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france telecom .. give me strength !!!


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as we are only in france for 1 holiday c 4 weeks a year in august i mailed ft to suspend the line back in early november. they have sent me another bill for rental (16e/month) which i queried via their online site. i now have the following response which i think suggests that they do not believe that my house in france is a maison secondaire. their bills are sent to the uk and there are no calls on them except for the 4 week holiday.

"Vous nous faites part du fait que votre ligne n'est pas suspendue suite à votre demande par mail.

Votre abonnement n'est pas reconnu comme étant une ligne de résidence secondaire mais comme un abonnement principale qui n'est pas possible de suspendre.

Pour que votre demande de modification en Ligne Résidence Secondaire soit prise en compte, vous devez fournir une attestation d'assurance indiquant la nature de l'habitation ou une attestation de résidence à l'étranger et un document fiscal précisant l'adresse de la résidence principale (1ère page de la déclaration d'impôt sur le revenu n° 2042).

La facturation que vous avez reçue est donc justifiée et ne pourra être corrigé qu'à réception des documents justificatifs."

am i banging my head against the brick wall of bureaocracy here or is there some easy way of getting them to understand this very simple situation. i am close to just cancelling the line & using mobiles. anyone shed any light on this message or have any helpful suggestions please ? (my french is very much tourist bar/restaurant french)

tia

dejavu
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[quote user="dejavu"]Pour que votre demande de modification en Ligne Résidence Secondaire soit prise en compte, vous devez fournir une attestation d'assurance indiquant la nature de l'habitation ou une attestation de résidence à l'étranger et un document fiscal précisant l'adresse de la résidence principale (1ère page de la déclaration d'impôt sur le revenu n° 2042).

La facturation que vous avez reçue est donc justifiée et ne pourra être corrigé qu'à réception des documents justificatifs." [/quote]

Quick translation:

In order for your your line to be changed to a 'Ligne Résidence Secondaire' you must send an insurance certificate stating that your house is just a holiday home OR documentation that shows you live abroad OR a (French) tax document which shows the address of your main residence (1st page of your tax declaration No. 2042)

The bill which you have received is correct and cannot be amended until we receive the documents requested..

"is there some easy way of getting them to understand this very simple situation" Yes, you need to do as Wooly says and write to them with some proof that it is not your main residence then they will change the line status for you.

Danny

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ok thanks for your replies. however given that its a totally unused line for 11 months a year and the invoices have been sent to my address in england for the last 13 years make it pretty damned obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense ! especially as i had already exchanged messages on their site in november to this effect. why didnt they ask for this in november i wonder ? is this a business or a bureacratic government department ?

i feel sympathy for anyone trying to live and work in france.

thanks for your replies anyway.
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I have to say that FT were very good with us when we moved back to the UK and had not sold our french home. They transferred it to 2nd home status without any problem and I cannot remember having to furnish proof, other than asking for bills to arrive in the UK. As you said, it is not 'hard' for them to see your usage.

BT, well I have not one good thing to say about them as a company. I have encountered some marvellous staff recently as I have been leaving them, but until the high ups actually 'care' about simple customers like me I cannot see anything changing.
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I have just received a letter from TalkTalk in England in response to one I had sent them querying my bill. Their reply says they cannot respond fully to my letter until I have proved I am the account holder by supplying my name, address, date of birth and account number, all of which were typed in bold type at the top of my letter to them.

A few months back I received a reply to a complaint I had sent to the chairman of BT, having contacted them Lord knows how many times to no effect about their failure to amend their records. We were getting bills (and a BT router) for someone else with a completely different name and address, apart from the house name, but for some reason they insisted on putting our village and post code on the correspondence. The chairman's PA wrote initially to say that she had checked their records and they were correct. So I sent her the next bill that arrived, again for the other subscriber, pointing out the discrepancies. She then phoned my wife to insist that we were wrong and BT's records were correct, even though she had in her hand the bill with someone else's name on it. When my wife pointed this out to her, she eventually got the message but made no apology and was glad she had resolved our problem. What qualifications do you need, I wonder, to become PA to the chairman of a huge telecoms company?

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dejavu

There is no such thing as "common sense" in France, do not expect anyone to think "outide the box". They are following their guidlines and you have to conform to it.

Take a big breath, bite your tongue and do what the ask.

I worked for FT for 3 months in their IT/Finance department. Utterly bizarre 3 months, I learnt alot about the French office work ethic (it may not be just FT but I don't have anything else to compare it against). I have one or two fantastic examples of them following..rigidly..guidelines....you could weep with frustration. I will not be returning..

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Can I ask whether this is the first time you've tried to suspend your line with FT? You say you've been having the bills sent to the UK for 13 years, so does this mean you've been paying full line rental for all this time and are only now trying to change to it being a second home line?

When we had our phone line installed 4 years ago, I followed the instructions on the website under Ligne Residence Secondaire, got an attestation from our insurance agent and sent it to the required address, and have been suspending and reconncting the line without difficulty ever since. If you haven't followed the quite reasonable requirement to provide proof that your house is a second home, I can quite see why FT haven't complied with your email request. Do what they ask and you should have no more problems, then thank your lucky stars you can suspend your line and don't have to pay year-round as you would have to with a second home in the UK. [:)]

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