low useage charges by BT !

andy.pandy

I am surprised there has not been an uproar about this and more publicity given to it.

I have just found out recently that BT have and have been charging me a low useage caller display charge of £7.50 a month on my last 4 bills !!

I am on AOL all calls package and only paying rental to BT so obviously all my calls are routed via AOL and never to BT. Surely there must be millions of people who purely rent the line from BT and have an alternative calls package provider for all their calls ?

The other strange thing is it seems to have only started from about April 09 which coincidentally is about the time I switched to monthly billing with BT. Up until then I was quarterly and never saw this charge - obviously coincidence in timing ?

Anyway, I have read that I could route at least 2 calls every month by prefixing 1280 on my call, but surely I don't have to rememember to do this every month , do I ? Again, I must be one of millions who are in this situation.

My only other query I suppose, is to find out whether AOL offer the caller display free as part of their all-calls package so I can cancel that service from BT. I have emailed AOL for an answer.

Berisford

I was hit this last quarter with £7.50 for caller display despite using BT for my calls and a customer for 40 odd years. Seems some jumped up little scroat at BT has noticed that a few extra £££'s can be gained here 'cause I only made 1 call in July!

Heinz

andy.pandy wrote: »

Anyway, I have read that I could route at least 2 calls every month by prefixing 1280 on my call, but surely I don't have to rememember to do this every month, do I? Again, I must be one of millions who are in this situation.

My only other query I suppose, is to find out whether AOL offer the caller display free as part of their all-calls package so I can cancel that service from BT. I have emailed AOL for an answer.

In your case, you'll probably find you cannot make the calls anyway because, since AOL changed to using BT Wholesale's WCLI (Wholesale Calls Line Independent) calls offering, the 1280 prefix no longer routes your calls via BT (they're already on the BT network, so it can't).

With regard to Caller Display, that is an incoming calls service so it it provided by whoever you rent your line from. As you only CPS your calls to AOL, they cannot provide it.

andy.pandy

WOw, Heinz - reading your reply seems to suggest there is nothing I can do about it ! Or maybe BT shouldn't be charging becuase it's part of their BT Wholesale's WCLI ?

I did have a sneaky suspicion that the caller display was only a BT service.

surely I don'y have to switch back to BT for my calls ?

mikey72

Cancel the caller display service.

Heinz

andy.pandy wrote: »

WOw, Heinz - reading your reply seems to suggest there is nothing I can do about it ! Or maybe BT shouldn't be charging becuase it's part of their BT Wholesale's WCLI ?

I did have a sneaky suspicion that the caller display was only a BT service.

surely I don'y have to switch back to BT for my calls ?

BT Wholesale is a separate business (Ofcom's insistence).

Strangely (I still find it difficult to believe I'm actually doing this), I'd say yes re switching your calls back to BT (please see the HERE link in my signature beow).

Inactive

Caller Display is not solely provided by BT, my provider gives free ( inclusive ) caller display.

At much less cost than BT, with a far better free UK based helpline.

Shop around.

andy.pandy

Inactive, Well acording to Heinz , my current provider doesn't.

Caller display is in invaluable option to have now that we have got use to it so cancelling is not an option !

I am still amazed there hasn't been much publicity about AOL (an possibly other who are part of "BT Wholesale's WCLI" ) and this shocking revelation.

You are saying EVERY person on the all-calls package with aol either has the caller display option cancelled from BT or pays £7.50 extra every month as there is no way ti even route a couple of calls a month ! In any langauage I call that a revelation. And this happens to other similar providers. WOW !

I didn't know you could hunt for a company providing this servcie for free without having to change your rental provider - which then might cause with AOL who require a BT line.

I would rather not leave AOL - so far i am a happy with their broadband service.

Inactive

andy.pandy wrote: »

I would rather not leave AOL - so far i am a happy with their broadband service.

Sorry, I have no idea of how AOL functions, all that I do know is, my provider accepts telephone line transfers from BT customers, and gives an excellent service which includes caller display as part of it's inclusive package.

I pay £12.99 including line rental, caller display etc. and 5 hours of inclusive calls to most UK numbers, including 0845 and 0870 numbers as well as many international numbers.

Heinz

andy.pandy wrote: »

Inactive, Well acording to Heinz , my current provider doesn't.

You misunderstand.

What I said was Caller Display is an incoming call service and, as you have BT line rental (albeit you use AOL for your outgoing calls), BT provides Caller Display in your case.

If you used 1571, BT would provide that in your case too (it's also an incoming call service, obviously).

Your options are limited now because, apart from AOL, WCLI is used by Talk Talk, Sky Talk and Orange as well. If you can find a CPS calls provider which doesn't use WCLI (Primus is one but their CS is dire now it's offshore), the 1280 prefix would work and you'd have not problem.

However, if you have BT line rental and they provide inclusive evening and weekend 01, 02, 03, 0845 and 0870 calls for no monthly charge (subject to a renewable 12 month contract), that is an option open to you - you could then simply just opt for AOL's broadband without the calls.

http://www.aolbroadband.co.uk/index.jsp

The alternative, of course, is to consider changing to AOL line line rental too. They appear to charge the same as BT (although I'm not sure if they charge for Caller Display or not).

http://www.aolbroadband.co.uk/pages/linerental/acquisition/index.jsp

The problem there, of course, is access to 18185 is likely to be blocked.

andy.pandy

one final note: I'm surprised Martin lewis is not shouting this one out to push BT for a change.