New Style BT Bills

jayjay5

Has anyone had a new style BT bill with the line rental and broadband charged in advance?

I’ve just had mine and I’m not happy. I normally pay monthly in arrears but because this month is a “catch up“ I‘m paying the normal arrears amount for October, plus 3 weeks of November‘s charge on top - nearly twice as much!

I understand that the old bills were confusing, but I pay my bill by direct debit and there’s been no warning. I’ve had a few extra expenses over the past couple of weeks so really don’t need a double phone bill on top.

Was a letter sent to customers about this and perhaps I missed it?

spyhunter

You have always paid in advance for rental.
The backdated charge is due to BT changing you to a new billing system which has delayed your bill, so you have the normal advance charges plus the charge for the period you did not pay in advance on your last bill.only call charges are paid in arrears

jayjay5

My last bill was exactly the same as it normally is - it was dated 21 Sept and included line rental and broadband for the period covering 1 Sep - 30 Sep. The money was taken out of my account around 5th Oct. The bill made no mention of any forthcoming changes.

This month however, I've got a line rental and BB charge for 1 Oct - 20 Oct, plus line rental and BB for 21 Oct - 20 Nov, nearly two months in total. This equates to about £30 extra. The bill is dated 23 Oct and the money comes out 5th Nov.

£30 is not going to break the bank but I'm having a lean month and I'm annoyed that they can suddenly change what I was expecting to pay with no notice. It's not as though I've changed my package or made lots of expensive calls. If I was really counting the pennies, £30 could easily send me over my bank limit and incur bank charges.

It just seems really audacious and a bad way to treat customers!

spyhunter

Its unavoidable

BT have had to change all customers to a new billing system thanks to ofcom and it means bill dates will change to accomodate the new billing system.
Your bill may be more than usual but it is to cover you for more than than your usual billing period.

brewerdave

Spyhunter - I must have missed the announcement but ...wheres the evidence that Ofcom have forced BT to change their billing system?As an old cynic I believed that this was a nice one off cash flow injection for BT??

maveli

It is not just extra day that they bill but also extra charges for the extra days b'cos they don't consider the extra days for the "discounts" for paying by direct debit and paper free billing. This is discussed in detail in the following thread

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2004657&page=3

deklan99

brewerdave wrote: »

Spyhunter - I must have missed the announcement but ...wheres the evidence that Ofcom have forced BT to change their billing system?As an old cynic I believed that this was a nice one off cash flow injection for BT??

Maybe refering to changes made by Ofcom to General Conditions of Entitlement Condition 11, Metering & Billing, last year. BT have 3 years to migrate all customers over to approved billing systems.
BT did voice concerns to Ofcom about "Significant One-Off" issues regarding these changes, I imagine issues such as are apparent on this board.

spyhunter

brewerdave wrote: »

Spyhunter - I must have missed the announcement but ...wheres the evidence that Ofcom have forced BT to change their billing system?As an old cynic I believed that this was a nice one off cash flow injection for BT??

BT were made to separate the business by ofcom to allow equivalence of input for all service providers so that it was a level playing field hence the creation of Openreach.
BT Retail used the same systems as Openreach which was seen as an unfair advantage over BT competitors so BT Retail have had to change all customers to new billing sytem.

brewerdave

But presumably Ofcom didn't force them to bring rental start dates in line with call start dates, just introduce a new billing system? They could have moved the end point of the call charging period forward, reducing the bill on a one off basis.
It seems a lovely excuse to charge everyone an extra £x on a one off basis by delaying the rental start date by part of a month.

Heinz

But surely we're not talking about anything 'extra' here, it's an adjustment of the advance billing period which, by definition, means the next period equals out the adjustment.

e.g. If my bills were for an exact 3 month period 23rd Aug to 22nd Oct and, as a one-off, the next bill charged for 23 Oct to 1 Feb (instead of 23 Oct to 22 Jan - 8 days extra on the face of it), the following bill would again be for an exact 3 month period 1 Feb to 1 May. The result, pro rata, is exactly the same amount has been charged but the period has been moved forward 8 days by one of the bills charging for 3 months and 8 days.

maveli

Heinz wrote: »

But surely we're not talking about anything 'extra' here, it's an adjustment of the advance billing period which, by definition, means the next period equals out the adjustment.

e.g. If my bills were for an exact 3 month period 23rd Aug to 22nd Oct and, as a one-off, the next bill charged for 23 Oct to 1 Feb (instead of 23 Oct to 22 Jan - 8 days extra on the face of it), the following bill would again be for an exact 3 month period 1 Feb to 1 May. The result, pro rata, is exactly the same amount has been charged but the period has been moved forward 8 days by one of the bills charging for 3 months and 8 days.

The issue here is how they calculate the rental for the extra 8 days. For example BT's advertised price for Option 2 is £11.25 and if look at the small print it is actually £15.45 and the £11.25 is after discounts. Unfortunately BT calculates the extra 8 days based on £15.45 and not on £11.25