BT Final Bill scandal - “One-off” charges - beware

FannyHill

I think all complaints and return correspondence from the company BT or anyone else should be by letter even if you have emailed or phoned to complain first but got nowhere.
If you end up going thru the Small Claims Court then the paper trail tells the story.

Seans_dad

Hello again. I have just returned from a family holiday and on my doorstep was a 'deadlock' letter from BT stating that they refuse to rescind the charges. In the letter, they informed me that I could now approach Otelo, however they warned me that Otelo might not take up my complaint.

Well I can tell BT (if a rep is reading this) that Otelo WILL take up my complaint and have asked me for all details relating to this dispute. I am happy to say these have now been forwarded and the matter is now in the hands of the Ombudsman.

Possibly the most serious aspect of this affair is the charging of THREE hours labour when the engineer was at the property for just one hour. At my workplace, if I claimed three hours for one hour's work, I would be sacked. Let's hope Otelo wallop BT on this matter and fine them accordingly.

I will never use BT again, nor if I have anything to do with it, will any of my family. I'll let you all know the final outcome of this dispute.

epsilondraconis

Hi Seans dad, sorry to hear about this issue.

Just over a year ago my dad went through the same thing. i.e. Fault on the line, phone up to report it, no mention of any charges during the conversation and then hit with a large bill to recify the problem. This was just about the time when my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was very ill at this point and had given up work to try to sort out all of the accounts associated with a household before he finally passed (i.e. transferring accounts into my mum's name etc).

Unfortunately BT wouldn't revoke the charges for dad because they said they told him on the phone that he would be charged even though they didn't. Dad was admitted to hospital and then went straight into the hospice without him resolving it. Everytime I went to see him he would ask me about the BT issue because he was concerned about the £300+ charge that he had received. I went through hell and back trying to get the charges withdrawn. I had to lie to my Dad in the end and tell him that everything was sorted with BT (I was trying to sort it on his behalf) because he was getting so worried about it. Having to lie to my dad when he was dying in the hospice wasn't what I thought I should be doing.

All of the people I spoke in BT kept saying that they had told Dad about the charges. I even told them that i can get Dad to phone them from his hospice bed if they want to again confirm that he wasn't told about the charges. Finally after a lot of battling from me, a lot of phone calls, and a lot of letters, BT finally withdrew the charges a week before dad finally passed.

I think they only withdrew the charges because Dad was about to die and I threatened to go to Watchdog because of all the stress Dad went through.

I wish you luck Seans Dad.

Edit: In terms of timescales, it took me about 3-4 months fighting BT to get the charges withdrawn. It was the worst time of my life and it was made even more stressful by BT. I remember when BT phoned me up on my mobile to tell me the charges were being withdrawn, I'd just finished trying to give dad some sorbet because that was the only thing he could eat at the time. It was one of those strange moments when everything was finally sorted and dad could pass.

FannyHill

I try to avoid BT it's just not worth the hassle of dealing with them. All they really care about is getting money off of the customer.Whether the charge is justified is neither here nor there.They work on the assumption that most people haven't the time or energy to fight them.

Seans_dad

Thanks FannyH again and hello EpsilonD,

Yours really is a shocking tale. I can well sympathise with the stress and frustration your dad felt when BT refused to accept he was telling the truth. It’s exactly what I feel now.

These big corporates are cold and heartless, trying squeeze the last penny out of the little guy. I was appalled by the bullying tactic of our ‘credit status being affected’ and our details being ‘given to an independent debt collector’ less than 2 weeks after we had received the first bill ! For 18 years, we paid every BT bill in full and on time. It is shameful how BT stoop so low these days.

Thankfully there are other avenues one can pursue to right these wrongs. I find your comment about BBC Watchdog interesting….

In the hope of more publicity, and also that it might help someone fighting BT in the future, I have added my covering letter to the Ombudsman below. I just hope justice is served.

“
SUMMARY OF DISPUTE – MY SIDE OF THE STORY (ref ……..)

The dispute revolves around an excessive charge (£300 plus) for a repair to a BT-owned external cable on May 11th 2009. In my opinion, there are several areas where BT have been found seriously wanting:

1) During my original phone call to BT to inform them of a fault on our line, BT did NOT inform me of any charges whatsoever. I have constantly maintained this throughout my calls and emails to BT. Indeed I asked them to play me a tape of the original phone conversation. The reply from BT was “we did not tape the phone call”. They have said that a ‘box was ticked’ stating I was ‘informed of the charges’. This is simply untrue and I have told BT I would stand up in court and refute their claim. My wife was stood by my side when I made the original call and she also confirms there was no mention of any charges whatsoever.

I can state that even if the charges were as low as, say. £20, I would have declined the repair. This is due to the fact that I was already looking at other landline options – which brings me to the second point:

2) We were only billed for the repair charges AFTER we had cancelled our BT line and changed over to Virgin Media. This bill was received on July 20th - so over two months had elapsed and we had received no information whatsoever about any charges for the repair until the closing bill arrived. Naturally a repair bill of over £300 came as a nasty shock as our normal quarterly bills run at around £50 to £55.

3) BT claim that damage was caused to the cable by a clematis growing adjacent to the cable. They say they ‘have a picture’. In my opinion this is irrelevant as I wasn’t informed of any charges before – or for two months after – the repair had been carried out. However, even I am aware that a clematis is a delicate plant and how it could cause damage to a heavy-duty cable is a surprise to me.

As I pointed out to BT, a picture proves nothing. The damage was far more likely to have been caused by normal wear and tear as the cable was decades old. I state again that the cable was external and BT-owned. It appears BT are trying to get customers to pay for wear and tear repairs.

Furthermore, no mention of any repair charges was made by the engineer to my wife at the time. Indeed the only remark he made was ‘is it ok if I cut some of this clematis?’.

4) The following is a very serious point. BT have charged THREE hours for time spent at my property to effect the repair. My wife insists that the engineer spent around an hour at our house. In other words, somebody is lying. My wife is a decent and honest person and if she says that the engineer was only at the property for an hour then that would have been fact. She is upset by this matter and is prepared to swear under oath that this is the truth.

I have also researched this matter and found the replacement of an overhead cable from a telegraph pole to the property should be carried out within an hour. Our garden is average in size, but the laughable point is that the telegraph pole is directly outside our house. No internal repairs were effected and there was no request by the engineer to check the line with just a corded phone in the test socket of the master socket.

This is a serious matter ….. ……... In an ideal world, the stiffest penalties would be applied to BT for their breach of trust in this matter. I would hope that Otelo would take up this point and approach BT about TRIPLING their charges for repairs.


As you can probably tell, this whole dispute has been frustrating and upsetting for me and my wife. Even though I have officially complained to BT about this excessive bill, this didn’t stop BT issuing us with a final reminder, threatening us with our ‘credit status being affected’ and the details being sent to an independent debt collector. This is if we didn’t pay in full (total bill over £330) within 10 days. So effectively they are threatening us with the heavies and also maybe not being able to get another mortgage. I did contact BT about this and they haven’t taken any further action yet, however I can’t put into words how disgusted I feel about BT currently.

I sincerely hope you can resolve this dispute.”

Seans_dad

You just have to laugh – otherwise you’d weep.

After all BT have done to us over the past two months, waiting on our doorstep yesterday was a card from – you’ve guessed it – BT. Proudly displayed on the front was “THERE’S A GREAT WELCOME BACK WAITING FOR YOU AT BT, Ms …..”

On the back of the card it read “We’d love to have you back, Ms ….. in case you hadn’t noticed” and offered ‘a saving of £122.50 on connection’.

Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. What a bunch of….

glenderg

Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. What a bunch of….

Amadans, Seans dad Amadans

Seans_dad

The BT bully boys are at it again.

Despite our dispute being taken to, and accepted, by the Ombudsman, BT have sent two more threatening letters to us. The second states that if we don not pay immediately, our details will “be passed to an external credit referencing agency which will result in your credit status being affected”.

So there they are again with their bully-boy tactics. We have asked for independent arbitration with the industry Ombudsman but still the BT thugs want to threaten us with sending their ‘mates’ the debt collectors round and blackening our credit status.

My wife spent an hour on the phone to BT and told them the dispute was at arbitration – but they STILL refused to put the dispute on hold. Although the BT Debt Recovery Unit states Durham on the letter, I can assure you that the Call Centre was thousands of miles away from there – causing inevitable communication problems. How they have the gall to call themselves ‘British’ Telecom anymore is beyond me.

I have spoken to Otelo this morning and they have advised me to contact Ofcom if we are unhappy with BT’s bullying tactics. This is obviously what I am going to do. They have the power to impose sanctions on ‘unruly’ behaviour in the industry.

As I have maintained constantly, we would stand up in court and swear on the Bible that BT did not inform us of their outrageously excessive charges beforehand. I know we are just one family fighting alone against the might of a giant ugly Telecoms monster here, but we will do everything in our power to see justice is served.

BT, you deserve to lose all the decent customers you have left. Never, never will we touch your services or products ever again.

Seans_dad

I’ve just opened up a fourth front in my fight/defence again BT.

Firstly there was this forum – which has been great for publicity and insight into exactly what BT are up to with their customers. And I can see that I am not the worst affected by their current tactics- even though a bill of over £330 really stings.

Secondly, my case is now with Otelo and they have agreed to take up the matter. Unfortunately they cannot deal with the current BT bullying tactics, which is why I opened up another front.

Thirdly – this is Ofcom (the new front). I was given their contact details by Otelo. The regulator (Ofcom) has the power to impose sanctions on companies that are ‘breaking the rules’ in the industry. I just hope they do exactly that with BT.

Fourthly. A few weeks ago I was contacted by a researcher from a very popular Consumer Affairs ‘magazine’ (I had pursued several avenues in my disgust with BT’s attitude). He asked me to talk me through the story, which I did. He was particularly interested in two specific aspects of BT behaviour throughout my complaint.

I didn’t hear again for a couple of weeks and thought that might be the end of the matter. However I was surprised and delighted to be contacted by an Associate Producer of this programme. It looks like the story has been escalated and I am by no means the only person in dispute with BT. The programme is, of course, BBC Watchdog. I’m just hoping that I don’t have to meet Anne Robinson !

icefall

Congrats, I hope you get some justice and Watchdog help you with BT.