BT Fraudulently added a package to my line - advice needed please

Draven

Hi Experts,
I am posting this in the hope that someone will be able to give me some help/advice on how to tackle this issue, which has resulted in my line being restricted today. All help/useful suggestions would be greatly appreciated (that includes you BT Company Representative!)


Several weeks ago, my wife took a call from a BT sales rep who was pushing for her to change our plan to an ‘unlimited anytime plan’.
Despite her telling him that she was not named on the bill so had no rights to make any changes and he should contact myself, he kept pushing, insisting that it would save us money every month as we got free calls included in the £4.99 fee. After several minutes of the conversation going round and round, he said he would call back and talk to me.

About a week or so later I took a call, this time from a lady sales rep, who tried to sell me the same package at ‘only an additional £4.99 a month’. This time I advised her that I was not interested, as we did not use the landline and our monthly call charges were around the £1 mark and paying another £5 a month to get our £1 a month calls for free was not really going to make any sense.

On 11/08/10, I received a letter dated 07/08/10 thanking me for choosing the ‘unlimited anytime plan’, and advising me that as my contract had started on 08/08/10 and they were already providing this service, I was unable to cancel it without paying £7.50 for every month left on the contract.
How can you send out a letter pre-dating the contract, advising it cannot be cancelled as it is already being provided?!?!?!

I rang BT and got a call centre in India. I explained above to the rep, who apologised and said he would cancel the plan and there would be no cancellation fee put on my account. I asked the gentleman to confirm who was able to make changes to my account and he confirmed that it was just me – my wife would not be permitted to change my plan. He also stated he would put me on the most basic plan which just covers line rental. I wanted to know how this could have happened and he assured me that all conversations are recorded, so they would find out who had applied the plan and would her me decline the offer. I asked for written confirmation to be sent – this was promised but never arrived!

To prevent any unexpected charges going through my account, I cancelled the direct debit so that I would receive a letter notifying me of the amount to pay, when the payment was refused by the bank. I got the letter, asking me for £14.15, quickly followed by another asking for £125!

I paid the £14.15 using the automated service and logged onto my account where I discovered (as I suspected would be the case) that a cancellation for for the plan had been applied to my account. Yesterday (16/09/10) I contacted BT again using the email option on the website (I wanted a written trail) and requested they contact me by phone to resolve this. The call did not materialise. I came home from work tonight and rang to speak to them, but my call was diverted with a message stating that my service had been restricted. I have no option to speak to a BT rep, just an option to pay in full!

I have just emailed them again, and will be sending a copy of this letter to ‘Kevin’ at compliance@bt.com, which is an address BT provide for complaints against their code of practice.
Surely this is just as bad a scam as the people who turn up at your door and then change your gas/electricity against your wishes and without a signature?

I would like a copy of the recording where I agreed to this service, or the letter that I signed and returned to them authorising the change – because neither of them exists!!

BT Company representative – I would be VERY interested in what you have to say about this.

Heinz

Personally, I suspect that the sort of 'semi-cold call' you received comes from agents employed on a commission basis and, as is always the case with such arrangements, a few 'bad pennies' seeking to increase their income in these troubled times take the option of ticking instead of crossing a box in the hope that nobody will challenge their deceit.

I too will be interested to see BT company representatives' response to this thread (although I suspect that, to ensure secrecy, it will probably be no more than an expression of concern followed by a request for you to email them at [EMAIL="btcare@bt.com"]btcare@bt.com[/EMAIL]).

Mupette

That is naughty.

I used to many years ago work for an agency for BT, selling add on's to the package you had. etc friends and family, international calls...

and although we were trained to be persistent, I would never put something on to someone account when they said no. No means NO.

I know back then that everything we sold (including free items) mean bonus money in our wage packs, and friends and family was free to take up for the customer, i would opt for that more than anything, making sure that everyone used friends and family on their most used numbers, didn't cost the customer anything, but it was worth a grand total of 10p per customer to me.

I wouldn't stay on the line for 45 mins trying to convince someone they needed something, end of the day the customer was quite savvy, and i would definately not talk to someone if they were not the named account holder, that was one of the BT golden rules.

I won group awards every month when i worked there, through my selling, but each one would be checked to make sure i stuck within the rules,

The person who has done this needs a minimum shoved back into grad bay, or kicked out.


I would also suggest BT care, they seem the only ones that do care, and after my conversation with them yesterday about my own bill problems (2 x international freedom on my line for 2 quarters), i have been told to just email them, rather than call someone in India, who i can not understand as i struggle with dialects, and who can't understand me as i do not speak the queens English as they have been trained with), Last quarter someone in India told me the problem was sorted, it was not. (deep down i knew they would not do it)

DVardysShadow

Yet again, cold callers and attempting to resolve things with the call centre in India.

Draven, you are right to want a paper trail. In your place, I would have written snail mail, the moment they sent the letter 'confirming' the unlimited anytime plan. Call centres do not understand contracts and BT's call centre is so hopeless that it would be better to shut down the whole India operation and just not bother to answer customers

BT_company_representative

Hi Draven

I will gladly look into this for you and investigate what has happened. If you check out my profile section were you will find my contact details, If you send your account number and a link to this post I will gladly look into this for you.

Regards David

Draven

Hi Experts,

I find it amazing that the morning after my first email to BT, they cut me off without contact and then ignored the second email.

What I find MORE amazing is that the morning after I posted in this forum, I received a call from a very apologetic BT employee, who was 'cancelling the charges as we spoke'.
She explained that the guy in India had cancelled the contract but had neglected to send the cancellation fee waiver to the accounts department. All the records of my call were there and she could see that the fee should have been removed.

After a conversation in which she admitted they had breached the data protection act by talking to my wife, and had applied the package without my consent, she assured me they would look for the tapes and re-train the reps responsible.
I have requested the tapes along with a written confirmation of her conversation.
I pointed out that a breach of DPA (punishable by a £2500? fine for each breach) and the fraudulent addition of the package, followed by the letter received AFTER it was applied to my account was a very serious matter and I would like compensation for this. I am now waiting for a manager to investigate and call me back. In the mean time as a goodwill gesture they have applied a 1 month rental fee credit to my account.
I have since received a very apologetic text message!

I would like to thank the members of this board for their comments, and feel that in some way it was responsible for the fast resolution of my issue.
I will see what the manager comes back to me with, see if i get the copies I requested of the tapes, and see what they offer as proper compensation for the breaches they have already admitted.

Thank you!
Keep up the good work!

hubb

I was called and asked if I wanted unlimited calls at the weekend free. I just hang up because I was tired of calls from BT at inconvenient moments. I am self employed and my time is precious at the moment. They have just phoned me back a few days later to tell me they have given me the new unlimited calls (which I didn't agree to) and that all they ask is that I stay with them for 1 year committed. I said I can't do that and they said goodbye.

Isn't that fraudulent to set me up with something I didn't even agree to ?

DVardysShadow

hubb wrote: »

I was called and asked if I wanted unlimited calls at the weekend free. I just hang up because I was tired of calls from BT at inconvenient moments. I am self employed and my time is precious at the moment. They have just phoned me back a few days later to tell me they have given me the new unlimited calls (which I didn't agree to) and that all they ask is that I stay with them for 1 year committed. I said I can't do that and they said goodbye.

Isn't that fraudulent to set me up with something I didn't even agree to ?

Yes it is. Write to them and tell them that you have not accepted and keep a copy. It is shameful that these cretins use this sort of tactic to make a sale and that you have to defend yourself against it.

Heinz

hubb wrote: »

I was called and asked if I wanted unlimited calls at the weekend free. I just hang up because I was tired of calls from BT at inconvenient moments. I am self employed and my time is precious at the moment.

I don't understand what the offer was here. The Unlimited Weekend Plan is BT's lowest calls plan and that is the very least you have to take with line rental.

Hence, if you were already paying BT line rental, you already had (at least) 'unlimited calls at the weekend' (albeit, that actually means calls of up to 60 minutes each to 01, 02, 03, 0845 and 0870 numbers), so the call was pointless.

Drunkstar

Draven wrote: »

I would like compensation for this.




I will see what the manager comes back to me with, see if i get the copies I requested of the tapes, and see what they offer as proper compensation for the breaches they have already admitted.

Out of interest, what would YOU consider to be appropriate compensation?

DVardysShadow

Drunkstar wrote: »

Out of interest, what would YOU consider to be appropriate compensation?

Draven must speak for himself. But I would put it at around £40