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

macman

And 'not using' a service doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it. If you have accepted it, you do. The issue here is how it was contracted surely?

Seans_dad

To answer the above two postings, no, my colleague did not accept the service as he had not requested it even.

Moving onto my own dispute with BT, they (surprise, surprise) rejected my cheque and returned it – stating that the matter is ‘now in the hands of the debt collection agency’.

This dispute now revolves around the matter of 30-odd quid which is what the DCA have added on. In pure spite, they have refused to accept my cheque - for the full Otelo-agreed amount which I sent to finally put an end the matter. Instead they have passed my details onto a debt collector – all for the princely sum of around £30.

As I have constantly mentioned above, the behaviour at BT has astounded me. The only other time I queried a utility bill was when British Gas made a clear mistake some fifteen years ago – which they rectified immediately. As I have always paid my utility bills on time and in full, I have had no other problems.

However BT, I will not go away that easily. I have once again contacted Otelo and they have an Investigations Officers on the case and will be contacting BT shortly. Otelo have insisted that I have to be given a reasonable amount of time to pay a bill. Here is the timeline of recent events and I doubt if anyone would maintain that BT have been reasonable:

Feb 4th – Otelo reach final agreement to reduce my bill by over £190
Feb 8th – We accept Otelo’s decision (well within the 28 days timescale)
March 2nd – BT send letter to say they also accept BT’s decision. On this letter is the revised amount – but no Giro credit slip to allow us to pay the bill. There was also nothing on the letter to suggest any timescales involved to pay.
March 10th - note the date. EIGHT days after BT SAY they sent the letter above.

We await revised BT bill with Giro credit slip so we can finally put this matter to bed

March 19th – We receive Debt Collector’s demand – with an extra 25% applied - NINE days after we received BT’s letter.

Because Otelo don’t deal with DCA’s they put me onto the Government’s Consumer Direct section.

Their advice was:

1) Tell the Debt Collector you are still in dispute and the matter is back with Otelo. DO NOT PAY ANYTHING AS YET – reason being: Otelo may apply further penalties to BT for their unreasonable behaviour in this matter.
2) Tell BT you are still in dispute and remind them of their terms and conditions for payment (apparently 21 days).
3) Record all letters.
4) Keep on top of all parties until the dispute is resolved

Consumer Direct were really helpful and I advise anyone suffering the same behaviour from odious monstrosities like BT - and their debt collecting stooges - to approach them.

I’ll keep everyone posted of the final outcome.

Nomad25

Good grief, I thought we had problems with noxious BT screwing us - you deserve a medal for tenacity. What a tortuous process they are subjecting you to, and over such a long time, bet they thought you'd 'go away'. Bully boy tactics as you say. I hope you get a succesful outcome. Good luck.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Seans_dad wrote: »

To answer the above two postings, no, my colleague did not accept the service as he had not requested it even.

Moving onto my own dispute with BT, they (surprise, surprise) rejected my cheque and returned it – stating that the matter is ‘now in the hands of the debt collection agency’.

This dispute now revolves around the matter of 30-odd quid which is what the DCA have added on. In pure spite, they have refused to accept my cheque - for the full Otelo-agreed amount which I sent to finally put an end the matter. Instead they have passed my details onto a debt collector – all for the princely sum of around £30.

As I have constantly mentioned above, the behaviour at BT has astounded me. The only other time I queried a utility bill was when British Gas made a clear mistake some fifteen years ago – which they rectified immediately. As I have always paid my utility bills on time and in full, I have had no other problems.

However BT, I will not go away that easily. I have once again contacted Otelo and they have an Investigations Officers on the case and will be contacting BT shortly. Otelo have insisted that I have to be given a reasonable amount of time to pay a bill. Here is the timeline of recent events and I doubt if anyone would maintain that BT have been reasonable:

Feb 4th – Otelo reach final agreement to reduce my bill by over £190
Feb 8th – We accept Otelo’s decision (well within the 28 days timescale)
March 2nd – BT send letter to say they also accept BT’s decision. On this letter is the revised amount – but no Giro credit slip to allow us to pay the bill. There was also nothing on the letter to suggest any timescales involved to pay.
March 10th - note the date. EIGHT days after BT SAY they sent the letter above.

We await revised BT bill with Giro credit slip so we can finally put this matter to bed

March 19th – We receive Debt Collector’s demand – with an extra 25% applied - NINE days after we received BT’s letter.

Because Otelo don’t deal with DCA’s they put me onto the Government’s Consumer Direct section.

Their advice was:

1) Tell the Debt Collector you are still in dispute and the matter is back with Otelo. DO NOT PAY ANYTHING AS YET – reason being: Otelo may apply further penalties to BT for their unreasonable behaviour in this matter.
2) Tell BT you are still in dispute and remind them of their terms and conditions for payment (apparently 21 days).
3) Record all letters.
4) Keep on top of all parties until the dispute is resolved

Consumer Direct were really helpful and I advise anyone suffering the same behaviour from odious monstrosities like BT - and their debt collecting stooges - to approach them.

I’ll keep everyone posted of the final outcome.

Debt collection agencies cannot actually, forcibly, charge anybody anything, nor are you ever obliged to deal with them.

As you have the formal letter from BT agreeing the amount to pay, suggest you pop into the post office (make sure to get a receipt) or via online banking and pay that amount, you should have the payment details on the back of a previous invoice.

Then print out a letter (several copies) and send it to the DCA telling them it has been disputed and resolved with the regulator and you will not correspond.

Then each time a new DCA writes to you, just send them back another copy of that letter and get on with life

Baz_2

So any update to this?

mobile48

Many thanks for this thread. Only wish I read it before.

I am yet another very unhappy BT customer and very soon I will be an ex-customer as I am switching to another supplier. I feel a total fool for not leaving BT earlier. Even my parents who are well into their 70s left BT long before me when they had enough.

I am still on a contract I took out over 15 years ago as I was far too lazy to sign a new contract in return for free calls. Anyway I once used to like BT.

Why I do not understand but over the last year BT has acted in a way that has given me no option but to leave and they will never get any business from me again.

If I find time I will post full details.

Hope things worked out okay for you in the end.