BT Price Increases and changes in T&C . (From 1/5/2007).merged

gt94sss2

BRENTUS wrote:

i am seeing how BT respond to my formal complaint and will pusue via ofcom or whoever.

Ofcom will not do anything. From their website:

At present BT customers that pay by direct debit (DD) or Monthly Payment Plan (MPP) receive a discount to their standard tariff. From 1 May 2007 BT will be changing the way that this charge is presented to its customers. The discount for paying by DD or MPP will be included in the standard tariff and with an additional charge to those customers that do not make payment using an automated method. BT will also be increasing the charge by 50p a month to reflect their costs.

The new payment charge will be £1.50 per month or £4.50 per quarter. For example, from 1 May 2007 a BT Together Option 1 customer who does not pay by DD or MPP will pay £37.50 per quarter. This is broken down into £33.00 for rental and £4.50 payment charge. A customer on the same tariff that does make payment by DD or MPP will pay only the £33.00 rental charge.

The cost of processing payments by direct debit is lower than other payment methods and many companies offer incentives to pay by direct debit. Direct debit discounts are commonly used by other telecoms companies and in other sectors. In view of the cost savings that a company makes in processing direct debit payments, it is Ofcom’s view that it is not unreasonable for a company to offer reduced prices to people who pay by this method. BT has made a commercial decision to implement these changes.

Regards
Sunil

1jim

I still think that it is unreasonable of any business to give customers around 5days notice that they plan to charge for a service that until this point has been free (the 1571 service)
I have today cancelled the 1571 service to avoid paying for it and have just arranged to move my line rental over to talk talk (who provide my phonecalls)... who incidentally could not have been more helpful, they even told me that the price of option3 had reduced so they would put me onto that instead (saving £4.00 mth). I really dont like the idea that BT will charge you £5.00 to leave in the future, whats to stop them introducing new charges in the future and when you dont like them you will have to pay to leave..... not for me thankkyou very much

BRENTUS

gt94sss2 wrote:

Ofcom will not do anything. From their website:



Regards
Sunil

Thanks a lot sunil for that info however i think i am still going to pursue my formal complaint on the grounds of discrimination. Lets also not forget we pay in advance for the service and because i like many others pay in full at the quarter end are incurring a penalty for doing so. i am sure i can work on the grounds of discrimination. The increase also has to be quantified, my maths are not too good but £4.50p above what i pay for line rental is near 13%. Personally i dont have a lot of faith in these government watchdogs.

Heinz

BRENTUS wrote:

The increase also has to be quantified, my maths are not too good but £4.50p above what i pay for line rental is near 13%. Personally i dont have a lot of faith in these government watchdogs.

You've overlooked the fact that you ALREADY pay £3.00 per quarter more (and have been doing so for many years) because you don't qualify for the £1/month DD discount - so the increase is 50p/month (£1.50/quarter) or about 4%.

BRENTUS

Heinz wrote:

You've overlooked the fact that you ALREADY pay £3.00 per quarter more (and have been doing so for many years) because you don't qualify for the £1/month DD discount - so the increase is 50p/month (£1.50/quarter) or about 4%.

Yes i have overlooked that. i am indebited by the comments i have recieved and thank you. But still agrieved by the rise and it seems others are. i am still learning to use this site but find it very very useful. Many thanks Brentus

Beluga_2

Just received the details of the new charges on my bill. The nice folks at BT have sent me an A4 sheet, full of small print describing the price changes, and all in the lovely corporate purple colour.

Oh, and giving me two day's notice of the changes to 1571... What happened to reasonable notice? Guess I'll have to dust off the old answerphone (and show my other half how to use it).

Instead of penalising customers who only buy line rental, I'd have thought that BT would be pulling out the stops to cut costs, improve service, and try to win customers calls back. Or am I being too sensible?

I think the £5 cancellation fee for BT service is grossly unfair, and an underhand tactic to keep customers locked into BT service. I would hate this to develop into the situation we had with mobile phones about 12 years ago, when one of the large providers buried a £35 exit fee into the small print of its contract.

When you switch providers, I'm sure that other companies must pay BT for the new connection (OK, it's not BT, it's BT Openreach... still looks the same to me). So they want paying twice?! :mad:

As for the increases for those not paying by DD or Monthly Payment Plan. My fear is that those who aren't good with money, but sensibly stick with cash rather than plastic, will be the ones penalised. Sure, they can get a Basic Bank Account and set up a direct debit. But there's no overdraft facility, so if a DD bounces, they'll be slapped with bank charges. (OK, you can often claim these back with a bit of hassle ).

Heinz

Beluga wrote:

I think the £5 cancellation fee for BT service is grossly unfair, and an underhand tactic to keep customers locked into BT service.

That, and the cessation of the cheap get-out-of-your-12-month-contract charge appears to have been a response to some 'cute' business practise by Talk Talk which, when their customers move house, have been telling them they have to 'go back to BT' and then change to Talk Talk again.

Beate

Never knew about this thread until I got my phone bill today with a page long "Keeping you informed". They are saying make two chargeable calls a month in order not to pay for your 1571, can anyone tell me what classifies as a "chargeable" or "inclusive" call please? They put stars next to those two words as if there was a footnote explaining it, only that there ain't.

They are also saying I must access 1571 every 90 days in order to keep 1571 active. Well, I access it every time I get a message (I have my mobile phone linked to it so I get a notification, and yes, I know that this costs me), but if there was no message for 90 days, could I just dial 1571, listen to the "You've got no new messages" thing and that would qualify?

hurrah

Beate wrote:

Never knew about this thread until I got my phone bill today with a page long "Keeping you informed". They are saying make two chargeable calls a month in order not to pay for your 1571, can anyone tell me what classifies as a "chargeable" or "inclusive" call please? They put stars next to those two words as if there was a footnote explaining it, only that there ain't.

They are also saying I must access 1571 every 90 days in order to keep 1571 active. Well, I access it every time I get a message (I have my mobile phone linked to it so I get a notification, and yes, I know that this costs me), but if there was no message for 90 days, could I just dial 1571, listen to the "You've got no new messages" thing and that would qualify?

A couple of evening 01/02 calls at 5.5p each will suffice.

BRENTUS

Beluga wrote:

Just received the details of the new charges on my bill. The nice folks at BT have sent me an A4 sheet, full of small print describing the price changes, and all in the lovely corporate purple colour.

Oh, and giving me two day's notice of the changes to 1571... What happened to reasonable notice? Guess I'll have to dust off the old answerphone (and show my other half how to use it).

Instead of penalising customers who only buy line rental, I'd have thought that BT would be pulling out the stops to cut costs, improve service, and try to win customers calls back. Or am I being too sensible?

I think the £5 cancellation fee for BT service is grossly unfair, and an underhand tactic to keep customers locked into BT service. I would hate this to develop into the situation we had with mobile phones about 12 years ago, when one of the large providers buried a £35 exit fee into the small print of its contract.

When you switch providers, I'm sure that other companies must pay BT for the new connection (OK, it's not BT, it's BT Openreach... still looks the same to me). So they want paying twice?! :mad:

As for the increases for those not paying by DD or Monthly Payment Plan. My fear is that those who aren't good with money, but sensibly stick with cash rather than plastic, will be the ones penalised. Sure, they can get a Basic Bank Account and set up a direct debit. But there's no overdraft facility, so if a DD bounces, they'll be slapped with bank charges. (OK, you can often claim these back with a bit of hassle ).[yes i have informed bt to cancel 1571 and i will probably purchase an answerphone. you would think bt would bend over backwards to keep customers. Look what happened to british gas]