to be based on the inertia principle, which is completely wrong.

I do not want my details passed to marketing companies, business partners or anybody else. My business dealings with BT regarding any matter should be confidential and I resent having to prevent my details placed on any "sucker list" because I am (attempting) to use the BT website to solve problems or find information each and every time I log on.

I stand by my comment about the BT website and I cannot understand why BT, with all its resources cannot produce a cohesive site. Ebay seems to be able to handle its millions of users but not BT.

It would function a great deal more efficiently even if it was a mail link only site, since the plethora of phone numbers simply adds to the confusion. In my case the "check my phone" line portion of the BT website simply sent me round and round in circles and I am pretty sure that your response to this will be "well, you are using Firefox you know".

Anyway, my problem turned out to be physical vandalism, since some person had physically cut my phone line in the "green box" nearby.

[Burkem5]

Ok,  i totally understand why you would not want certain tracking cookies - fingerprint tracking cookies in particular are a nightmare to deal with.

Could self -destructing cooklies be causing this if its deleting your cookies and cookie preferences?

BT cannot reccomend any specific non BT apps or products but.....

I use privacy badger by the EFF on Firefox on my home PC and dont notice this issue.

Hope this helps

Burkem5

[moscarella]

Hi, It is likely that self destructing cookies is causing the cookie problem and there could be a better add-on, but as this seemed to do the job I have been a bit sloppy in looking at the alternatives.

On the other hand, If i go into a department store I don't expect someone to slap a number on my back as I enter and follow me around with a notebook! I simply allow session cookies only and no third party cookies. On the other hand I do not have the slightest doubt that BT knows pretty much as they want o know about me and that my cookie preferences, once altered can be saved server side.

I don't see why the onus should be on me to continually alter these settings, I also wonder how many poor saps have had all their details passed to marketing organisations and information leeches simply because they simply ignore the cookie settings pop-up and click O.K.

It seems that everybody needs to know everything about you these days as that information can be sold or traded. If I can stop even one of these persons I will do and that includes BT! Any query in any browser for mailing list brokers will tell you just how much your details are worth.

Regards

R.H.