BT changed phone from SKY without consent

rsdl.george

Dear all

We have a problem with BT - which I was wondering if anyone else has experienced and can advise.

For the past two years, we have had BT line rental - and broadband, tv and unlimited phone calls with Sky i.e. the only payment going to BT was line rental and all our calls were on the £5 per month unlimited Sky package (which was an ok deal as my family are in Ireland and it meant those calls were free). On 12th December a BT sales advisor rang our line and spoke to my husband to try and persuade him to change calls over to BT on the basis that they had free evening/ weekend calls. He asked them to call back in an hour or so after he had checked with me. I immediately said no - due to the free international calls we get with Sky. The BT sales person called back, and my husband told them no, we weren't interested and would continue with line rental only with BT.

We then went off on holidays and came back 10 days later to find a voicemail from BT thanking us for changing our calls back to them, and a BT contract. My husband immediately rang them again to say that he had given no consent for our calls to be changed over to which they apologised and said nothing had yet gone through and that they would cancel it. We also spoke to Sky to advise them we weren't changing our calls over.

Roll on 3 months and we get our first quarterly bill from BT since this discussion with £177 worth of calls on it - as it transpires that BT did in fact change over the contract without our consent on 28th December. My husband spoke to BT on Friday who advised it was a computer error and that they could clearly see the details of the discussion on their computers - and that they would call back later Friday afternoon to confirm that all was sorted. They never rang back and upon calling BT today, we were advised that there is no computer record of the conversations in December advising we did not want to change, that we are liable for the £177 etc!!

I don't understand how a phone company can change over our contract without our consent. I understand that Ofcom get thousands of complaints per month about this. On principle, we do not feel we should be paying the £177 as it is a disgraceful action by BT to change our contract over having being told twice that we didn't want to.

Has anyone been in the same position - have any advice? Thanks very much

Buzby

If your line has been 'slammed' by BT, then all youca do is join the queue to complain. It comes as no surprise your first complaint was acknowledged, yet your second is deemed to be 'first contact'.

Now here is where it starts to get tricky. BT did write to you with the details of their takeover. Did you (or have you) responded in writing? Or better yet, recorded the calls you made to them? Without this, you have no independent corroboation and t is going to be a difficult process.

I would suggest you now WRITE to BT Customer Services, outlining the issue and provide as much detail as to date and time. As you did not agree tom taking over your service, you cannot be made to pay any installation or line costs, but call charges are different - and you may have to fork out for these (as you would do to whoever your supplier was).

And for good measure, get your complaint in to OFCOM as well.

rsdl.george

Thansk Buzby

No - we didn't respond to the contract in writing - we rang them when we returned from holiday - they assured us it was an error and that the transfer would not go through - and we believed them. I didn't think a company like BT would engage in illegal practices - we took them at their word that it was an error which they would rectify.

[Deleted User]

Neeblasties wrote: »

Firstly, apologies for what you have gone through. I work for BT and will help you look into your complaint.

I will PM you a telephone number tomorrow to a team who will assist in this complaint. In the PM I will also give you my email address and we can look into getting this issue resolved for you.

you need permission from MSE to post in an "official"capacity

Neeblasties

woodbine wrote: »

you need permission from MSE to post in an "official"capacity

Thanks, new to this and wasn't aware. Not sure how to help on this, but would like to see if I can help anything along in an unofficial capacity.

BT_company_representative

Hi rsdl.george

I have just seen you post and would like to look into this for you to see what has happened and try and get things sorted out for you. If you would like me to help just check out my profile section were you will find my contact details.

Regards David