My BT bill..

i_am_the_scruff · 6 October 2009 at 10:05AM

Okay when I moved out my mum sorted out a home phone for me. She put some sort of plan on it (not sure what its called) so that when my bill reaches £50 I can't make any outgoing calls, so my bill is kept down.

So my first bill comes in eary this year saying it's over £700.
Now it's over £800. I don't understand why they said I have a £50 limit and then they let it go that high.
THEN I get letters to my name quoting a reference number different by 1 digit telling me i'm £45 in credit.

I have no idea what i'm meant to do. They called me today telling me that if I don't pay soon tey will give the debt to a debt collection agency.
I'm not used to debt, I don't even have an overdraft!

Were they actually ALLOWED to let my bill run that high even though there was meant to be a £50 limit, and whats this other letter telling me i'm £45 in credit about?

Thanks!

serbask · 6 October 2009 at 11:16AM

Poor you .. I regularly rant about BT!

First and foremost you need to establish which is your account and whether a £50 limit was placed on it. Did your mum do this via telephone or email, and does she have the intial paper work. if she can find something that states a limit then you've got a good case i.e. you assumed you weren't at £50 worth of calls, which is why you kept using it. If there is no proof that a £50 limit was set up you may have some touble.

How much have you actually been using the phone? Does it sound possible that you could have raked up £800 worth of calls? It dosn't sound likely that you are in credit either. Also, how do you pay? Do you have a regular DD or are you just paying when a bill comes in? Having a DD is the only way you will be in credit.

BT customer services are well known for being poor, but they are doing an e-customer services survey at the moment and seem to be calling people back quickly when they put in a query via their website form. Try this and try to get the matter resolved.

One thought that also pops into mind - ages ago there was something on watchdog or one of those programmes where peoples sky boxes were using the phone line and resulted in huge bills 9sky obviuosly denied it)? It seems like it would be hard to make £800 worth in a month if something amiss wasnt happening.