BT complaints

BT are a pain in the bum!!

Signed up for monthly 'whole bill' direct debit and paperless. Oh look here's a quarterly paper bill with payment processing fees and the charge for a paper bill. Oh but they'll knock the money off my next bill. Never mind the fact that that's messed my monthly (tight!) budget up by taking more money out of my account. And i have to wait til August for the next bill with the credit on. But woe betide if i don't pay on time. What a surprise my direct debit was supposed to come out a few days ago and still hasn't so they can penalise me for not paying even though they have assured me that wont happen and it will be paid on time etc. ARRGHH!

Would have gone with another company but Primus were also idiots who kept forgetting my order and made me wait 3 weeks just for an account and O2 weren't ready landline-wise

I've been with BT for over 5 years, but I moved my calls to Skytalk because it meant I got a £5 discount from Sky broadband. I rarely use the phone and only even bother to have it so I can get Sky and have a broadband connection so I dont care who my calls are with.

I got regular calls from BT asking me to go back to them for calls but when I explained as per the above they always agreed it wasnt worth me switching back.

Then in November I got another call and explained as per the above. This lady told me that she was offering something different and it wouldnt affect my skytalk. All I had to do was sign up for 12 months and I would save £2 per month off my bill. So I did this.

Then I had to go away for a while and only got what my flatmate thought was important mail sent to me, so I missed the letters from BT and Sky telling me that the skytalk had in fact been cancelled and that my calls were now with BT.

I didnt notice this until February, so I called BT and and Sky, had my calls transferred back to Sky and BT said not to worry about it, and I wasnt in a 12 month contract afterall. I had now been charged an extra £10 from Sky in broadband charges.

Then on inspecting my bills I noticed that I WAS in a 12 month contract. Not only that, but additional charges had been added to my bill, such as friends and family etc and my bills were now about £3 per month higher than they were before. I assumed I had agreed to add these (although I know I explained over and over again to the lady on the phone I never use the phone for outgoing calls), so I called and cancelled them and thought nothing more of it. Once these were all off the bill, I could see that I wasnt actually saving anything by being on this 12 month contract. My bills had been £12.50 a month and were now £12.79 (but I think this was going to increase anyway).

I then wrote to say I wanted out of the 12 month contract and back in the position I was in before I was misled into taking out this new contract. Why would I agree to sign up for 12 months and pay the same amount (or in fact much more in this case) for the privilege!!

They then wrote to me and said they would let me out of the 12 month contract, but I would now have to pay £15.78 a month!

I decided enough was enough so wanted to switch to virgin and placed an order with them. I got a letter from BT saying that I was due around £50 in cancellation charges. I cancelled the order with virgin (partly because of this, and partly because of awkward cabling that would be required), and now I'm stuck with £15.78 a month with BT until December.

Is there anything I can do about this? Also, what are the alternatives to BT if I am no longer able to take a virgin line?

An update. I've actually had a rather nice letter from BT where they have offered to credit it me with the £5 I was charged with Sky. It crossed with my letter where I told them that I was no longer terminating the service, so they have also offered to waive the termination charges too.

I'm not terminating now as I cant get virgin installed due to the awkward cabling required, so it seems I'll have to have the £15.78 service unless I find another provider. Still seems a bit odd as I was only paying £12.50 before this, and was not in a contract. I've written them another letter asking if they can restate my service charges as it was before (ie £12.50 with no 12 month contract) so I just need to wait and see.

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi Drivenmemad

If you enter my profile its down at the bottom right of the page under additional information.

Cheers

Stuart

I hope none of the bt representatives posting on this forum are those indian call centre robots/liars (as far as i am concerned) becasuse its those indian or wherever (bar the UK) bt has its call centres based, who created the problem in the first place:(.
i may post my complaint later once i am sure you aren't.