topic Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee? in Home Phone

Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

rwhunited1 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 12:22:14 GMT

Hello all. We had a crackly phone line 2 weeks ago. Phoned talk talk to explain this issue, we have been in both times an engineer has been and was told this was sorted by the engineer. Upon receiving our latest bill we have been charged a £75 fee. We haven’t missed an engineer visit, and this isn’t a fault of ours, this is a BT open reach fault. When we call up we are just told a message will be send and cannot get through to a person on the phone.

Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

ferguson — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 12:30:09 GMT

If you would like the support team here to look into this for you make sure that your personal details including TalkTalk phone number or account number are complete on your community profile (click here) so that they can link your forum identity with your account and then wait for them to respond.

Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

Thabile-TT — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:19:03 GMT

Hi there @rwhunited1, thanks for getting in touch with us. As per notes on the account left by the engineer, the charge is valid. When the engineer visited, they found no fault on your line making the charge valid. I've provided a link below providing you with more information on how you get charged.

Your TalkTalk engineer appointment

Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

rwhunited1 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 20:58:14 GMT

Hello, that is not correct. As when we called today, the talk talk customer service rep couldn’t hear me as the line was so bad? The engineer also said that the line had water in and swapped the cables over. Told us that if the problem persists to raise this issue again and they would speak to BT openreach.

Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

ferguson — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 21:52:52 GMT

OK, there is clearly a difference in opinion here. What exactly did the engineer do when they visited? And if they were not from Openreach in the first place they would not have been in a position to swap any external cables over. Subject to that, bear in mind the support team here won't be back online until Monday.

Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

rwhunited1 — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 07:39:43 GMT

The engineer came into the house, lifted the handset and could hear the line very crackly and said that it sounded like water in the cable. Told us that he would go outside and check the cables and then get back to us. He did not get back to us, the line is still crackly (as could be heard by the talk talk agent when calling) and a new appointment has been set up for 2nd December for another engineer visit. A note has been added to the account to not charge for this next appointment and the first appointment charge is being investigated. We have been customers for a very long time and feel this is a very poor way to treat loyal customers with a clear fault.

Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

rwhunited1 — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:36:13 GMT

Funnily enough, an engineer has just been and found a fault on the cable outside a neighbour’s property. Said the previous engineer will have just been to the main cabinet and put a test phone on and heard it was fine. Apparently the first engineer was a sub contractor who is paid by the job, so obviously wanted to just hurry up and move on. Will be taking it up with complaints and getting the unjust £75 charge removed.

Re: Crackly phone line but charged engineer fee?

Philile-TT — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:20:43 GMT

Hi there @rwhunited1 please advise if you did speak to the customer services team during the weekend? I can see that you had mentioned following the complaints route.