BT Help Needed Urgently - taking to court!

november

My sister has had a BT telephone for some time and recently took out BT internet.

She received a bill 14th August for £197.00 which included £63.74 for telephone calls and £92.05 (including various deductions/credits) for broadband from July to 31st October. BT have told her she has to pay 4 months in advance which is more than she was expecting. Unfortunately at this time her husband was made also redundant.

She received a bill on 14th September for £266.26 which included the last bill and broadband charges of £23.82.

She knows she owes this money and has been trying to make arrangements to pay it off but has had problems with BT call centre on top of various personal stuff.

At the end of October BT cut her phone off and 2 weeks later her internet. Fair enough as she still hadn't paid the bill.

The query is regarding the final bill.

She received a final bill dated 13th November for £463.24. £266.26 from the previous bill, £17.86 cost of calls, £5.00 late payment charge, £28.60 VAT and minus 36p discount benefit none of which she disagrees with. However it also includes £152.70 for broadband services to June of next year.

She also received a solicitor's letter dated 14th November saying pay the total of £463.24 or they will take her to court. It gives a telephone number to call for BT but she has tried it several times and there is no such number.

Her husband now has another job and she can pay the initial £266.26 plus new bill excluding the additional £152.70. Is it correct that now she no longer has a service with them they can charge for broadband she doesn't have until next June? I know she would have to pay the full year if she had cancelled the service but does she have to if they have cancelled it even if it was due to non payment?

Also to complicate matters bills and solicitors letter are actually addressed to her adult daughter as she had the original phone account. My sister has tried to get BT to change the name of the bills to her name since her daughter left home a good while ago but they said they couldn't. My sister is very concerned her daughter, who now lives elsewhere with her partner and child, is going to get taken to court for her mum's phone bill!

Can anyone offer any advice? If only a phone number she can call that is neither the call centre nor the not working one she has been given? She wants to find out if she has to pay for advance charges now she no longer has the service and how to make payments for the rest of the bill. Plus she wants to confirm her daughter doesn't live there - is there any way she can make them accept that and that it isn't her bill but her mum's?

Many thanks in advance if you have read through the whole of this long post.

Browntoa

when she signed up it would be for either a 12 or 18 month contract , which is standard these days for most suppliers, the fact that Bt disconnected it does not change the fact that the contract was not fulfilled

0800 800150 is the standard BT contact number , think it's option 1 for billing..

november

Browntoa wrote:

when she signed up it would be for either a 12 or 18 month contract , which is standard these days for most suppliers, the fact that Bt disconnected it does not change the fact that the contract was not fulfilled

Sorry to be dense but do you mean that the fact BT disconnected it means the contract was still fulfilled so she has to pay for it?

I'm assuming it was a 12 month given as the bill starts July.

Browntoa

i mean that even though BT disconnected for non-payment they will still hold them to the 12 month contract as per their terms and conditions

southernscouser

Your sister has broken her side of the contract by failing to make payment. Therefore they are entitled to charge her for the full contracts agreement.

Not sure where she stands though on getting the internet back. If she pays it in full now perhaps she will be able to re-connect! I honestly don't know though I'm afraid!

DonnyDave

november wrote:

Sorry to be dense but do you mean that the fact BT disconnected it means the contract was still fulfilled so she has to pay for it?

Yes she will have to pay for it.

The fact that BT disconnected the service is because she failed to fulfil her side of the contract. BT (or any other company for that matter) aren't going to carry on supplying a service for which the customer isn't paying for. Indeed, it's probably written into the contract about failure to pay and disconnection of service.

It's a 12 month contract so she will have to pay 12 months' worth of charges. You can't enter into a 12 month contract and then stop paying just to get out of it. BT entered into it knowing it was going to get 12 months' worth of service and your sister has broken this contract.

She will have to work it out with BT, and see how much they want before they will reconnect her.

november

To tell you the truth I think getting it back on is the least of her concerns.

I've just called her (on the mobile). She says she phoned up and asked them about the internet on the phone. They didn't tell her it was a 12 month contract and I know she was shocked about the initial 4 months in advance and said they didn't tell her about that either. She has never had nor signed a written contract. She just phoned them up and arranged payment by dd when the bloke came round to fit it in.

She can't phone them at all as she has no phone and it costs a fortune apparently to ring the call centres on a pay as you go mobile. I'm going to call them and see if she can work out a payment plan by writing!

november

DonnyDave wrote:

You can't enter into a 12 month contract and then stop paying just to get out of it.
.

She didn't. She is going through a really difficult time at the moment, details of which I am not about to go into on here. Major stress affects the way you cope with things.

She is trying to work it out with BT which is what I am trying to help with given that she has no phone and no internet. She just wants to pay what she owes which is why she wanted confirmation of what she owes.

november

Oh well we tried. Phoned BT who said that she couldn't set up a payment plan but would need to await a collection agency contacting her which they would do if she didn't pay in full within 14 days.

The letter she has from the solicitor says 'contact BT if you cannot pay in full to arrange a payment plan' or we will take you to court.

I have advised her to write to the solicitors confirming I contacted BT and they said they could not set up the payment plan and advising her to do nothing until the collection agency contacted her

oldwiring

november wrote:

.....She also received a solicitor's letter dated 14th November saying pay the total of £463.24 or they will take her to court. It gives a telephone number to call for BT but she has tried it several times and there is no such number. ....

Just a small point: if the number appears not to exist, could it have been typed incorrectly at the solicitors. Have you or she tried the simple expedient of phoning tha solicitor to check?

november

Thanks oldwiring.

Should have been clearer in post above yours. I found out the number and phoned it. It was the customer service person on that number who said you couldn't arrange a payment plan direct with BT. It was in Scotland I think not the generic number that is in India (or so my sis says - I've never phoned the generic one).