BT Broadband Usage Meter Wildly Inaccurate

mum2one

I havent read the thread - so apologies - but after looking up my phone bill. I clicked the broadband billing element (being nosey - even thou on unlimited broadband0 and there was a note - just of it was the readings not registering so anyone going over there allowance won't be charged this month.

this was about 4pm --- bit may be of some help for someone xx

Rhodrons

So the saga continues. After 21 days of March BT, claims that I have used 116Gb whereas my Homehub3 stats suggest 8Gb max! I received a follow up call from BT last weekend and they promised not to charge me for the excess usage but I got no reason why the HH3 is so different from the BT figure. My next bill is not due until June so I am happy to play the long game knowing that in the end all will be ok as I am in the right and BT obviously cannot justify their figures. There is absolutely no reason why my usage this month should be more than four times my "normal" usage - though now I am even unsure what I mean by normal.

FreeDiver

Hi everyone!

I have signed for BT Infinity 1 in September last year; at that time I thought it was a good value for £15/month before BT started to offer the same product for £7,50 in an action sale.

I already had an accounting issue with BT in November as they started to charge me twice. It appeared to be a technical glitch in their system and such things happen from time to time. It has been resolved and my money credited back but I can't count the time I have spent with the customer services.

Since September my average broadband usage has been 20GB per month. So I was really surprised to receive an advisory email on 20/3 that my usage is 28GB. Next day I got another one stating it is over 36GB. Now it's showing figures valid at 23:59 on 21/3 - stating total usage of 62GB!!! In other words it went through the roof by using 34GB in 2 days!

I am a regular internet user - emails, browsing, news and occasional skype or youtube which justifies those 20GB average use. But in no way could I use 30GB+ in two days. That is roughly my monthly average being used in one day... I don't download any movies or music. Neither I play online games.

As soon as I realised that I was being abused I changed the password on my router and switched it off. Now I am waiting in horror for the updated figures once thee weekend is over. I called the customer services yesterday and I got no help. I was told this usage is possible and I could go for unlimited option. I am very reluctant to do this as it would mean to sign up for another 18 months contract. I have seen anything but great service in my 6 months experience with BT so at the time being I am not sure I want to tie myself to BT for another year and half.

If you think this can't happen to you please be aware it can! Unless you have surrendered already and switched to unlimited policy.

Falklander

I had a similar problem in February - I had a 10GB contract with BT. I received an email on 5th Feb saying I had exceeded 8GB. When I checked on the usage monitor it said I had used 19.91GB at 23.59 on 4th Feb! Contacted 'Chat' but all they told me was that I had used 15GB on 4th Feb. This was impossible - I am a light user and my average is about 5GB a month. I had hours of endless conversations with technical, billing etc etc. They all said I had to wait until I received my bill and then ask for the extra charges to be removed, but nobody could explain why it had happened. Meantime the usage continued to get higher and higher and ended at 47GB. Nobody was using my broadband except me.
When I received my bill in March it did not show the extra usage for February (I think it will show in the March bill) at which point I saw red and wrote to Customer Services with every detail of every person I had spoken to (dates, times, names) and also all those who said they would call back 'within 24-48 hours'. I asked for compensation by way of an upgrade at BT's expense to unlimited. I did not want to go through the stress of this ever again. At the same time I sent a copy by email to the Chairman and to the Chief Executive.
The email to the Chief Executive was acted on immediately and I received a call from the team which deals with such issues in Newcastle (at least I no longer had to deal with Mumbai, Calcutta etc)
Eventually, after he had made all his investigations (and come up with no answers!) we came to an agreement that I would pay an extra £1.35 a month to have unlimited broadband on my existing contract. It wasn't quite the outcome I had hoped for but at least I no longer have to check my BT recorded usage on a daily basis!

JohnBG

Looks as though BT have another problem with their usage monitor:
At 0540 yesterday morning I received an email to say I had already used more than 8GB of my 10GB monthly allowance for May. When I looked at the usage monitor it claims that, so far this month, I have used 74GB. My monthly average to date has been 7.5GB.
I spoke to BT and got transferred to a technical department that sounded as if it was in India, where the lady refused to accept that this was totally impossible, as my connection is at best 1.5Mb/s. She asked me to do a hard reset of my home hub and monitored usage for a few hours. After that her solution was "Somebody else must be using your computer or WiFi or there is a fault with your Hub" - but I could speak to the "My Services" department "who deal with billing" and gave me a different 0800 number.
The helpful chap I then spoke to at Belfast immediately accepted that there seemed to be something wrong with their claimed usage figure and admitted that I was not the only user to complain - the system was being investigated - I should try looking at their usage monitor again on Monday.
I will post again then

teesea54

I have BT Infinity Option 1 with a 40GB allowance using a BT Home Hub3. According to BT my average monthly usage is 17.06GB, however up to midnight on 30th May BT claim that I have used 55.77GB in spite of having been on holiday for 7 days of the month!

I have a secure wireless network and have not divulged the wireless key to anyone. I have not added any new devices over the past couple of months, nor has my internet usage pattern changed.

On 26th May I received a mail from BT advising my usage had exceeded 28GB. I was surprised, but as there were only 5 days of the month left I was not too concerned. I then received another mail in the early hours of 30th May advising that my usage had exceeded 36GB. At 09:00 I checked the BT usage monitor that showed my usage as 48.77GB. I immediately called BT. They would not accept there was a problem at their end and suggested I disconnect all devices from the network and reconnect them one at a time whilst monitoring usage to identify the device causing the problem. Since I have several devices and the BT monitor only gets updated once a day this would take some time.

I was away from home during the day and checked the BT usage monitor again on my return at around 19:45. Up to midnight on 29th May it now showed usage as 55.57GB. This represents an increase of 27GB over 3 days! I again contacted BT but they were unhelpful, not accepting there was an issue and telling me that I must have used that much data.

As a precaution I have changed the wireless key on the router and only entered the new key on my iPad and mine and my wife’s iPhones in case there is a device that has gone ‘bad’ and is continually streaming.

I am registered with BT-Fon. I do not know how much of my bandwidth is made available as a ‘hotspot’, but is it possible someone could use that much data over such a short period?

Given the number of similar reports on this and other forums I cannot understand why BT do not accept there is an issue here that they need to address.

I am at a loss to identify the cause of the problem and will do as others on this forum have suggested and contact the BT Representative to see what they can offer as a resolution.

Robinette

I had an email this morning to say that I had used more than 36GB of my 40GB data allowance in May; on logging in to my account, I was horrified to see that my usage for the month was allegedly 46.7GB - almost four times my average! :mad:


I used the live assistance facility to speak to technical help, who told me: 'You are more important to BT than anything else in the world'! He said that someone else appeared to be using my broadband, changed my wireless key for me and referred me to billing to request that the additional charge I had incurred was waived. He concluded by wishing me 'peace, happiness, harmony, glory, all success and a wonderful future'.


Billing were not quite so helpful, but I refused to be fobbed off and managed to get the additional charge waived. I have changed my security settings and will be watching my alleged future usage closely. Not the way I was planning to start my Sunday morning!

Marcia66

Hello - first post and hoping someone can help as BT can't or won't. Apologies as I made a new thread and then discovered this one!


The problem in a nutshell - I normally use less than 1GB a month. The last week has shown 21GB, first highlighted last Saturday when I received a text telling me I had reached my monthly 10GB allowance!


I've copied the detail below as I think I have done everything right but still no logical answer as to what is happening.


1) I have now 'registered' over 21GB of data usage since Thurs 19th June.
2) Apart from around 1 hour on Sun 22nd June checking the broadband I have not been in the property and neither has anyone else. When I checked I did not see any unknown devices currently connected.
3) There are no computers, laptops, tablets, printers, smart TVs, smart phones in the property when I am not there. Essentially nothing and no-one that could be using the broadband.
4) There is no way that anyone could have known my wireless key password. Nevertheless I changed it to a lengthy combination of letters/numbers/punctuation when I was at the flat last Sunday (22nd June).
5) Nevertheless the broadband usage continued to go up in my absence.
6) On Wednesday I visited my property in the evening and turned off the hub.
7) It would appear that there has been no broadband usage since the hub was turned off.


I am at a complete loss as to what to do next!


As you can see from my notes no-one has been at my property and there has not been any broadband accessing technology at the property. In addition I changed the password (and yes it was definitely changed as I had to enter the new password to connect my tablet and smartphone to the hub). Yet it appears that the broadband is only used when the hub is on.


How can my broadband use being going up at this rate?!


I'm honestly at my wits end as to the next route to take as I keep getting the same message from BT and yet I have done the checks, changed the password, turned off the router to check... still no satisfactory answer.


Any help would be hugely appreciated!


Thanks


Marcia66


PS Homehub 2 using WPA.

Robinette

Marcia66 wrote: »

I'm honestly at my wits end as to the next route to take as I keep getting the same message from BT and yet I have done the checks, changed the password, turned off the router to check... still no satisfactory answer.

I had exactly the same issue and although I have no idea why my usage suddenly appeared to escalate, I can tell you that a call to BT threatening to take my customer elsewhere miraculously resulted in me being upgraded to unlimited broadband for £10 per month less than I was paying for 40GB.


I have continued to monitor my usage and there are still occasional unexplained surges; however, these are no longer of concern as I will not incur any fees.

HardNut2Crack

I recently signed upto BT infinity option 1 40GB allowance since 1st June 2014.
I have already gone 10GB over my 40GB limit in my first month and BT are over charging me and I dont even use the internet much or download crazy amounts of itunes or watch videos etc.
When I phoned them to complain and and asked them to provide me a daily report of the sites and data and times I downloaded/uploaded so much data, they were unable to provide me this. Instead advising me I downloaded 16GB of data on 27th June! and I should purchase the unlimited option - I advised this is impossible because I dont download movies or software files or music. Not sure how I went over the limit with only 2 devices connected at any 1 time and I only use my internet for Viewing emails for work and the odd WiFi access (WiFi password is 31 characters just to be safe) on my iPhone for viewing newsfeeds.

But just how can I prove to BT I didn't use that much even when you do monitor usage separately. They always have an excuse!

I have been monitoring my usage via the BT website daily since 1st July 2014 and it already shows I have used 6GB!
How is this possible when on 2nd July I checked the usage and it only showed I used 0.4GB for the 1st July...?

With my previous provider Sky I know I didnt use over 1GB per day and I was on the 2GB allowance limit for the month!

Before anyone asks I am IT savvy and dont have any malware or other dodgy programs continuously running in the background of my laptop or iPhone which could be downloading nonsense.

Surely there must be a way of BT providing better alaytical tools considering this issue has been going on for over 3 years now!

I dont want to pay the extra per month for Unlimited usage when I know I definately do not use over 40GB per month!

Please can someone advise further....?

Many Thanks