BT Caller Display price rise

Stonk

In common with many others on here, I have BT line rental and send my calls through another provider. I know I should make a couple of calls through BT per month to avoid being charged for Caller Display, but usually I forget and get charged - I can't complain about that.

However, I do have a complaint. Caller Display rocketed up from £1.75 to £2.50 per month on 1 April 2009. My recent bill for 5 February to 10 May charged me £7.50 for Caller Display (i.e. it's listed as £6.52 excluding VAT in the One-Off Charges section). But two-thirds of my bill was for the period before the price rise, and I have been charged the increased price for the entire bill period.

Sure enough, Customer Services agreed and gave me a refund. I'm virtually certain it would be overly charitable to expect that, having been notified of this error they would apply it to everyone whom it affects!

So, if you pay this charge: please check your bills, call them up, get a refund. It's only a couple of quid, but just do it on principle!

Now that the price of Caller Display has gone up so much, I will also be making damn sure I make a few 1280 calls!

Buzby

Be careful. Depending on who your alternative carrier is, the override code no longer guarantees the call you will make will be forced to go by BT. Not only that, rather than rejecting the call, the extra digits are ignored, and the call continues to be connected by the alternative carrier, meaning your call isn't at BT's rate- and you are billed by the alternative supplier regardless.

Stonk

Buzby wrote: »

Be careful. Depending on who your alternative carrier is, the override code no longer guarantees the call you will make will be forced to go by BT. Not only that, rather than rejecting the call, the extra digits are ignored, and the call continues to be connected by the alternative carrier, meaning your call isn't at BT's rate- and you are billed by the alternative supplier regardless.

Indeed. Thanks for the reminder. I do remember a communication from BT about this a while ago, and I thought "oh, they're trying to scare me into switching back". But now I gather it is quite widely true.

Anyway, I've checked, and a 1280 call I made appears in my Recent Calls list, so I'm one of the luckier ones.

Heinz

Stonk wrote: »

Anyway, I've checked, and a 1280 call I made appears in my Recent Calls list, so I'm one of the luckier ones.

I tried to keep track of which CPS calls providers had changed to WCLI (and, thus, were 'preventing' the 1280 prefix from working).

So far, Sky, Talk Talk and AOL appear to be the only three.

Unless anyone has other(s) to add.

EileenH

Stonk wrote: »

Caller Display rocketed up from £1.75 to £2.50 per month on 1 April 2009. My recent bill for 5 February to 10 May charged me £7.50 for Caller Display (i.e. it's listed as £6.52 excluding VAT in the One-Off Charges section). But two-thirds of my bill was for the period before the price rise, and I have been charged the increased price for the entire bill period.

Sure enough, Customer Services agreed and gave me a refund. I'm virtually certain it would be overly charitable to expect that, having been notified of this error they would apply it to everyone whom it affects!

So, if you pay this charge: please check your bills, call them up, get a refund. It's only a couple of quid, but just do it on principle!

Now that the price of Caller Display has gone up so much, I will also be making damn sure I make a few 1280 calls!

Just viewed my BT bill online and was surprised to find that it was £10 more than the last quarter and I don't make any calls through BT as I'm with TalkTalk for my calls and the 1280 over-ride no longer works. I was shocked to find that I am now paying £7.50 for caller display so I will be calling them to ask for a partial refund and may even cancel caller display rather than take my calls back to BT . Thanks Stonk for the tip.

iniltous

EileenH wrote: »

Just viewed my BT bill online and was surprised to find that it was £10 more than the last quarter and I don't make any calls through BT as I'm with TalkTalk for my calls and the 1280 over-ride no longer works. I was shocked to find that I am now paying £7.50 for caller display so I will be calling them to ask for a partial refund and may even cancel caller display rather than take my calls back to BT . Thanks Stonk for the tip.

Who will you be asking for a partial refund BT or Talk Talk ? Caller display is only free from BT if you make the required number of calls using BT as TT stopped you using 1280 all your calls are over TT so you dont qualify for free caller display... BT havent done anything wrong, your complaint should be with TT not BT, you could ask TT to put you back onto CPS instead of WCLi and then you would get the option to use 1280 again, or move your line rental to TT and ask them to provide caller display

EileenH

iniltous wrote: »

Who will you be asking for a partial refund BT or Talk Talk ? Caller display is only free from BT if you make the required number of calls using BT as TT stopped you using 1280 all your calls are over TT so you dont qualify for free caller display... BT havent done anything wrong, your complaint should be with TT not BT,

I will be asking BT for a partial refund as the caller display price increased on 1st April and my BT bill is for the period 8th Feb to 8th May so they should have charged me the pre-increase price for caller display up to 31st March.

you could ask TT to put you back onto CPS instead of WCLi and then you would get the option to use 1280 again, or move your line rental to TT and ask them to provide caller display

I didn't know it was possible to switch back to CPS from Wholesale Calls with Talk Talk - is it? Also, I want to keep my line rental with BT as I use other override numbers such as 18185 and I don't think I could do that if my line rental was with Talk Talk.

Kavanne

i thought caller display on BT was free? Have i missed something? :-o

Stonk

Kavanne wrote: »

i thought caller display on BT was free? Have i missed something? :-o

Numerous threads exists about this, but to summarise quickly ...

Caller Display is free provided you make a certain minimum number of calls through BT. If your calls go through BT, then you'll have nothing to worry about - just average 2 calls per month, and you won't be charged for Caller Display. It's only people who arrange to route their calls through other call providers who are at risk of being charged for Caller Display.

Some would say the system is designed to extract extra revenue from those who pay BT only for line rental.

Old_Git

why bother with caller display .
surely if the phone rings you answer it anyway.

Kavanne

Old_Git wrote: »

why bother with caller display .
surely if the phone rings you answer it anyway.

Haha you've clearly not been on the end of a call from Capquest!! (Even if it IS in error)