Bt Incompetence

firestorm97

Wondering if anyone can give me some advice.It's quite a long story so I'll try and keep to the point. I signed up with BT for phone and internet around Jan/Feb last year and at first all was well apart from my payment plan for B/band was screwed up and they had to increase payments to cover shortfall. Anyway the year passed off and in Jan09 I had a letter from Bt saying that they had instruction from my bank that the DD had been cancelled. Due to work I couldnt get straight back to BT for a couple of days but in those couple of days I got a couple of letters informing me that my bill was overdue and I now owed nearly £200. I rang BT and they told me that I had never payed my bill during the first year. I checked back through my bills and each bill I have shows 3 payment recieved entries. So I spoke to BT again and asked how this could be as I have never had a letter from the bank saying I had bounced the DD and I'd been paying about £40 a month to BT. It turns out that the money I was paying was the increased B/Band DD which they had not lowered after they had recouped their shortfall. I had never checked the DD on my bank website as the bill said I had paid. Consequntly my account was closed and I had to start a new one, BT then said that I had 28 days to pay up or they would pass to a debt collector. I couldnt afford to pay and they wouldnt discuss anything longer than 28 days even though it wasnt my fault. I then managed to get a response from a customer service(?!) manager and the truth outs. It turns out that the wrong number was entered when I gave my bank details originally. They say that when THEY set up the bank DD fo ME they took the datails in good faith. I read the correct details to them off my Debit card which I use day in day out and wouldnt have read the wrong number. So it has to be down to some incompetent clerk typing the wrong number, otherwise surely the B/Band DD would have suffered the same fate? So some other poor sod payed my bill for me. Their bank claimed the money back and now BT blame me for their codge up. If I hadnt complained and just payed up they would never have told me what had happened and I would have been none the wiser. I now have a debt collector letter and an extra 50 quid on the bill. Does anyone think I have a case to take to the ombudsman or should I just rollover and pay?

sparkey1

Whats the extra £50 for?

firestorm97

It's the debt collectors charge. The original balance is £254.64 and the new one from Wescot credit services actinf for BT is £318.30 so actually 60 quid!