MSE News: BT reveals price rises - but you can escape the hikes

molerat

Surely if I have a service extra they should be showing it on my bill whether or not it is a chargeable service. How do they know I use it and how do they know I know I have it. It looks like a lot of people will be getting a shock bill after January with charges for services they never knew they had.

Quentin

They don't show the privacy service on the bill.

Nevertheless they will know you have it!

(Even if your phone isn't one with the capability to display the caller id)

People will only get a shock if they don't read or receive the letter telling them all about the new charges.

Patr100

BT privacy (at Home as they now call it) was sometime you had to register for way back. It got you on the TPS to discourage cold calls etc. The telephone version of the postal opt out register. It was and will (for the forseeable) remain free. BT Privacy with Caller Display is their way of bolting on a chargeable service. The two aren't connected other than both help to avoid answering some calls you don't want.

On the problem of working out the cheapest deal , I wish someone could produce a "find your best deal" reckoner eg you say you want 12 month contract, caller display, use 18185, etc and it suggests the best deal. Probably too complicated though.

molerat

My BT rental saver expires in 6 weeks so an opportune time to look around. Although their cs seems dire (any worse than bt though ?) TalkTalk may be getting my custom. BT have now just gone that little bit too far. It looks like I will be able to save £5 per month by moving line, bb and calls to them with free caller display, maybe bb speed upgrade as they are the only llu service available to me and reports look good on that front, plus get an anytime call package thrown in or save £10 pm without calls but that could backfire with Mrs Ms one hour weekend calls.

gc_bus

Well, I've now told BT what they can do with their 1571 service and also free caller display (with BT Privacy). Loads of people are calling them which is not very surprising.

Alton_Towers

I had a letter from Sky yesterday regarding price increases, so it looks like they are all following suit http://www.sky.com/shop/terms-conditions/talk/code-of-practice/tariff-guide/

gwapenut

BT Privacy "without" caller display was an utter scam.

They registered you for TPS (which is something anyone can do in 2 minutes), and - get this - as a stated part of the "service", opted you IN to marketing communications from BT. Unbelievable!!!

Uxb

Patr100 wrote: »

Trouble is , most of the other landline providers will likely follow suit.
They all seem much of a muchness with very little real competitiveness between them on price once you factor in hidden charges etc.
There's a chance for a provider to make a killing with a really competitive option but that won't happen I bet. So much for competition.

Perfectly logical - and is the end result of the theory of "perfect competition" in action.
Everyone's costs are much the same, everyone has optimised the offering to provide the best for the customer in an attempt to gain market share. There is now no more that can be gained - and the service has become in effect a commodity whose price in now uniform wherever you go.
So everyone's prices will be the same and when the costs change everyone will change their prices at around the same time.

Furthermore there are no genuine 'new' customers to be acquired just churn of customers poached from other suppliers who can only be enticed by short term cheap deals at the expense of exisiting subscribers.

DonnySaver

Heinz wrote: »

So exactly what do customers get with BT Privacy at home?

ISTR that it was:

(1). Free TPS registration (that was a con anyway because there's no charge for TPS) and

(2) Free Caller Display.

So being able to 'keep' BT Privacy at Home free of charge appears just to mean you can keep TPS. Wow, that's generous. TPS has nothing to do with BT anyway.

Heinz,
I've 'followed' you for a long time on these forums for everything 'home phone' related. Must admit, reading everything that is changing with BT is worrying. I currently have BT for line rental, I get caller display for free, I get 1571 for free, I use Primus Penny Mobile plan for all my calls (except at weeknds when I jump back onto BT using 1280).
Seems I'm now going to lose most of this. Do you have any plans to review your '6 point plan' based on these new revelations?
Cheers.

Gers

I signed for a new 12 month contract on 01 Oct (and for a change of address at the end of November too) and refused the services of both 1571 and Caller Display. The agent (who was in Dundee BTW) didn't mention to me the option of paying a year upfront or that Caller Display was free with the new contract -although I see online that the start date is in January.

In full 'peeved' mode I rang BT just now and got the Line Saver for 12 months at £131.00 (saving approx £60.00) and Caller Display free too.

Thanks to all the savvy people here for their helpful and straightforward advice and information.

Cheers
:beer: