Excessively High Broadband Usage with BT

BT_company_representative

Hi viviantidbury,

I???ll be happy to take a look at this for you. Drop me an email with the details. You???ll get the contact details in my profile.

Cheers

David

Kattaddorra

BT say we used 83.77GB in June which is 43.77GB over our 40GB Infinity allowance and they want us to pay the excess which works out at £46.39.
Our usual monthly usage is 14.76GB, we have only a computer wired in downstairs and a wirefree one upstairs, no other devices at all and we don't watch films, on line TV, play on line games, we only send emails and visit facebook and a few other favourite sites.
Numerous phone calls to and from BT they still say we owe it!
We changed the password on the hub which they told us to do.
Now into July the monitor says we have used 5.29GB in two days and warn us we will exceed our allowance again by the end of the month and have to pay excess again.
My sister and I who live together are both over 60 and not up to technical explanations and very worried indeed that this is going on and BT keep on saying we owe it and it's happening again in July.
They can't seem to understand that it's ridiculous to say we have used around 6 times what we normally do when we are doing no different to what we always have, I'm out of my mind with worry over this, please can anyone tell me what I can do.

kwikbreaks

Kattaddorra wrote: »

please can anyone tell me what I can do.

Pay the extra £5 a month for unlimited? Swap to Plusnet who do unlimited for the same or less than BT charge for their limited accounts.

On the usage either...

BT is wrong but you'll have problems proving that
Your WiFi has been hacked
Your machine has picked up a virus
You actually used it yourself somehow.

Either the first or the last one are the most likely IMO

Kattaddorra

Thanks for replying.
We have not used our internet any differently to other months when we use 14.76 GB how can it suddenly say we've used 80GB .....almost 6 times as much.
Unlimited is an extra £8 a month, also it's giving in saying BT are right when they are not.
We are stuck in a contract with BT until February so changing is not an option.
We have run virus and malaware checks on both computers and they are clean.
We have changed our password but it's still happening!
Anyone here from BT to give me an explanation please?

Moneymaker

Many people don't realise that uploading a photo to, say, Facebook uses significant bandwidth. Dependent on your camera, an image could be 2 MB or more IF you don't shrink it before upload. Emailing a photo can use even more bandwidth because it first has to be "MIME encrypted", which makes the file larger.

Some people also use a "cloud" backup service and this can eat up bandwidth, as can services such as "Dropbox".

If you frequent web sites with moving adverts, this can eat up bandwidth. Be sure to disable "Flash" and use an Ad blocker to minimise unwanted usage.

Finally, make sure that your router is "locked down" with a password and is switched off while you are away.

If you've covered all of this and still think your usage is excessive
see http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3761821

Kattaddorra

Sorted, BT have told us there's a glitch their end so of course we won't be charged , we knew we hadn't used it !!!!

kwikbreaks

Good news. This must be the first time I've seen anybody say that BT have admitted an error.

mightyproudpapabear

I received an email from BT telling me I had reached 80% of my limit for June, 24 months into the contract so upgraded to unlimited. In passing at the end of the call I discovered I had been over my limit a lot ... in fact every one of the previous 23 months. As I had not received bills or usage emails and all had been by DD I had not realised. Without seeing bills I think the usage excess to be over £1000 over the 2 year period. BT offered .... £15 compensation as sending the usage emails "is just a courtesy" and I should have logged on (which I could not as the email address I registered was "a BT business email address and that does not work" ) and check regularly. Bit like an alarm clock with no bell that you have wake up to check the time...

As I had received no bills, paper or electronic and BT had been helping themselves to my bank account I did a direct debit indemnity claim to get my money back, planning to settle the undisputed amount once I got some bills (still waiting a month later). BT have gone a bit mentalist now that all the money is out of their clutches and sitting in my bank account !

On a positive note my move to Sky (due to BT suspending service) was silky smooth so thumbs up to BT on that one. The Sky standard broadband was very easy to set up - my technophobe daughter managed it solo and seems to be in ux just as fast as BT infinity but does not "drop" quite so often. I think that is probably the cabling at that location as my main home infinity works well, though in a "cut off your nose" move BT are saying they will terminate my main contract because of the dispute at the other location. I guess I will be moving that one to Sky too!

I am sure BT will in due course hand this off to their debt collectors and it may end up at small claims, so I will probably after some legal beagle advice on the nitty gritty in due course. Luckily in the final days BT managed to get me access to my MyBT account so that I could print off the log showing that they did not send the emails to my registered email address for 23 months and then suddenly did in month 24 !

peterwot

BT have made a (limited) admission that there have been problems with their monitoring systems. Complaints stretch back 4 years. Have a look at BT Community web site for more information.

westy03

The same has happened to my mohers connection but I pay the bill..usual monthly usage was around 8gb usage and then last month it nearly tripled to over 22gb.i kind of thought it was a one off.but have started monitoring and this month so far in an 11 day period she has used she has apparantly used over 11gb already this just isnt possible.anyone had any useful help from bt.