Basic Line Rental with BT, new bill

System

I think I know how BT arrives at the £9.10 ex-VAT for the July rental:

£26.80 per quarter x 4 = £107.20 per year.
Divide it by 365 days makes it £0.2937 per day.
Multiply £0.2937 by 31 days in July gives £9.10 for the month.

BT always calculate part-rental in this way if there are any changes part way through the quarter. However, you can always argue that as the new line rental is for the full month of July, they should charge you 1/3 of the quarterly rental instead of 31/365 of the yearly rental.

mrtickle

Indeed, it's obviously a bug in their billing system. I pay monthy and always have done; they are not allowed to charge me any part-quarter or part-year amounts: the Price List clearly denotes the cost per month as well as the cost per quarter.

They need to fix their billing system before next time so that any rental increases don't rip off monthly payers in this way. They must be worried about this, because I've received a grovelling letter (posted 1st class!) in the post from them telling my that my account was credited with 20p on 29th July. I'd think that everyone on monthly billing was affected.

AP

I received my latest quarterly bill from BT today and under the service charges section, the new line rental for BT Together Option 1 is charged at £9.10 ex-VAT for the month of July and the refund of line rental already charged is £8.23 ex-VAT, giving a net increase of £0.87 ex-VAT or £1.02225 inc. VAT.

I have e-mailed BT and ask them to issue a credit note for £0.02 ex-VAT to cover the difference.

gt94sss2

I have just received a bill for one of my lines as well - it looks like BT haven't yet fixed the bug.

I was charged 9.10 +vat for BT Together Option 1 in July - a 20p overcharge

Though I note I was refunded £8.23 +VAT for the BT Standard line rental I had already paid for July - which is actually a 17p overpayment by them!

As such, once I get the paper version, I will be asking them to look at the 20p overcharge - if they decide to look at the 17p overpayment as well thats up to them..

Really speaking none of these should have happened - as we are talking about full months.. its not exactly difficult

This will also give me a chance to have a proper look at the call allowance figures - they have given me a call allowance of £2.654+vat for May and June.. I have a feeling thats £1 (+VAT) less than it should be..

Regards
Sunil

Smartasss

You're right, the full call allowance was £2.15 (including VAT) per month.

But they only give you an allowance against those calls permitted for the allowance. (Local, national and 0845)

So if you didn't make £4.30 worth of allowable calls, then they only give you an allowance of the actual value of the calls made.

gt94sss2

Yes, however under "Call allowance" my bill says:

Range (£) Amount qualifying for discount (£) Discount percentage Total benefit (£)
0.001-2.654 2.654 100.00 -2.654
2.655 and over 0.445 0.00 0.00

So BT agree with me about the amount of "qualifying calls" I have estimated myself but have somehow decided that £2.654 +VAT is the call allowance for 2 complete months (May and June) and not the correct figure of £3.65 +VAT (or £3.10+VAT which is what I should get based on usage)

Regards
Sunil

mrtickle

They need to fix their billing system before next time so that any rental increases don't rip off monthly payers in this way. They must be worried about this, because I've received a grovelling letter (posted 1st class!) in the post from them telling my that my account was credited with 20p on 29th July. I'd think that everyone on monthly billing was affected.

An update - my next bill is now visible online. They've given me the 20p as promised, AND given me a separate "Part Period Rebate" of 17p, both before VAT! So a refund of 43p. ::)

Another bug reveals itself though - I've made 0.00 worth of calls on this bill (I use call18866), so this has apparently triggered a sales pitch for the Light User Scheme on the bill. But I am definitely ineligible for many reasons, not least of which is that I have ADSL which is even printed on their own bill...

AP

After a few more e-mails to BT, I just got a call from them saying that as a one-off gesture, they will issue a credit of £0.05 (inc. VAT) to my account, as they are unable to do it for £0.02 + VAT which is £0.0235 - a result!

gt94sss2

I asked BT about this and they say there is now a note on their internal intranet saying that this billing bug will be fixed and all customers automatically refunded the difference in a future bill..

Regards
Sunil

AP

Does this mean that I am going to get another credit for a few pence in addition what they have just promised me?