BT increased my DD without telling me!

Wkdwill

Hi

Can anyone tell me, are BT supposed to give you notice before they raise your direct debit?

I usually pay £12.50 a month as we use the landline very little and I checked my bank today and they have taken £41 out, so I went onto the website and low and behold they have increased my direct debit to £41 a month.

Ive had no email, no letter, nothing. The thing is now I have to go to the bank tomorrow to put some more money in to cover another DD coming out on Friday.

The bill for the quarter was for £67, which I understand they go on this to reset your direct debit but how can a quarterly bill of £67 justify a £41 a month DD. We had one particular month where we used the landline more as my mobile was broken, otherwise we dont use it much.

Can I change my direct debit so I just pay my bill when its due?

hayley11

How do you get your bills? Do you get paper ones or online? If it's online it's up to you to check the amount they are taking, they will issue the online bill approx. 14 days before taking any money out. That's them giving you notice.

If you don't get online bills and you haven't had anything in the post, you could ring them but in my experience it won't get you anywhere.

BT charged me £60 because I moved once (they said I had cancelled services, I hadn't) it took me about 3 months to get it refunded. Because I had been paying the same amount each month for almost a year, I didn't check the online bill so didn't realise til they took it out of my bank but I check every month now.

I don't pay a set DD - I pay exactly what I owe. Tell them you want to do that.

Wkdwill

hayley11 wrote: »

How do you get your bills? Do you get paper ones or online? If it's online it's up to you to check the amount they are taking, they will issue the online bill approx. 14 days before taking any money out. That's them giving you notice.

This is something ive just checked now, im down for paperless billing and usually I get an email when my bill is available online, which I always view as they have made a lot of cockups lately and it would seem I never received an email for this bill, I have a seperate email account for bills so there is no way it could have gotten mixed up and I dont delete any emails on that account either.

And im not very good at remembering things lately so if I dont get an email to inform me of a bill chances are I wont go looking online.

damienuk

As I understand, with DD they have to give you some number of days notice prior to each payment about what the amount to be debited will be. However, as hayley11 mentioned, they send you an email when your bill is ready and then it's up to you to login to review it. I suppose someone passed this is acceptable in terms of "giving notice" but I admit that I find it close to the line...

Of course the issue with emails is that delivery is never guaranteed (and even if delivered, it may be filtered by aggressive spam filters!).

I'd recommend asking them to switch onto DD where you pay exactly what you owe instead of fixed monthly amount - though it's a personal preference depending on how you like to budget of course...

skylight

Not quite the same, but BT have taken 2 DDs from me this month. I have spoken to my bank who have already refunded one, but perhaps BT are having problems with stuff??

Buzby

There may be confusion on all sides. Firstly a direct debit is just that - the firm can take as much as they want, as often as they want, and when they want. True, the have to provide notice up to 10 days before the debit is taken, but provig they didn't is virtually impossible and with folk cancelling DDs because the cannot trust their suppliers, they get hit with unfair non-DD charges simply for being careful.

Either way, you need to get them to explain how they arrived at their new figures, but if a Budget Account, they are allowed to review your spending and amend the amounts, AFTER giving you notice.

BT_company_representative

Hello Wkdwill,

I can check your account to make sure the eBilling email alert is sent out when your next bill is produced, I will also be happy to review the monthly payment plan amount with you if you want.

The system automatically reassesses the amount to make sure customers do not run a huge credit or debit as each quarterly statement goes by, so it does sound to me that the monthly £ 12.50 was not quite enough to clear the bills at the end of each quarter (assuming all your previous bills came to in and around the £ 67 mark).

Drop me a line if you would like me to get in touch about this, I will be happy to help.

All the best,

Stephanie
BT Support

PlutoinCapricorn

I have online quarterly bills, and the email for June should have arrived on the 2nd. It finally arrived an hour or two ago. Perhaps there is a problem somewhere.