BT Broadband Usage Meter Wildly Inaccurate

gterr

WTFH wrote: »

Do you have any friends/family who would know your BT password?
Have you got a smartphone with BT Wifi installed on it?

No to both of those.

We do sometimes have folk staying over who might make slight use of our WiFi to check emails etc. But we would know when they were visiting. Our WiFi is password-protected. Also, we have a slow BB speed, and it's unlikely that any guest would be able to watch streaming video or any similar thing that might crank up the usage. If I'm reinstalling Windows software or something similar there will be extra usage. So, I can understand the occasional peaks and the rare occasional over-usage of our 10GB monthly allowance, and I don't dispute that or the surcharge.

It's this continual warning that we've used 60% of our monthly allowance in the first few days of the month that seems odd, especially since we almost invariably then go on to sail underneath the limit by the end of the month. Despite all these warnings, and just one month in the last 2 years when we've gone over 10GB, our average usage remains at about 6.5 GB per month.

WTFH

I wonder... (thinking aloud here, the following may be nonsensical)
You're saying you use about 6.5GB a month
BT say on day one you're at 60% of 10GB.

I wonder if BT are taking your monthly reading on the wrong day?
e.g. on 31/7 they take a reading of 6GB, but don't report it until 1/8, so their initial report says you're at 60% for August. The next day they take a reading and it's for 1/8, so it shows 300MB and everything's OK.

...could it be as simple as that?

gterr

WTFH wrote: »

I wonder... (thinking aloud here, the following may be nonsensical)
You're saying you use about 6.5GB a month
BT say on day one you're at 60% of 10GB.

I wonder if BT are taking your monthly reading on the wrong day?
e.g. on 31/7 they take a reading of 6GB, but don't report it until 1/8, so their initial report says you're at 60% for August. The next day they take a reading and it's for 1/8, so it shows 300MB and everything's OK.

...could it be as simple as that?

Well, yes, it could. If it does, and it's systematic, then it could be seen as an unfair ploy by BT to suggest to customers that they should upgrade and pay more, when this is not necessary.

I did try to check whether perhaps 'my' month ran from mid-month to mid-month, but the info on the website and warning emails just says, for example, "your allowance for the month of August", so I think it is per calendar month. My warning notices also say that my usage will be reset on the first of the next month.

I have now had a notification that, as of 30/8/2013 I'm over my August allocation by 0.02GB, and will have the £5 surcharge. I don't dispute this at all because I've just upgraded two computers to Win 7 and had to download a host of updates during the last 48 hours. But I've finished that now, and will be going away on Sunday for a week, and will have zero usage of my home BB. If your theory is correct I should get a notice at the end of the first week saying I've already exceeded my monthly limit for September!

Tyler_Du

I'm on the 10gig package from BT, if I'm doing anything that uses a lot of data, iPlayer, system updates,whatever, I connect to my neighbours BT wireless (which is allowed btw) and revert back to my WiFi when done. Keeps my usage within the allowance.

Tejas

New user here - so bear with me. I don't use BT Broadband personally (not that daft) but my parents (who are in their mid 70’s) do. They have it for BT playback only and never use the computer, they have in the past (pre-playback) but only for a handful of emails to friends in Spain. BT have contacted them (again) suggesting they exceeded their download limit. This is laughable - they wouldn‘t know how to download significant data if any. BT reckon someone (possibly a member of their family) is hacking into their broadband stealing their bandwidth. Absolute codswollop, I’m convinced they have screwed up their usage monitoring and are scaring people into making payments for a service they don’t receive. I’m definitely taking issue with this (Ofcom, local MP) - or whoever else I need to. However, the purpose of this post is to ask if anyone else only got this problem once they got the playback set up? Because they did.

BT_company_representative

Hi Tejas,

I understand your concern. I can check your Parent's broadband usage from here. You'll find my contact details in my profile.

All the best,

Robbie

Tejas

BT company representative - thank you I will be in touch soon.

Nothappy101

I'm at the point where I don't know whether it would be better to curl up in the corner and weep or bang my head against the wall instead.
I had 3 bills all telling me I had gone 50GB over my usage limit (I'm on the 40GB package). After the first bill came in I was very careful to monitor what myself and my son were doing online. There was very little we could cut back on, we aren't a family that downloads music/films/stream/iplayer/online gaming etc. I read the meter through mybt on a daily basis and yet I was still being told that we were using usually well in excess of 2GB a day. I changed the password to my router just in case and we lived pretty much as if we couldn't use the internet. And yet nothing made a difference as far as the meter was concerned.
At the end of August I received a call trying to sell me Infinity. By this stage I have to admit that BT was a dirty word in my house and I made it quite clear that I wasn't happy with the service I was receiving and there wasn't a chance I was going to upgrade to a service I didn't need. After all Infinity promises better streaming speed and fewer connection problems. I repeated again and again that as we don't download films why would I care about the streaming speed. I also said I wasn't sure I even wanted to stay with BT much longer.
I put the phone down and thought no more about it. Until I realised that during September my meter usage was showing less. Much less! Give or take I've been using 0.5GB a day this month. Pretty much using it the same as always because there was nothing I could cut back on.
I emailed customer services and am horrified at how obvious it is they either a) don't care or b) didn't read my original complaint.
Telling me emails were sent (don't even get me started about the fiasco of primary email account!) and its my responsibility to monitor it does not alter the fact I am calling into question the accuracy of the equipment upon which my bill is calculated.
The fact that all of a sudden the meter changed the habit of months, not to do with anything I have done or not done online but happening almost within days of a phonecall with a BT salesperson is too much of a coincidence.
Never did I think that a company that is supposed to have a good reputation would pull such a scam as to fix the meters or to ignore a problem with them when raised. But they have. :mad:

Halfnice

I'm having the same problem as everyone else. I switched to BT Broadband 4 months ago with a 40gb limit. I went over by 5gb the very first month - but I put that down to the fact that I'd uploaded all my music to cloud storage.

Ever since then BT have said that I've gone over by 5gb every month. I can't see how - we have a 2 person family and, apart from watching one movie on LoveFilm each month, barely do any heavy-duty browsing. However, I have paid the extra each month.

Now BT are claiming that last month I used an extra 56gb! And this is a month during which my wife was in hospital for 2 weeks and so neither one of us was very much at home. We should have used less - not TWICE as much!

I would appreciate any advice on how to fight this. It is wrong for a company to be able to hit you with an incredible figure and take as much money from you as they wish.

Tarzan4ever

I too am having the same problem. I'm on the 40GB package, and seem to be exceeding it, even though we hardly ever download films, etc. I have a download meter, which is completely at odds with what BT Infinity is reporting on their site. Plus my router is encrypted.
For example, it said that I had used 38GB till the 28 Sept. I told my family to not watch any videos etc. and reduce internet usage to a minimum. This morning (30th) it shows that I've gone over the 40GB limit!
I really don't have the time and energy to call BT, especially when I read the experience of people in this forum. I know that they'll try to push me on to the Unlimited package.
To top it all, I'm in contract with them till August next year, so I can't switch to anyone else.
Why should I have to pay more for no apparent reason?