BT customer billed for broadband while landline remained unusable
A BT customer says the company continued charging £32.99 a month for broadband and a landline that had stopped working after a switch to Digital Voice in May 2025. The case highlights how unresolved faults and closed complaints can leave customers paying for a service they cannot use, and the difficulty of proving when problems were reported.
Two engineers found a severed wire in December but did not return to complete the repair; the line was eventually restored in September. BT said it had no record of earlier reports and offered £6.46, then agreed to pay £689 for 60 days without service and for mishandling two recorded complaints. Ofcom’s rules provide for £10.34 a day when a reported fault is not fixed within two working days, but the customer could not establish the reporting history needed to claim more.
- BT charged £32.99 monthly while the landline was out of service.
- The line was restored in September after a severed wire was found.
- The customer accepted £689 in compensation for 60 days and complaint handling.
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In May 2025, BT switched a customer to Digital Voice service. After the switch, the customer's landline stopped working, but BT continued billing £32.99 monthly for both broadband and the now-unusable landline.
The case raises broader questions about how companies handle faults and compensate customers when services fail. An engineer found a severed wire in December but did not return to complete the repair, leaving the customer without a working phone for months. This highlights how unresolved faults can persist while customers continue paying.
Under Ofcom's rules, customers whose reported faults are not fixed within two working days are entitled to £10.34 a day in compensation. However, customers must prove they reported the problem, and this customer could not establish they had done so because BT said it had no record of earlier complaints. This illustrates a key challenge in claiming compensation for service failures.
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The case for
The arrangement whereby BT continued billing whilst the customer was without service is fundamentally unjust, yet the company's defence rests entirely on claiming no record of earlier fault reports—a claim that places the burden of proof impossibly on the customer. When a large company controls the only system for documenting service failures and claims these records don't exist, the customer has no realistic means to establish their case, effectively subsidising the company's service failure with their own money. The compensation eventually offered suggests BT itself recognises fault occurred; the company should prioritise customer interests when records are disputed rather than requiring proof of phone calls made months earlier.
The case against
Accepting unverifiable customer claims about past fault reports as sufficient grounds for compensation would expose BT to unlimited liability and create perverse incentives, as customers could claim any service failure was previously reported without evidence. Standard business practice requires documented records precisely to distinguish legitimate claims from false ones and to protect both parties through objective verification. BT eventually repaired the fault and offered compensation within Ofcom's regulatory framework; demanding the company maintain indefinite records of every incoming call or accept unverifiable assertions would impose unreasonable operational burdens that ultimately increase costs for all customers.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “BT charged me for more than a year despite landline being dead”.