Reverse Charges from Canada to BT Home line

rocketchef

I've just received a BT home phone bill with a £180 phone call on it. :mad:

I couldn't identify what the call was from the bill, so I emailed BT and got a call this morning.

The call was a reverse-charge call from a hospital in Canada. Suddenly I remembered: my sister called in distress from the hospital after an operation in August.

The BT rep in India told me that in accepting the call (which I did) - the operator should have told me the cost. They didn't. I wouldn't have minded a slightly expensive call (say a pound a minute) - but c.£6 a minute is clearly gouging someone fairly vulnerable (ie the family).

So now I'm stuck. I think my next move is to complain to BT's correspondence centre, then maybe ofcom. But of course, BT are not directly responsible.

Any advice? Its on direct debit, so they've had the cash already.

Heinz

"The BT rep in India told me ....."

Says it all really. I'm afraid, just as it is assumed all citizens know all aspects of the law and must comply therewith, subscribers to telephone providers are assumed to know all charges.

However, if you had known the charges, would you have curtailed the call from your distressed sister? I do hope not. I hope that, just as the cost of calling my dying mother on one of those bedside Patientline phones was to me, the cost would have been irrelevant.

rocketchef

For £6 a minute I would have curtailed the call and called the hospital back. It wasn't a life or death thing.

I'm aware I should have asked, but this is 600 times the cost I normally pay for a transatlantic call. That's beyond a rip-off.

iniltous

Although having every sympathy for you, in this case what did BT do wrong ?, a Canadian Telco rings you (not the BT operator) and asks if you will accept a reverse charge call, any error on their part not to mention the call charges isnt the fault of BT, you accept and the operator connects the call, time passes and BT get a bill from the Canadian Telco that they pass on to you, I doubt BT are adding anything onto the charges, the charge is what BT are tasked to collect from you on the Canadian telcos behalf, if you were a customer of TT or Sky or anyone else you would be in the same position,

rocketchef

I am well aware that this wasn't BT's doing, the root of my complaint isn't really aimed at them, but they have taken the money. Who else can I hold responsible?

System

Indeed. Your contract is with BT. BT has a responsibility to ensure that when a third party offers you a call for which BT will charge you a huge amount (out of which BT, I guess, takes a substantial handling fee), that third party warns you of the charge.
If you pick up a rare single malt in Tesco, and only find after the checkout that it's £180, they'll take it back and refund you. They won't say 'oh well you should have known that the distiller charges us £150 (or whatever) that we have to pass on.' Of course, not an exact analogy, because you did actually have the call. But a polite request for mercy to BT might be fruitful.