£380 charge for going over BT broadband monthly usage?

Equaliser123

BT is not charging a penalty. It is charging £1 per GB over and above the allowance. That isn't bad value at all. Unfortunately for the OP, the usage has been absolutely extreme.

pimento

Regardless of the legalities. I think that if your usage suddenly goes from nothing to astronomical in the space of a couple of months, then BT should make a bit more effort to let you know than sending an email. It's not like a phone call would cost them.

I also agree that ignorance isn't an excuse, but in the OPs case, her usage went up suddenly (when her digibox died) and I think she might have a case for offering to pay for unlimited use backdated to the month that the over usage started and signing up to a new 18 month contract so it can't happen again. It hasn't cost BT £380 to supply the service because if she'd been an unlimited customer it would have been supplied at a fraction of the cost she is now being billed.

Call them, be nice, stay calm, smile and I reckon you might be OK. I hope so, it must have been a right old shock when you realised.

OlliesDad

DrScotsman wrote: »

Secondly, charges form part of the core terms of the contract there - phone contracts are designed for calling, texting and data. It's not a breach "converted" to a service, and is not comparable with BT's "service".

I don't really understand this argument from you. I am fairly sure that Broadband contracts are designed for receiving the internet, and therefore comparable to the above example.

I would still argue that £1 per GB is not an unfair contract term in any way, and that the customer needs to take responsibiliy for living beyond their means. Remember, that they used almost 4 times the Fair Usage.

I suggested it was a legal one (did you even read my posts?). One which I've justified with legislation and OFT guidance

Is this the same OFT that lost the case against the banks in reference to the "unfair contract term" that banks were applying?

Remember that the bank charges case found that the term was fair. So even if you can compare the two cases, it still invalidates your argument.

I suggest that while it is very noble the effort you are making on behalf of the customer, it is all in vain.

DCodd

Just a quick question, dosen't BT throttle option 1 down between 5pm and 12pm to less than 900kbs? If so the excess usage of 380gb would seem near impossible at 0.09 Mega bytes a second?

pimento

I thought it was over a two month period. (I might be wrong) and with BT Vision for the telly bit, the nfair usage policy wouldn't have applied.

BT should be able to tell which site(s) they were downloading wrong to see if the OP is telling porkies or not.

buglawton

@andrew242 "BT were very cleaver in sending emails to only the email address that they set up which is never looked at. They send all billing information as well as a nice amount of spam about offer to the username email account and that is regulaly looked at"

I think that BT would lose in court for this reason, only someone needs to test it.
More likely BT would back down if cautioned by Ofcom.
But would not change their procedures on this nice little earner.

System

BT Internet buy their bandwidth from BT Openreach as do a lot of other ISPs. Due to the rules put in place by OFCOM Openreach MUST charge BT Internet the same price that they charge the other ISPs.

As for sending emails to the account set up when taking out the Internet contract. That is the safest solution for them as, since they provide it then they know that the account is live. Automated systems don't normally cope well when they receive bounce messages due to closed email accounts. It also allows BT to directly inject emails into the users mailbox thus circumventing any problems due to the mailbox being full/over quota.

woody01

jox wrote: »

The point im trying to make is i think the charges are unfair, she cant afford to pay this, they money has already come out of her bank which has left her overdrawn where she now faces more charges from her bank and she now has no money and 3 kids, i have lent her £100 of my own money to help her out. she recived no warning that he had gone over the limit, the 1st thing she knew was when her bank was over £300 in debt.

She knows nothing about computers or monthly limits, Theres no way should would have known he has gone over the limit, im sure if she did know she would not have let him.

I truley belive £380 is very unfair. imo she should have been cut off way before she could rag up such a huge amount. or recived some sort of letter no warning or anything? surely theres some sort of unfair charges act?

It's all there in the T&C's.
How can it be unfair, when she has let her son do this. Whther she knew about it or not is immaterial. It's her account so she bares the responsibility to apy the bill.

I see that a couple of posters are taking the line that it is the bill payer's fault, but I think there are always grey areas and room for negotiation in situations like these.

What grey area?

pimento

Blimey, it's crowded up there on the moral high ground today.

nzmegs

The European commission is about to release a digital bill which will require providers to contact cusotmers if they go over a cettain amount. I think the cut off is to be £60 more than usual per month. the onus will be on the companies to contact the customers and to offer alternatives.
It does seem unfair that companies such as BT, Virgin etc are trying to offer download speeds of 30, 40 or even 100 Mbps and services such as iPlayer and video streaming are becoming commonplace and yet download limits still exist. Bandwidth is being portioned out due to high demand and we will all end up paying to have access to any of these so called great new services. it will become a two tier system where only the rich will have "proper" broadband access and the rest of us will have to put up with the terrestrial channels. Why promote iPlayer if most of us cannot afford to watch it.
yes I realise that people should keep track of their usage, but websites these days are larger than ever and it is very easy to reach high levels of downloads. The technology is moving so fast and people simply want to be able to experience it without being hampered by download limits. Fair usage is a meaningless term these days as it is too easy to reach the limits these companies set.