BT Connection Charges (merged threads)

mobile48

I am unsure if the BT prices increase in October will or will not count as material disadvantage. The best information I could find when a price increase may count is here (mentions above RPI).

http://www.which.co.uk/advice/home-phone-contracts---your-questions-answered/index.jsp

I have seen on other forums a figure of 10% discussed some years back and also some years back someone stating as price increases were outside the terms and conditions they did not apply at all.

In relationship to when notice counts from this looks to be covered by BT.

46, We will also let you know about a price increase or a change to the terms and conditions that we believe is likely to cause you material disadvantage at least one month before it happens. We will let you know about other price changes and changes to the terms and conditions with your next available bill or by an alternative method if this is simpler.

I previously gotten notifications by email.

ACDeag

I would put a wager on there being more increases in April next year. BT are making a habit of twice yearly increases, hoping that by doing it this way people will not notice. Line rental will be £12.04 from 01/10, then with VAT increase in Jan will be £12.30, in April I guess BT will round up to £13. That will make an increase of 20% odd in a couple of years.

mobile48

ACDeag wrote: »

I would put a wager on there being more increases in April next year. BT are making a habit of twice yearly increases, hoping that by doing it this way people will not notice.

Very good point. In relationship to my previous post whether the October increases count needs to be considered in addition to other changes made by BT over the previous year. This looks to me to make a difference.

mobile48

Due to the fact BT rounds up calls to the nearest penny it is hard to work out the impact on me of the October price increases. My most frequent calls are short local calls for example a 4 second calls now costing 16p during the day.

My best guess is the 16p comes if add up 9.9p + 5.9p = 15.8 and then round it up to nearest penny.

My best guess is the next increase will increase the cost of these calls to 10.9p + 6.4p = 17.3 rounded up to 18p. Is this correct?

If correct I worked out this will be a 2p increase on a 16p call or put another way a 12.5% increase.

Is this correct or have I done my maths wrong?






It is hard to work out

Mr_Oink

Call set up charge kills me. I made five calls on my BT Landline last week {the only five calls I made in months}, none of which were connected and all resulted in a BT announcement that the call could not be completed. However, for that they charged me over 70 pence for the 'set up' of the failed calls. Nice little earner that.....

arthurk

First of all, Hi, It's my first post here. Now to the business...

Just got my BT line canceld without any charges, it was renewed automatically in January this year due to moving to to new address and when I last check I would have to pay £100 cancellation fee (paying off remaining line rental months), but yesterday I've got an email about line rental going £0.50 up on 1 October and as I have 10 days to act I called them and told them thank you. The T&C states:

Changing the terms (notification)
48. If we make a change to the price or the terms and conditions of a service which is to your material disadvantage, you will not have to pay a charge if you decide to end that service early, unless the Tariff Guide says otherwise. However, once we have told you about such a change, you must let us know that you want to end that service within 10 days. This agreement will continue to apply to any other services that are not affected by any changes that we make.

Well, they just did that and I can confirm it's a valid point if you seeking to get out of this auto-renewing contracts they do.

Just ordered Virgin bundle which will save me around £130 first year comparing to Sky+BT.

jem16

arthurk wrote: »

Just ordered Virgin bundle which will save me around £130 first year comparing to Sky+BT.

Be prepared for the highest phone call charges in the country then.

arthurk

jem16 wrote: »

Be prepared for the highest phone call charges in the country then.

To be honest PhoneCheap is the only access number I use so I should be fine. No other calls made from my phone.

Mr_Oink

jem16 wrote: »

Be prepared for the highest phone call charges in the country then.

Only relevant if you actually make outbound calls

I was told yet another funny story about an irate BT customer who wanted to leave, but they threatened with a hostage charge for leaving early.

Instead of initially paying this he said; "OK, I'm moving, please shift my service and provide me a line to my new address." This new 'address' was a patch of land in the corner of a remote farm field where he had pitched a tent {with the permission of the farmer I add}. BT survey officer came out and initially was dismissive because of the tent - but was happy to accept planning permission had been sought for a one bedroom bungalow. So, with that in his pipe he surveyed the provision and decided it would take in excess of a month and required around 30 new poles, plus cabling......

It would have been relatively straight forward if the farmer had agreed to the poles crossing his land, but he refused.....

Long story short, it took them 11 months to put up the new poles and provide the cabling. By the time they finally provided dial tone the contract was up and, funniest of all, BT compensated him for failing to provide service at his 'new' address.

Poles and dropwire remain in place to this day - connected to nothing :-) What a massive waste of money HA HA HA! Good ole BT ;-)

arthurk

As mentioned, only calling PhoneCheap.

Anyway it's worth it:

Sky £44 + BT £12.50 = £56.50/m or £678/y
Virgin = £47.99/m or £575.88/y

Now with Virgin offer of 2 months free of TV and broadband (just line rental to be paid):

12x Line rental on £11.99 = £143.88/y
10x TV+Broadband on £35.50 = £355/y
Yearly cost is £498.88

I'll say it's a good deal even when £49 of installation cost is added which make it up to £547.88 in first year it's still £130.12 cheaper than staying with Sky*. Than I can get rid of this phone or find better deal.

* they did offer some sort of deal when I asked to leave but I'm not happy at all with quality of BT line I have now and want to go on fibre optic.