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

Crabman

BT simply won't explain what the rogue amounts on the bill are. They insist on telephoning but never put anything in writing. They've contradicted themselves a couple of times already and lied so I've forwarded it to Watchdog.

Going to be an interesting programme tonight.

BT_company_representative

Hi Crabman, I am sorry to learn of the duplicated brought forward charge on a past invoice. Please PM your BT a/c details and I'll check this out for you.

Regards Rodney

Seans_dad

Thank you all again for your support.

Timmmers, the one thing that we aren’t sure of in this dispute is how the line outside our house was damaged. What we are sure is that we were not told of the charges beforehand, and that they were only at the property for one hour – my wife would swear to this.

Regarding the ‘damage’ to the line, we were never informed of the technical details of the repair, so we do not know. What I would say is that we are talking about a clematis, which is a delicate plant. Being a (too) trusting person, my wife left the engineer to get on with his work outside and did not see exactly what he did. So we are in the dark. What I would say is that all this is immaterial anyway because BT did not inform us of the charges beforehand – a point that was made by the people who did appear on Watchdog last night with similar tales.

Unfortunately, it turned my particular dispute wasn’t shown yesterday. I guess with me not being around to film, others similar disputes were preferred. I was still hoping that we got some sort of reference throughout the story and I am obviously disappointed our drawn-out story wasn’t highlighted. If only we weren’t here in Portugal, we would have been on.

What did come out, of course, was just what a rotten shower BT are, and how they have tried to bully money out of customers for unwarranted reasons. As you say, Timmmers, all that expensive advertising ruined due to their intransigence. Whenever one of those slimy BT adverts comes on TV, I quickly turn the channel over. They have lost my custom for good. And I will drill into all my children never to go with BT. So, they have potentially lost thousands. Indeed, we may well have returned to BT after a spell with Virgin Media. Not now.

Regarding my own dispute, I will fight on through Otelo – and beyond if necessary - although BT have now set a precedent in settling those disputes that were highlighted on Watchdog.

I’ll keep everyone updated on my progress with Otelo.

Fran

Watchdog was very interesting last night (I only watched cos of this thread, can't stand Anne Robinson!).

I hope you all get things sorted out.

soitgoes

I of course refused to pay this ridiculous bill. I have so much information, gathered since May, 2009, that it would take hours to read here.

It boils down to the fact that we went without any phone service for nearly 4 weeks. During that time we had to use 2 cell phones. Nearly all the cell calls were to BT. Aprox. £250.00. Bt decided that £50 pounds was sufficient credit toward those calls. Not only that but the original fault, due to trees off our rented property rubbing through the wires and causing the outage in JULY has still not been repaired as of this date. So in reality we still have the same fault that existed in July.

Openreach (OPEN-RETCH as I prefer to call them), informed BT in July that the rotten poles, rubbed through lines, and all trees had been taken care of. About 3 weeks ago we had another complete outage. Again (open-retch) wrapped some more tape over the problems and now has claimed all repairs have been made. We just walked the entire line to the main road through the fields. No new line has been run, all the tape from all the temporary repairs is still flapping merrily in the wind and not one single branch has been cut and no rotten pole has been repaired. This is currently under investigation as a fault! (ha ha no kidding)

In order to retain my service, I had to pay the bill and then fight to get the remaining £200 back. That was after BT illeagelly took the entire £650 out of my wifes account. The contract isn't even in her name.

I have written to everyone I can find an address for. My contact Maria Kay at BT has been my only contact. She has been less than helpful. She believes everything (open-retch) tells her. I plan to try some of the executive folks at the emails I have read about here. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Signed.
soitgoes:santa2:

Seans_dad

Soitgoes, I hope you managed to get your problem resolved.

Well, where do I start for an update on my dispute ?

A few months ago, I had a phone call from a man in BT who offered me a compromise on my bill by reducing the bill from £330 to £138. A reasonable gesture you might think, however I felt that I shouldn’t be paying a penny given the circumstances of the dispute – so I refused. I had already been contacted by Watchdog and was hopeful of appearing on the programme. I had also contacted Otelo and they had agreed to take up my case. So I felt confident that I would have the whole bill written off – as it morally should have been.

As it turned out, unhappily, I didn’t get on Watchdog – although others with similar disputes with BT did. However, very recently, the Ombudsman reached a final decision in my case. Otelo enforced BT to offer the compromise settlement of £138 above.

This time I agreed with the compromise – bearing in mind my wife and I have been through a lot of stress and strain in this matter. A polite letter arrived from BT just last week (although dated March 2nd) confirming they would be reducing the bill and APOLOGISING – “I am sorry for any inconvenience you were caused” and “please contact me…if you have any further queries”.

Al well and good we thought. We will await the amended bill then pay off the balance – and then draw a line under the matter.

Well, well, well. Here we go again. Just when we thought we had reached a relatively amicable settlement, BT DID IT AGAIN !

This morning (19th March) a letter arrived on my doorstep from a filthy little debt collection agency called ‘Collect Direct (UK) demanding payment of the £138 PLUS another £34.56 administration charge.

On the letter it also stated “you can no longer regard this matter as an oversight on your part as you have been given many opportunities to respond”

This beggars belief. WE HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN SENT THE AMENDED BILL ! And it is only a week since we received the ‘polite’ letter from BT.

This really is unbelievable. If anyone can let me know if BT can put out a charge to a DCA without first re-billing the customer – and also add 25% admin fee on – then please let me know. And all this within a couple of weeks of agreeing the revised amount.

Any advice here would be gratefully received

I’ve said this before, I know, but BT really are the pits.

Seans_dad

Just off the phone to the Ombudsman (Otelo).

Good news. They have now re-opened the dispute. That should mean another £500 or more that BT will have to fork out to Otelo. I’ll let this board know how matters progress from her.

Speaking to a friend at work today, who is also unhappy with BT overcharging him. We cannot understand how BT still have so many customers left. Apathy I guess..

Seans_dad

More details on my friend’s issue with BT:

He found out last week that BT had been billing him £7 a quarter since 2006 for a service he hadn't been using but – moreover - a service he hadn't even requested !

He admits he was lax for not noticing the charge for the last 4 years, however, when he phoned them up, they said they'll only repay the last 2 bills (£14) as he hadn’t noticed !

What utter cheek from BT. More to the point, can they get away with that ?

BT, the more I hear about your antics, the lower my opinion of you gets (if it CAN get any lower).

Creosote

Though you might have already done so, but perhaps you should check your credit report (experian etc) to see if BT haved !!!!ed on it with this "debt collection" agency nonsense?

Mark_In_Hampshire

Seans_dad wrote: »

More details on my friend’s issue with BT:

He found out last week that BT had been billing him £7 a quarter since 2006 for a service he hadn't been using but – moreover - a service he hadn't even requested !

He admits he was lax for not noticing the charge for the last 4 years, however, when he phoned them up, they said they'll only repay the last 2 bills (£14) as he hadn’t noticed !

What utter cheek from BT. More to the point, can they get away with that ?

BT, the more I hear about your antics, the lower my opinion of you gets (if it CAN get any lower).

Actually, in this case, BT are right:

While it's the supplier's responsibility to supply the right services, and not supply things which are not requested..

It's the customer's responsibility to check bills. I cannot understand people who don't check what they're paying.

If people were able to contact a supplier and claim that the billing for the last 4 years has been wrong and they had just noticed, fraud would be absolutely rampant.

On the basis of what is reasonable, BT have behaved resonably in this instance.