Your thoughts for Ofcom

skint999

Why aren't payment charges looked at and regulated better? I am a BT employee and have found that held to term/early termination fees are calculated and charged incorrectly due to certain system faults within BT. We get calls/complaints regularly about these fees being charged incorrectly and the hierarchy within BT are doing nothing to correct these problems. Incorrect charges occur when a customer moves premises or address and charges are generated when customers get their final bill from previous address. Charges are incorrectly calculated and charged to customers at way over what they should be. They shouldn't be held to term if they take up the same product at their new address. Imagine how much revenue is generated to BT from customers who have not checked their bill properly or just presumed its correct, I find this shocking even as a BT employee. I have raised this issue many times in meetings and so far had no feedback to say this has been resolved or being looked into, but continue to get the same issues from customers, something clearly has to be done by the regulators.
Customers are also placed on contracts that they didn't ask for, i.e. Business contract terms 1yr, 2yr, 3yr and 5yr. Sales advisers get extra commission for signing a customer to a longer contract. I can't imagine how many customers have just been signed onto a long term contract without even being told. This also needs to be better regulated.
The current problems at BT are endless, many due to system faults which have not been rectified because they create millions of revenue for BT.
I believe in fair play, and my voice isn't being heard.

KimYeovil

A company should not be allowed to only transfer existing BT lines. That is, if they offer broadband they must also arrange re-connection with BT Openreach themselves and face the associated £110-125 costs themselves. They should not be permitted to blacken BT with this false association.

KimYeovil

I disagree with Heinz' motivation but agree with the request that 1280 etc call throughs should not be permitted to be blocked.

And I'm not sure, Incisor, that the direct debit / monthly payment is an issue with BT - yes, it's a problem with energy companies - but BT do give the customer control of payments. And the outstanding balance is continually updated within a day or two so one can always easily estimate if the payment is reasonable.

Heinz

I think the 1280 issue - point (1) in my earlier post - is gathering importance Martin.

Tiscali appear now to be joining Sky and Talk Talk - see HERE.

Chainman

I'd like them to explain who they are protecting, I see countless people (like me) hounded by the Telecomm's companies for payment of a service they are not supplying.

On top of that when you try and raise a complaint you get nowhere.

I sure we would all like a regulator that works for the consumer rather than the companies.. Is that too much to ask?

What is the point in sending us to Otelo and Cisas etc when they're pretty impotent when it comes to enforcing the outcome.

System

Martin: Although I am one of those currently a bit obsessional about it, I am inclined to agree with you that the BT Wholesale Calls Line Independent / 1280 issue may not necessarily be top of your list of matters to raise with Ofcom. As top of the telecoms list, I'd propose what I'd call the bundle con. All the big telcos are pushing hard to get their customers signed up for a year or more at a time to bundles of (at least) telephone calls and broadband. These are variously presented as telephony with "free" broadband, or broadband with "free" telephony, or cut-price one or other. "Free" or included telephony always has exclusions, on which the telco overcharges. There is maximum confusion, and it is difficult for the ordinary consumer to compare value for money between telcos (unless they read your and Heinz's masterly guides, of course!)

All this would diminish greatly if Ofcom prohibited bundling, required all telcos to allow all indirect access, and required telcos to state
(a) honest monthly prices for clearly defined unmetered calls
(b) prominent prices for calls not included in (a)
(c) an explicit discount for customers taking more than one service.

This would, incidentally, stop the WCLI scam, because of the important stipulation that all telcos must allow all indirect access. (Incidentally, I cannot understand why the European Commission has not already insisted on this. At present, companies like Finarea simply do not have fair access to the UK telecoms market.)

Finally, if there is some regulatory reason why BT does not offer "calls only" (not including "line rental"), then please ask why, and if the answer is not convincing, suggest that the regulation be removed.

Jemma-T

My thoughts are they all need sacking because they are either corrupt, corruptable or think they're working for Tesco or something. What they did to 192 was also unforgivable.

I see they also have OfCom bottled water on their desks when I saw an interview with one of their managers. Disgusting.

Pink_fluff

Why are they not allowed bottled water?

Heinz

Pink_fluff wrote: »

Why are they not allowed bottled water?

I think Jemma-T was objecting to the Ofcom-branded bottled water!

Or, perhaps more accurately, to the fact that, clearly, taxpayers are paying for them to have bottles produced with the Ofcom logo.

Jemma-T

Yes, it was logo'd with the very expensively designed OfCom brand.

Disgusting.