BT want our phone and £50 fee before agreeing a package

Cottage_Economy · 14 April 2015 at 4:46PM

We currently have our broadband with BT and phone with TalkTalk (out of contract with both) and haven't really looked too closely at the costs until recently, when we found we were consistently going over our 10gb usage limit and being charged.

We are very light users of the internet, really just light surfing, some emails and some youtube videos, but we do accept that we do a lot more surfing etc than we used to so our usage is probably fair.

We phoned to speak to an adviser about getting unlimited broadband (not fibre) and bringing the telephone back to BT so we could get the best package possible. After trying to sell us endless stuff we don't want or need, it came down to brass tacks.

First we were told they couldn't talk about packages with us unless we switched our phone to them today and paid a £50 connection fee.

Then when we said no, we were given a 'theoretical' package that we could get if we switched our phone to them today and paid a £50 connection fee to do so. Then the adviser promised she would ring back in 10 days when it was all complete to talk about a package.

In the end we were going around in circles and getting nowhere so we ended the call none the wiser.

We've been out of the loop so long with this stuff that I've no idea whether that is standard practice.

Can anyone shed any light on what just occurred before I get on the phone to TalkTalk? If we agree to a package and sign a 12 month contract BT will take over the phone billing anyway, so why insist on having it first? And why a connection fee - our phoneline is connected already.

Would we just be better going straight to other providers and get deals as a new customer?

forgotmyname · 14 April 2015 at 9:31PM

Youtube video's can easily eat a lot of your allowance, My daughter can do 10gb in a few days.
A 6 minutes low quality show is 25mb, But the same 6 minutes in 720 is 140mb.
Another clip thats just over 1 hour is 255mb in low res and 1.2GB in 720.

So 8 hours of video could take you over. Maybe worse if autoplay is enabled or the channels you watch have trailers. And any adverts themselves.

Try Plustnet, Its BT but with UK call centres.

macman · 14 April 2015 at 10:18PM

Yes, you'll always get the best deals as a new customer. If you have your line with TT and the broadband with BT(?) then you must be on a TT non-LLU service, which normally attracts a hefty surcharge. I'd bundle the two services, either with TT or Plusnet.
I can'rt work out what BT's game is here...no change there then.

Cottage_Economy · 17 April 2015 at 10:39PM

We've had a look at deals with Plusnet and we can get unlimited broadband only for £19.99 or a deal for broadband and telephone for £17.50 as long as we stay in a contract.

It appears that we are in what Plusnet calles a Market 1 area, that is, serviced exclusively by BT wholesale, so we can expect higher costs. The low cost deals are not available to us.

We're thinking of shifting the broadband across to Plusnet to start with and then if we get a decent service from them switch the phone line across. Initially our costs will come down by a few pounds each month and obviously we won't pay any additional charges for going over our limit any more, then later we'll get another £2.50 a month less when the phone is switched.

Dissapointed to lose our email addresses after having them for over a decade and hate the fact that I'll have a lot of faff updating all my various accounts etc, but we're not putting up with BT anymore.

tronator · 18 April 2015 at 1:16AM

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

Dissapointed to lose our email addresses after having them for over a decade and hate the fact that I'll have a lot of faff updating all my various accounts etc, but we're not putting up with BT anymore.

Just don't make the same mistake again and use Plusnet's free email address. Use an independent email Provider like Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook.com, GMX, ...

prowla · 18 April 2015 at 7:44AM

The connection fee is not to connect the wire to your house, but rather to swap aroung the wires in the exchange (because the other end of your line is plugged into someone else's network equipment there) and to configure your connection into their equipment.

However, charging you for this is something you should decide whether you are prepared to accept.

Other providers, like Sky or EE may not charge, and you might even get cashback (via Quidco/TCB) for choosing them; there was recently an EE offer highlighter here, so it's worth looking around.

I think BT are probably low down the list of companies I would choose (though EE have now been taken over by them!).

macman · 18 April 2015 at 3:06PM

You can retain your BT email address if you want, but it'll cost you around £1.50pm to do so.
Since your phone and broadband will be supplied over exactly the same network as BT, the only difference with PN is the billing and much better CS, so I'd switch the whole lot at once rather than piecemeal, since the cost savings are only really worthwhile if you take a bundle.
This also means that you can maximise any cashback savings, with Quidco currently paying £70 for a PN phone and broadband sign-up.

Feral_Moon · 18 April 2015 at 3:17PM

BT will waive the £135 installation fee if you opt to have a second line installed. That's what I did when we joined BT Infinity as the original line is with Talk Talk and still in contract.

Cottage_Economy · 13 May 2015 at 3:25PM

Just to update the thread for completion

We made the decision in the end to go with PlusNet, but not knowing how long we had from the time we requested our MAC code until we lost our BT email address, we decided to archive our emails, change the email address on all of our accounts to a gmail account for continuity, and then switch.

Realising we had a herculean task ahead of us my husband decided to give it one more go and rang BT, this time to request just unlimited broadband, not a package, and see if he got a human being on the end of the phone.

The advisor refused straight away to do unlimited on our account unless we switched the phone across first.

Before she started the fun and games, hubby laid his cards on the table and told her if we can't get an unlimited broadband package we're going to have to go to PlusNet. It's a lot of hassle, but we're going to do it because we're no longer paying BT's charges for going over the limit every month. That we were tired of being treated like idiots.

She went again to speak to one of her managers, came back and told us we can have unlimited and put the order through straight away. Our monthly fee dropped from £23 a month to £17.03 and there's no contract. The email confirming the order came through before hubby had put the phone down and went live immediately.

What a load of silliness we've had to deal with to get this.

So we are paying around £1.50 more a month with this new arrangement than if we switched everything to PlusNet (Talktalk's line rental is only marginally more than PlusNet's every month), but we are happy to pay this as the hassle of moving is too great.

JJ_Egan · 13 May 2015 at 3:28PM

So BT have given you broadband unlimited with no contract or do you mean something else ??

Cottage_Economy · 13 May 2015 at 4:44PM

Yes, that's right.

All that fuss and bother for BT to eventually just remove the 10gb restriction and drop the price with no contract renewal.

BT want our phone and £50 fee before agreeing a package

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