BT Price increases from April 2011

Frugal_Foxy

For the BT person on this forum - can you pls feed back to BT that they should include, say, 30 minutes of free mobile calls pm in their landline calls package. This would make BT a little more attractive and wouldn't cost BT anything - it's only 30 mins, not 'unlimited'.

Stuart_W

Frugal_Foxy wrote: »

For the BT person on this forum - can you pls feed back to BT that they should include, say, 30 minutes of free mobile calls pm in their landline calls package. This would make BT a little more attractive and wouldn't cost BT anything - it's only 30 mins, not 'unlimited'.

Yes it would cost BT, there is currently a termination charge of up to 4.5p per minute levied by mobile operators on calls to their numbers (although there is a phased reduction in this charge coming in over the next few years).

My personal pie-in-the-sky guess is BT residential line rental will continue to increase and in the near future and include all landline calls. Seems to be the way we're going.

ACDeag

Stuart_W wrote: »

Yes it would cost BT, there is currently a termination charge of up to 4.5p per minute levied by mobile operators on calls to their numbers (although there is a phased reduction in this charge coming in over the next few years).

My personal pie-in-the-sky guess is BT residential line rental will continue to increase and in the near future and include all landline calls. Seems to be the way we're going.

... and the connection charge for calls outside of the package will continue to go up until it reaches something like 25p per chargeable call

Ypaymore

Frugal_Foxy wrote: »

For the BT person on this forum - can you pls feed back to BT that they should include, say, 30 minutes of free mobile calls pm in their landline calls package. This would make BT a little more attractive and wouldn't cost BT anything - it's only 30 mins, not 'unlimited'.

BT wants to offer ‘all-you-can-eat’ packages where customers pay a set-price and have the peace of mind that all calls will be covered, including those to mobiles; that's why they set up the Terminate the Rate campaign with Three.

See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1356327/BT-include-mobile-calls-price-plans.html for some recent news on the subject.

watchdog

Copy letter below to Miles Brignall of 'The Guardian'. Miles featured an article in September 2010 rergarding BT's rapacious drive for profit. So, this is how a major UK corporation treats its loyal customers in times of recession. Have we heard a peep from Ofcom or the Government ? No !Communications are vital to everyone in the 21st Century. Clearly BT know that !



Dear Miles

Your Guardian article on 25 September 2010 was headlined 'BT raises charges yet again'.


Clearly, BT don't give fig for the consumer in these difficulty times, as they now inform of yet another rise in April 2011 !

In the last 12 months my BT costs have increased as follows :

Line Rental :
April 2010 12.04pm > 13.90pm April 2011 i.e. a 16% increase in 12 months.

Call charge tariff :
April 2010 5.4ppm > 509ppm > 6.4ppm > 7.00ppm > 7.6ppm April 2011 i.e. a 40% increase in 12 months.

Call set-up fee :
April 20109.3p > 9.9p > 10.9p > 11.5p > 12.5p April 2011 i.e. a 35% increase in 12 months.

The above percentage increases are calculated using BT's rounding up method.

When I dig deeper, I also discover yet further esoteric skullduggery to extract even more from the trusting and loyal consumer.

I requested a fully itemised statement, which revealed that the majority of my calls are timed at one hundredth of a second and charged currently at 19p each ! When questioned, BT advised that these are aborted calls to mobiles i.e the network was engaged, or out of signal. All such calls are recorded as 0.01seconds, which is then rounded up to 1 minute, currently charged at 7p plus 11.5p = 18.5p. This latter charge is again rounded up to 19p. Fagin and Shylock would be proud !

So, how many of BT's customers realise that 5 non connected calls to a mobile each day are costing them £90 a month. Very few I wager.

We are constantly informed by our Politicians that inequities require 'the disinfectant of sunlight' so I urge you to expose BT and their wicked, wily, and duplicitous profiteering. Perhaps I should also be writing to BBC's Rip-Off-Britain ?


Yours sincerely

Heinz

https://www.18185.co.uk

grumpycrab

Heinz wrote: »

https://www.18185.co.uk

What about BT line rental alternatives? Is Plusnet ok?

ACDeag

grumpycrab wrote: »

What about BT line rental alternatives? Is Plusnet ok?

They are a BT subsidiary.

grumpycrab

ACDeag wrote: »

They are a BT subsidiary.

Thought so, but their line rental looked ok; who else then?

macman

spikescot2005 wrote: »

I tried to cancel my services with BT today as i dont agree with the price increase but was unable to do so. I have line rental and broardband option 1 with free evening and weekend calls. I got this in october as a package.

I said that i wanted to cancel but was told i couldn't as i was under contact. Also stated that as the price rise was inline with inflation then the terms and conditions weren't broken.

After pointing out their terms and conditions about canceling due to a disadvantage to myself the adviser stated that as the price rise was inline with inflation then the terms and conditions weren't broken. After going to speak to someone she said i could cancel the line rental but not the boardband as that price wasnt going up.

As far as i was aware i was on a package of line rental and broadband.

Anyone able to help me out here as BT are not listening to me.

You can cancel any time you wish, the issue is whether you are still in contract and whether they can charge you an ETC or not.